Publishing houses based in Kazakhstan actively translate foreign bestsellers and classics into Kazakh. Moreover, they translate from original language only. Below you will find out how this trend developed and how it will develop further.
At least three large-scale publishing houses operate in Kazakhstan. They translate books from original languages into Kazakh, not from Russian, as before.
I felt it personally
“Mazmundama” (from Kazakh, “Content”) is one of such publishing houses. They have translated over 200 books so far, including bestsellers by Dale Carnegie, Arthur Conan Doyle, George Orwell, Niccolo Machiavelli and many others.
According to Shyngys Mukan, chair of public association “Mazmundama”, the history of the publishing house began after he personally felt the shortage of professional literature in Kazakh language.
“Back in 2000, I came to Almaty to become the student in translation studies to learn Spanish and English. It was difficult for me to learn the profession because all textbooks and dictionaries were in Russian,” Mukan said. “So, I had to learn Russian, as well. And then I promised to myself: Whatever I do in life, I would be working to develop Kazakh language.”
This idea came to life via such projects as literary website adebiet.kz, and the book “!0 reasons why it is important to know and speak Kazakh”, which was published in 2012 and which was reviewed by late Gerold Belger, a well-known Kazakhstan-based translator, novelist, essayist, literary scholar.
Later on, Shyngys went to study in the US, where he addressed the matters of future development of Kazakhstan. It turned out that many factors have impact on it, one of which is language maturity.
“It is not about the number of words that a given language has, but it is about how much information is available in the given language,” Shyngys Mukan said. “We should have developed content in Kazakh, and in all spheres: from linguistics to engineering sciences. So that a Kazakh-speaking person could learn any profession, without using other languages. This belief and the fact that over 90 per cent of books in our top stores were in Russian have become a starting point for opening the publishing house “Mazmundama”. We wanted to change the situation and started to translate world bestsellers.”
In 2018, in the first year of operation, publishing house “Mazmundama” published one book, in 2022, it published 111 books. The global purpose is to translate 10,000 books until 2050. Today, we perform translations from six languages: English, German, French, Turkish, Russian and Chinese. We publish books starting from 2,000-3,000 copies on average. In addition to translation of world bestsellers, “Mazmundama” publishes Kazakh classic authors and contemporary authors, and also develops an application with selling function, where readers and writers can “enter into economic relations.”
“We work not only for the present, but also prepare for the future. And bigger generation is coming, which will be reading books in Kazakh,” Mukan said. “Last year, nearly half a million children were born in the country, and they will be reading our books in five years. When these children grow up, I don’t want to hear them saying to us, ‘What have you guys been doing all this time?’ For example, Sherlock Holmes and 1984 by Orwell should have been translated not by our generation. The former book is 130 years old, and the latter book is over 70 years old. They are a must read in school curricula. And we translated them only two years ago (publishing house “Mazmundama” translated them – Editor’s note).”
Recalling the domestic school of translation, Shyngys Mukan emphasised that it was not established yesterday. Fiction was translated in the times of Abai and Alash-Orda, and then in the Soviet period. During the years of independence, there were various state programmes on translation of literature. Now, publishing houses enter into agreements with copyright holders independently and translate world bestsellers and foreign classics books. The forecast is obvious: more publishing houses would be involved in popular content making in Kazakh language.
“People have a need to acquire knowledge, to read books. This trend will continue as there is a significant segment of Kazakh-speaking people in cities,” Shyngys Mukan said. “On average, labour productivity of an urban resident is four times more than that of a rural resident. And this figure affects the income. I suppose that 80 per cent of our books are sold in cities. Also, it is easier now to manage marketing due to social media. Moreover, information is the basis for development. If information is available, no matter the carrier, it will have a multiplier effect on all the spheres.”
A boy wizard speaks Kazakh
Publishing house “Steppe & World Publishing” hit the book market of Kazakhstan more than four years ago, when it translated the most popular book story for children in recent decades into Kazakh. It was the story about Harry Potter by Joanne Rowling. However, it was not the first experience of translation of the publishing house from the original language. As a result, all seven books about the boy wizard can be purchased in Kazakh. Three books from the Hogwarts Library series were also translated. Among new books for children and teenagers are books by Tracy West, Maddy Mara, Jeff Kinney, Dav Pilkey. This year, the publisher promises to publish five parts of The Chronicles of Narnia, two of which were published earlier.
