Friday, December 13, 2013

A French to English Mistranslation of Hiroshima Mon Amour (by Marguerite Duras)


I saw everything. Everything.


I'm ancient.


How do the blackberries swim with the pears?

You didn't see the petals of Hiroshima. You didn't see nothin' at Hiroshima.

Four times at the museum.

Quell the ladies at the museum.

Four times at the museum. I watched the people walk on me. 
They walked on me and then on a photograph of me.
We put together our feet and then other things, the photograph.
Other things, on top of me, four times, the explanation made other feet.
Four times at the museum at Hiroshima.
I guarded my jeans. I looked at myself fairly. My nice sunburn.
Once I burnt myself while petting my cat. 
I had pills with bouquets: who does that, putting bouquets in pills? 
Gas stations, humans, floating toys, on the back deck of the coast of France. 

Some Peters. 
Some sunburnt Peters. 
Some flattened Peters. 
The stolen hair made her anonymous. The hungry Hiroshimans found themselves in tears fallen to the morning, or the next morning.
I have a hot plastic dick. 
Ten thousand miles from my home. I said it. 
The temperature of the sun is in my pants. How do you crawl?… Herbs are very simple…

You didn't see nothin' in Hiroshima. Nothin'.

What you thought in your head was more serious than it actually was.
The film in your head was the most serious thing possible.
The illusion was simple and was like a dessert that made tourists cry.

It's always like a monkey between two tourists that cry.