How a Collaborative Translation Duo Came to Be : The Sakkis Story

We asked the translators of "Maribor"(our newest collection of poetry by Greek poet Demosthenes Agrafiotis) John and Angelos Sakkis, to tell us a bit about how their unique collaborative began. Angelos had this to say in response:
Photo by Andrew Kenower


So my nephew John calls and says can you help me with some Greek words I say shoot he gives me a list of words most of them no problem on some of them I have to ask for context a few are really difficult technical terms from disciplines I am not familiar with I have to look them up in my dictionary dictionaries then some time later days weeks months there is another list no problem a breeze next time I see him I tell him when is the next list coming hurry up I like doing this then he sends me a thick manila envelope full of copied pages of a whole book I think this is more like it jump to it do the whole thing like in days a first gloss with a number of different alternatives for the critical words John likes that we talk about the different versions and he forms in his head the overview of the whole thing later on that becomes the pattern of our collaboration after he finishes with Siarita’s book I ask him what is next he says take a look at Demosthene’s book his had been the most exciting presentation at the Paros Symposium last summer so I take a look and I am completely nonplused perplexed bewildered not the kind of thing I usually read by choice still the specificity of the language keeps me hooked I struggle with it word by word line by line all the while thinking hey I can read Greek but what is this guy saying here where is he going with this the ellipticity of it the first book we tackle is the Chinese Notebook I am thinking pretty much this is Chinese to me the Greek version of an American’s this is Greek to me sometime later we meet with John and talk about it through our conversations I start to see the sense of the whole thing the logic of it feel the delight of the language sometimes we are stumped by its sudden turns taking us to unexpected directions we work at it revising and revising until we are fairly confident of having arrived at a good equivalent of the original in the translation the next two of Demosthenes books we work on Maribor and Now1/3 are relatively easier both of us more familiar by now with his work the operative word being relatively we go through many many revisions burnishing and polishing the language to get to something approaching the sparseness of the Greek original I usually do the first draft on which we work until John is satisfied with the English text in this sense I am the junior partner fine by me I get plenty out of it.