> Interview 2: Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2

An interview with translator David Koblick about his English translation of Karl May's Winnetou I

Q: Is your Winnetou translation based on just Winnetou I, or is it a combination of I, II and III?

KOBLICK: No, my translation is only Winnetou I, and I made it purely on spec.

What got you started with the Winnetou translation? What was the impetus for that?

I was inspired to make the translation by an Italian literary agent, a Karl May fan whom I met at the Frankfurt Book Fair. He was on the verge of retirement, so didn't spend much effort promoting the translation to publishers, and it lay dormant for several years until Alex Kuo heard about it from another friend, Mike Morrow of Asia 2000, and pressed Washington State University Press to publish it. Before then, I had offered it to Lothar Schmid of the Karl-May-Verlag, but he declined.

Translator David Koblick
Photo courtesy D. Koblick

What source materials did you use for your translation?

The agent sent me an unauthorized Winnetou edition, and I accumulated a few other German editions at stalls in the Vienna Naschmarkt from various publishers, and with different publication dates. Soon I noticed that they differed, sometimes radically, in wording, descriptions, names of characters and locations, etc. So I started searching for an original edition, and had a helluva time finding one, but finally did, at the University of Linz Studentenbibliothek. It was dated 1892-93, and had been rebound many times. The Uni-Linz people were very cooperative, and let me have it on long-term loan. It was at first difficult to read the old German gothic (Fraktur) font, but I soon caught on, and so my translation is from the original first printing of Winnetou I. It is, of course, in the public domain, so I copyrighted the translation in my own name as a “derivative work,” and my copyright is on record at the U.S. Library of Congress.

Your Italian encouragement points out the popularity of Karl May in many non-German countries and in other languages. Why do you think Karl May is so seldom translated into English?

I find it difficult to theorize why May has been so seldom translated into English. Is it because there was and still is a plethora of similar adventure literature already written and available in English? And remember, only about 12 or 15 of May's 73 novels are set in the American West; the majority of the others are in the Near and Middle East. The few (maybe 6 or 7) that have been translated were published decades ago, and wouldn't appeal to a present-day readership, used to more sophisticated twaddle.

As an American, what was your own personal experience with Karl May? How did you come to be introduced to this aspect of German culture?

Well, I enjoyed reading Winnetou. Although the style was so hackneyed, awkward and sometimes bombastic for a modern reader, I tried to imagine that I was reading it as if a century ago. And some of the situations were ridiculous, laughable—but I was impressed by May's explanations about tracking, killing buffalo, catching wild horses—they sounded authentic to one uninformed about such things. It was pure happenstance that I started reading Karl May (in German). Actually, I'd seen a copy of Michael Shaw's bad translation of Winnetou I and II at the San Francisco Public Library, and thought at the time that it could surely have been written better.

Have you ever been to the Austrian Karl-May-Festspiel in Gföhl or attended any other KM-Festspiele?

I've only attended one KM event, the 2nd Österreichische Karl-May-Treffen in Großenzersdorf last year. I was invited, gave a reading, and was interviewed on ORF Radio. I was also invited this year (22-24 March) but declined.

Your background is in electrical engineering. How did you get into translation?

Around 1973 or '74 a dinner guest at our house in San Francisco brought a bottle of Austrian wine. The rear descriptive label was so badly written that I rewrote it and sent it to the Winzergenossenschaft Krems with my compliments. When we came to Steyr on vacation a month or so later, there was a case of wine waiting for us. Then a few months later when the winery wanted to expand exports to England and Scandinavia, they asked me to translate their brochure into English. It was a challenge, you know how flowery wine terminology is. That's how I got started.

Then I, a science fiction fan, attended the first Ancient Astronaut convention in Crikvenitsa, Jugoslavia in 1975 or '76, and did some gratis free-lance interpreting for other attendees. Several months later in California, I got a telegram from W. H. Allen in London, saying that they had bought the rights to Peter Krassa's biography of Erich von Däniken and that I had been recommended (by whom I still don't know) as translator. That was my first book-translation.

Where and how did you learn German?

Growing up in San Francisco, my Russian immigrant parents both spoke accent-free English, never Yiddish to us kids. They spoke Yiddish when they had get-togethers with other Jewish atheists. They occasionally spoke Russian to each other, but only when it was about something they didn't want the kids to hear. We picked up a few words of Russian anyway, and some Yiddish words and phrases when we visited the farm of our paternal grandparents, sometimes for weeks during summer vacation.

I first took German in junior high school when I was about 14 or 15, just picked it at random as an elective. But I'd never used it, thought I'd forgotten it completely by the time I entered UC Berkeley. But also having a few elective credits to spare, I took it again there, together with a course in German literature. The only thing I remember about that UC German lit class was reading and writing a book report about Bernhard Kellermann's 1913 novel Der Tunnel. (They made a futuristic movie of it in 1935 with Richard Dix, titled “Translatlantic Tunnel.”)

As for the German language class, well, I didn't accumulate much of a Wortschatz. That was 1951 or so. When I met Berta 10 years later I joked that I spoke about 30 words of perfectly-pronounced German. But I learned fast, for Berta spoke no English then. (Sprachschwierigkeit was no handicap to our love affair, still going on.) By now, of course, I speak it fairly fluently, and we speak both at home, but probably more German than English. Austrians know immediately that I'm not Austrian, they think maybe Italian. But in Germany, like at the Book Fair, they take me for an Austrian by my accent.

Because of your Winnetou translation, I assume you feel Karl May should be better known in America. What's your personal opinion about that? Was your translation also an effort in that direction? (It certainly wasn't for the money!)

I think Karl May should be better known in America not because of the quality or content of his works, which have only second or third-hand knowledge behind them, and have no relationship to the post-Civil War American West as it really was, nor to the Near and Middle East as it was then and is now (terrible, what's happening!). No, only because he was so prolific, and because his works caught the imagination of so many readers worldwide (non-English-speaking) that he is the most-published author who ever wrote in the German language! Over two hundred million copies, and still counting! He's still being published in new editions every year, although there are hundreds of changes. But I didn't have any particular urge at the time to popularize May's works in the English-speaking world, and as you say, I certainly didn't do it for the money.

Why Winnetou? Is that your own favorite May book, or were there other reasons for selecting Winnetou I?) Any plans for translating the other two Winnetou books?

Winnetou, only because the Italian agent suggested it, and a little digging elicited the fact that after World War II, 17 movies had been made from the Winnetou series and from other Karl May works, to great popular acclaim. Truly, I haven't read any other Karl May books thoroughly, just lightly skimmed through a few. I wouldn't do W2 nor W3 on spec, as I did W1. Only if offered a contract, and even then I'd weigh it carefully.

In the next part of his interview, David Koblick gives his unvarnished opinion of critics of his abridged Winnetou.

NEXT > Interview 2: Part 2 - Intro | Part 1 | Part 2

Copyright © 2002 Hyde Flippo