"I met translator Duong Tuong for the first time one month after the Vietnamese language version of the well-known novel Lolita , written by the Russian American writer Vladimir Nabokov, went on sale in bookshop and libraries. Meeting Tuong was something of a success for me, especially since he had refused to meet several times previously, explaining on the telephone that he was very busy [ ]At 80 years old, Tuong is a weak old man with white hair, dim eyes and trembling hands, though his face lights up when he talks about his work as a translator. [...]After finishing translating Lolita, he worked on the translation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, which was performed by the Youth Theatre at the Shakespeare Festival in the UK in May. Tuong is also currently working on other novels, such as Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (In Remembrance of Time Past).[ ]"In cultural and literature work, and with translation in particular, I love choosing difficult and challenging works in terms of linguistics and thinking," Tuong says.."Only works of high literary and human value can seduce me." And once he chooses a book to translate he puts all of his passion into it. Most recently, Tuong spent more than a year translating the 300-page Lolita. He first read the book in the 1960s after an American friend gave it to him. He loved it. "From that moment, I held onto the hope of translating it into Vietnamese one day."
"Nabokov is known as a wordsmith and for his unique style that brings together diverse fields of knowledge. Every page of the book presented new challenges in translation. I had to add almost 500 footnotes to the translated version to help readers understand the text. The subtlety of the wordplay would be very difficult to get across without some explanation. I tried my best to get the nuances across," says Tuong."Even after publication, I see changes I might make if I had to do it over again. There is a second publication scheduled, and I will use that as an opportunity to make some perfections," he adds."There were several nights I couldn't sleep because I was preoccupied with some difficult words written in Nabokov's book," he recalls.[ ]For Tuong, "French is a beautiful language", and he spends time teaching himself both French and English simultaneously.[ ]Tuong is known not only as a translator but also as a poet, journalist, painter, and art critic. "I am happy to live with passions in my life. Only when I die will I stop writing." — VNS