Happy Thursday, friend! You have heard from authors about their books on these book excerpt posts and today, I am excited to share an interview with a translator! Fanny Britt’s Sugaring Off is translated by Susan Ouriou and it is pleasure to host Susan and learn from her. Read an excerpt from the book after the interview.
Get to know the author: Susan Ouriou
Hi Susan! Welcome to Armed with A Book. Tell me and my readers a bit about yourself!
I’m an avid reader and a literary translator who has published over 70 books translated from either French or Spanish, some of which have won or been short-listed for awards, including the Governor General’s Award for Literary Translation. I have also edited two anthologies: Beyond Words – Interpreting the World and Languages of Our Land – Indigenous Poems and Stories from Quebec. As well, I am a writer with two published novels, Damselfish and Nathan, and a score of published short stories to my credit as well as an anthology of plays, Many Mothers, Seven Skies – Scenes for Tomorrow, written and performed in 2023 with an amazing collective of women writers.
What led you to be the translator for Sugaring Off by Fanny Britt?
I have had the good fortune of translating Fanny Britt’s young adult graphic novels Jane, the fox and me and Louis Undercover as well as her children’s graphic novel Forever Truffle and her adult novel Hunting Houses. I was thrilled to be asked to translate Fanny again with Faire les sucres, or Sugaring Off as I have titled it in English.
How long did it take you to translate this book? Can you describe the process of translating this novel? Were there any particular challenges or highlights?
Having been given a year to do the translation, I began with a very quick first draft before starting to research the various aspects of the novel. The next stage was to apply what I’d learned about the settings and main characters Celia, Adam and Marion and the many other people who flit in and out of their lives — to polish that first draft in English. Later came the comparison with the French original to make sure I hadn’t introduced any mistranslations or missed any shades of meaning. Over the months, I went back and forth between the two stages, never forgetting to allow for “downtime” during which I could simply let myself be inhabited by the story. It was often then that I would have revelations as to how to communicate the novel’s biting wit, probing questions and revelations to English readers. Time is the best teacher of all!
What makes this story unique amongst the other books you have translated?
What makes Sugaring Off unique is Fanny Britt’s penetrating dissection of intimate relationships and of lives unravelling and her exploration of two very distinct worlds, that of a privileged Québécois couple, Adam and Marion, neophyte owners of a maple sugar stand, and of Celia’s working-class family making their living from a taffy shop in Martha’s Vineyard. Her story lies where those two worlds collide. Personally, I particularly loved seeing the world through the eyes of Celia, the young woman who has to learn to cope with her life veering off course as a result of Adam’s actions. Celia inspired me with her wisdom and ability to see so clearly what others fail to recognize.
Who would enjoy reading this book?
Everyone!
What themes does Sugaring Off explore? How did you ensure these themes were conveyed effectively in the translation?
So many themes! Those of lives transforming, the role of chance, the unfair distribution of misfortune, the gift of courage in the face of adversity, the reality of families, the inability to master chaos. With a writer as gifted as Fanny, my work as a translator came down to ensuring I set the same bar for myself as Fanny had set for herself.
Do you have a favourite quote or scene in this book that you find yourself going back to?
One of my favourite quotes in the novel is the oft-repeated phrase “The day he just about died . . .” That simple phrase foreshadows the whole arc of the novel, that day that changed everything, for Adam, for Marion, for Celia. And ultimately, for us all.
What is something you have learned on your journey as a translator so far?
As a witness to the importance of stories and the power they have to change minds and lives, I am always aware of what a privilege it is to be part of bringing to readers in my mother tongue those potent experiences provided by the work of great authors.
How do you see your work evolving after translating each novel? Are there any new directions or themes you’re interested in exploring in the future?
As a translator, I love that I never know what my next project will be: not the author I will have the privilege of working with, nor the stories I will be asked to take on as my own, nor the characters I will spend my days with, sharing in their laughter and tears. What I do know is that it will be an exhilarating journey, however difficult or even impossible it may seem at first. Regarding themes or directions, I have an affinity for writers grappling with the injustices of our world whose stories and language are meant to move and challenge readers.
How has translating French and Spanish works influenced your understanding and appreciation of those cultures?
I would say that my appreciation of both French and Spanish cultures began well before I ever sat down to translate from either language. In my last year of high school in Calgary, I signed up for a work/study program — “jeunes filles au pair” — in Paris that began that fall. But first, I set out to discover my own country, and spent the summer hitchhiking with a friend through the prairies, Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. I loved my time in Quebec City and on the Gaspé Peninsula but soon saw that my high school French was sorely lacking, giving me all the more reason to devote time to living and studying in that language. After a year in France, I returned to Montreal for a college degree in a Francophone CEGEP where I added the Spanish language and culture to my program. I continued to study and travel and come to a much deeper understanding of the languages I had fallen in love with those many years ago. All of which continues to feed into my translations.
Where can readers find you on the Internet?
Other than a Facebook account that I use with friends, I do not have a presence on the web.
Sugaring Off
Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for French-Language Fiction, Sugaring Off probes intimacy, denial, and how we are tied to others—whether those we love or those we exploit.
On the surface, Adam and Marion are the embodiment of success: wealthy, attractive, in love. While holidaying in Martha’s Vineyard, Adam surfs into a local young woman, Celia. The accident leaves her injured and financially at risk; for Adam and Marion, it opens a fault of loneliness, rage, and desires that have too long been ignored.
Like a modern Virginia Woolf, Britt abrades the surface layer of our outward personas, delving into the complexity and contradictions of relationships. In this eviscerating critique of privilege, she asks what happens when one can no longer play a role—whether in a couple, family, or social structure—and exposes the resulting friction between pleasure and consequence.