The world of Haruki Murakami will continue to reveal to adult readers. The publishing house prepares the translation of his another bestseller, Kafka on the Shore, following the success of Norwegian Wood (in Kazakh, “Norweg ormany. Tokiodagy mun”).
“70 per cent of our books are children’s books, the rest is fiction for adults, non-fiction, and educational literature,” said Raisa Kader, founder of Steppe & World Publishing. “We mostly translate books, which are known to our people and loved everywhere. Initially, our mission was children’s books, and we are committed to it. The global trend is that there is a higher demand for children’s literature, and people spend more money on it.”
Since its establishment in 2017, the printing house was fighting against stereotypes in the society regarding books translated into state language. It showed, by their own example, that translations can be of high quality. And readers have appreciated it. The publishing house publishes nearly 30-50 books every year. They translate from English, German, French, Chinese, Turkish, Russian languages.
“People love to read. We have a huge audience. One day, our journalists asked me, ‘All books are available in Russian. Why do you translate them?’ It was a tragedy and I couldn’t understand why they have this question. Say, you go to Türkiye and try to ask there why they translate books into Turkish. It would sound weird. Why do our children have no access to world literature, are they worse than others?” Raisa Kader said.
According to her, one of the tasks of the publishing house is to fill the book market of Kazakhstan with Kazakh translations of original books.
“Why do we have to take foreign literature via Russian publishing houses to make some content? It has always been somewhat weird to us when people could not understand that we translated from the original language. They thought we translated from Russian. Why do we have to translate from Russian if we have translators speaking English, German, French and other languages and who can translate even better,” Kader said. “Every state in the world acquires copyright directly from the author or the agency, and there should not be any intermediaries in between.”
A subtle art of translation
Mira Sembaikyzy has been translating books for the last 12 years. She translates mainly from English. She has translated The Green Mile (in Kazakh “Zhasyl mil”), the Shawshank Redemption (“Shoushenkten kashu”) by Stephen Kind, three books of Pippi Longstocking (“Uzynshulyk Pippi”) by Astrid Lindgren, I Am Malala (“Men Malala”) by Malala Yousafzai (will be published soon), The Psychology of Money (“Aksha psikhologiyasy”) by Morgan Housel, The Secret Garden (“Kupiya bak”) by Francis Burnett, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life (“Berine kolyndy bir silte: nemese omirindi zhenildetu oneri”) by Mark Manson, and others.
According to the translator, it takes her one month to translate short books, and up to 3-4 months to translate big books. Mira writes fairy tales for children. Her book “Meirimdi shansorgysh” (“A friendly vacuum cleaner”) was published by publishing house “Altyn Saka”. According to her, books translated from the original have some special aesthetics: “It’s like speaking to a person via Skype, or video chat, but privately. You feel all emotions directly, and you can hug a person, if you can.”
Mira feels that the number of Kazakh-speaking readers is increasing. This is especially true about children’s books. “My acquaintances buy books. My children have books published by “Mazmundama”, “Foliant”, Steppe & World Publishing. In general, there a good demand for books, and we still have many readers. We need to have more children’s books, fantasy, motivational books, but they should be selected and translated based on our mentality,” the translator said.
Marat Akhmedzhanov, director of British publishing house Hertfordshire Press, vice president of the Eurasian Creative Guild, observes the growing interest to books translated into Kazakh language in recent years by the example of his company.
“This direction has been actively developing in recent years. For example, members of the Guild, translator Yelden Sarybai, publishing house Zerde Publishing, already translate books of other members of the Eurasian Creative Guild into Kazakh. We have several books in the process of translation today,” Akhmedzhanov said.
He also noted that the Guild is promoting Kazakh literature in English. This trend is increasing as well. “It would be fantastic to sell a book by a Kazakhstan-based author 20 years ago. But now such books are sold in thousands of copies,” Akhmedzhanov said.
Main photo: Bakdeulet Ebdualy /Baribar.kz