Hrant Dink Foundation Responds to Accusations: Translator Has No Right to Change Original Text

The publishers of Hasan Cemal’s book “1915:The Armenian Genocide”, the Hrant Dink Foundation, released a statement in regards to the book’s translator Ruben Melkonyan’s accusations. Melkonyan expressed his disappointments during the book’s release party about the foundation removing the translator’s footnotes.

According to the foundation's clarification, the removal was done because “according to international criteria, a translator must be loyal to the original text.” “The translator never has the right to change the author’s original text or add subjective notes. Concerning Ruben Melkonyan's claims about “the change in the translation”, it is the following postscript: “The translation group in no way shares these thoughts, considering it a contradiction to reality (R.M.).” As a publisher, we fulfilled our responsibility toward the author and removed this additional sentence from the book. It is not the translator’s job to agree with the author. No translator has the right to intervene with the author’s work or include their opinion. It is impossible that a serious publisher tolerates a translator’s added subjective remarks and releases them in a book,” said the foundation’s release.

The Hrant Dink Foundation notes that if the translator has disagreements with Cemal’s book, he can publish a separate article and express his opinions, but he can not do that in the publication itself.

“Ruben Melkonyan agreed to translate the book with his own will when he was acquainted with the original text, of course without being compensated. He could have refused to translate it, if he did not agree with our objective of publishing it in Eastern Armenian,” added the Hrant Dink Foundation.

Note, that Ruben Melkonyan also accused the Hrant Dink Foundation, as well as other organizations involved in a joint project Support Armenia-Turkey Normalisation, for spreading Turkish propaganda.