Book Excerpt from
Sugaring Off
Jessie would often try to invite Marion out for lunch, just the two of them, and every time Marion thought it was sweet of her, then said how great it would be, really great, but not today, too much paperwork, a quick trip to the esthetician’s, another to the bank, but soon, for sure, I can’t wait. She had trouble explaining the impulse that spurred her to turn down every invitation to lunch. She liked her assistant a lot, after all, always polite with the patients, a smiling young woman with no tendency to complain the way Virginie, her former assistant, used to. Jessie tried again after the holidays, singing the praises of the wonderful jar salads she’d learned to make over the summer, and she proposed a noon hour when they’d both be free (Tuesday in ten days’ time). Having run out of excuses, Marion agreed.
So now, on a Tuesday ten days later, she found herself sitting with Jessie on one of the benches that had recently been installed in the small park by the clinic. City council had decided to go all out to impress urbanites willing to leave the downtown core. Water features in modern colours, park benches made of perforated metal, puny trees offering the promise of shade for the picnic blankets to come, everything here believing in the future.
“Anyway, we’re thinking a winter wedding so I can wear a stole, but Kevin doesn’t like the idea as much. He keeps saying, ‘What will people do with their boots?’ It bugs him, and I have to admit he’s got a point there,” Jessie explained as she opened the Mason jars; her wonderful salads in coloured layers, vinaigrette on the side, delighted and surprised Marion, surprise that was immediately followed by a touch of remorse. Who was she to be astonished to see an assistant make such—her first thought was refined—let’s say, contemporary salads? On top of it all, they were delicious, with their cumin-infused pumpkin seeds and a hint of ginger in the vinaigrette.
“What did you have,” Jessie was asking, “a winter or summer wedding?”
Marion smiled. “I’m not married, but if I did marry, it would be in the fall, in an orchard, at the end of apple season. I grew up in Oka—I suppose there’s no escaping it.”
The words came of their own accord, as though she’d answered the same question many times before when, not only had it never been asked, but she herself had never given it any thought. Yet her answer came without hesitation, a certainty. Any knowledge she’d been blind to always disturbed her somewhat: what else did she know about herself? Jessie’s eyes, made up with care (her doe eyes made her look like a rockabilly pinup star) widened.
“I was positive you two were married,” she responded, her voice mildly troubled. “You’ve been together for so long!”
Had they really been together for so long? Marion supposed that, from a twenty-four-year-old’s standpoint, their time together represented a century. The ten years had gone by extraordinarily quickly, almost treacherously, insidiously so, and had carried away her thirties, forcing her to brave her forties unprepared and, above all, with not much to show in the way of results: no children, essentially. What other requirement had such a strict deadline? There’d always be time to take a trip around the world or to become a real powerhouse some day. Or to marry. You can marry at ninety years of age. Or never.
Jessie proceeded to give a detailed account of the menu she envisaged for the reception; she wanted a chocolate cake, yet didn’t know if she could have chocolate on chocolate or whether she should make do with a chocolate sponge cake topped with white icing. “A white cake is a surer bet, but chocolate is my life,” she added. “We won’t tell our patients though.” She gave a conspiratorial laugh. Marion suddenly understood that Jessie considered her to be a friend, or at least that Jessie wanted to be her friend, and the idea, rather than seeming an honour, which was her usual feeling when others showed any sign of interest, felt intrusive, and she had a quick image of her grabbing Jessie by the shoulders and pushing her into the park’s central basin.
She did nothing of the sort, of course, and felt so ashamed afterward that she said if Jessie would like, she could look for the perfect cake with her and even ask Adam for his opinion. Jessie’s eyes grew moist, and, with flushed cheeks, she whispered how very kind, she couldn’t believe it, which made Marion grimace despite herself.
She began to regret having accepted the lunch invitation, and the mouthfuls of quinoa, grated carrot, and watercress began to make her feel sick. She stopped eating and Jessie worried it might be the salad. Marion was quick to reassure her, saying the salad was delicious, but she’d had too much for breakfast, Adam had made French toast, and how could anyone resist Adam’s French toast?
That wasn’t true. Adam made nothing these days, he spent the first hour every morning staring at the field behind the house. From time to time, he’d interrupt the stillness with the words, “Goddamn high-voltage wire.”
At first, Marion thought he just needed time to get over the goddamn wire and move on to something else as he always did when a new project came along. But now, enough was enough, and she no longer knew whether to turn a blind eye to his obsession and bury the wire at huge expense. or to tell Adam that all his talk was getting on her nerves.
“He makes you breakfast every morning? Lucky you,” Jessie was saying, a dreamy look in her eye, perhaps imagining the married life that awaited her, the couple’s complicity, the fair and continuous exchange of favours: she’d look after the groceries, and he’d make risotto; she’d bear children, and he’d take them skating. She will give him hard-ons, and he will give her orgasms. And later, when they are old and wrinkled and dressed with somewhat outdated elegance, they will sit together on the couch holding hands, and through the throat-clearing and fits of coughing from their worn-out lungs, they will tell each other that their life has met their every expectation because it was spent together. Oh, there will have been trials, of course, cold shoulders and wars of nerves, but they won’t dwell on those because the minute each trial shows up in the rearview mirror, it loses its shape, joins the others, forms a sort of magma—familiar, inert, almost comforting—and even though they are bound to come up, there’s no desire to talk about them. Who wants to hear the repeated whack of life’s disappointments?
Marion inhaled abruptly and fastened the lid back onto the salad container. Then flashed a broad smile, which wasn’t even hard to summon. “Kevin is pretty wonderful himself, hon, and I think you two will have a fabulous life.” She had no idea whether or not she was lying.
Interested?
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