1298 Review of Moja translation of Teresio Bosco's Don Bosco: una biografia nuova
austraLasia 1298

Review of Moja translation of Teresio Bosco's Don Bosco: una biografia nuova
The complete version of this review is too long for a news item.  For the interested reader it can be linked to from the Bosconet homepage at www.bosconet.aust.com.  Herewith a few excerpts:

ROME: 22nd October 2005 --  One of the central rules for a translator sounds like a would-be line from the Preventive System: as faithful as possible but as free as necessary.  How might one react, then, when reading Fr Giuseppe Moja's new translation of Teresio Bosco's now classic Don Bosco: una biografia nuova, especially given the earlier....version by Silvano Borusso, Nairobi 2003?  On the basis that a translator should say what the author said, say it as well as possible, one has to give a thumbs up to Fr Moja...For good value, in any currency one cares to name, including the 'currency' of the Salesian heart, the Tej Prasarini Mumbai 2005 edition of Don Bosco a New Biography at around Rp. 200/- is a front-runner in the Don Bosco publishing business - in English anway.
    Fr Moja tells us in his translator's introduction, that he was moved by his reading of Teresio Bosco's original: "I must translate this book and see that it gets to as many as possible of my Indian confreres".  This is an important piece of information.  There was no thought that he might be trying to beat someone else to the job or even do it better, just the conviction that this had to be done for his Indian confreres.  He was not setting out to ensure that the rest of us (this reviewer is not an Indian) would have his translation.  But the question now before us still deserves an answer: will this edition also attract English readers in parts of the world other than the Subcontinent?  I think it will, for the general reasons adduced above.
    Any translation has its glitches...I have to say I like the Borusso translation...but there is just a touch of the belles infidèles about it, something pointed out by Fr Coelho in his Editor's Note to the Moja translation.  Borusso drops out certain information which he decides is neither significant nor of interest to his non-Italian readers.  Moja on the other hand retains these and tries for a little more literalness. [Here the review contains an example of a passage which is central to the Salesian charism and contrasts the Borusso-Moja versions - to Moja's credit].
    At this point I have a little criticism, "which we shall refer to as 'boarding'...".  Not in my book we wouldn't!  He just might be using that word in its adjectival sense there, but really, he isn't.  He intends it as a noun.  Later, in Chapter 39 and in fact in many places, he refers to 'a boarding'.  None of the better-known dictionaries permits this usage.  In fact the translator is not consistent, because in the same chapter he quite often resorts to 'boarding school' which is what it really has to be, I think, unless we want to note some of the descriptions by Don Bosco's early boarders, descriptions which would make us think they had come to a bunkhouse!  But for all I know, 'a boarding' may be quite acceptable in English as it is used in India, and after all, Fr. Moja is writing for his Indian confreres.
    There are stylistic issues, and these are matters of choice.....archbishop X, the sisters....why not Archbishop X, the Sisters?....There are occasional typos....at least one factual error....But for mine, this is an edition to go for!  Elledici has given the rights to Mumbai for a good part of the world... and the price is right, but more to the point is the overall fidelity of the translation and the love for Don Bosco that shines through the effort....in the end one wants to read a translation because one wants to know what the author said.  In the case of a work on Don Bosco one may also want to feel as inspired as if one were reading the original.  The Moja edition achieves those aims.
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