Strange Cities, New Magics: English’s Stefania Heim translates painter Georgio de Chirico’s novel ‘Mr. Dudron’

The artist Georgio de Chirico was known for his bold, surrealist paintings of town squares, mannequins and statuary — images that reflect his affection for classical antiquity and modern philosophical thought using illogical perspective and disquieting juxtapositions.

While his paintings influenced artists like René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, and André Breton, de Chirico was also a poet, essayist and novelist. 

One of his novels, “Mr. Dudron,” has been translated by WWU Associate Professor of English Stefania Heim. She “found” de Chirico through a friend and said she was hooked.

“A good friend, Brett Fletcher Lauer, is a big fan of de Chirico and found some untranslated poems of his doing an internet deep dive. He sent them to me asking if they were any good. And they were! Then he asked me to translate them for him … and I was launched on this journey!”

Heim first translated de Chirico’s poetry collection “A Geometry of Shadows.”

“He wrote many other things too, including critical essays, generally weird unclassifiable things, and poems.” 

De Chirico is particularly vexing as an author in translation because he wrote in multiple languages, creating a kind of moving platform for the translator to chase. 

“De Chirico wrote ‘Mr. Dudron’ over the course of 40 years — in different excerpts and versions — in both Italian and French. This was common for him — he wrote his poems in multiple languages, often retranslating and self-translating, making edits and shifts,” said Heim.

De Chirico edited, shifted and revised his work constantly.

“This return to his own work through a different lens was something he’d do with his paintings too; for example, returning to the subjects of his early metaphysical art later in his career. Born in Greece, he also lived in Paris, Germany, New York, and Italy — and so I think he very much experienced life between languages,” said Heim.

With her challenge set before her, Heim tuned her ear to his particular use of Italian, finding the ways in which he shifted meaning and spelling of certain words, and what meaning is to be derived from those changes.

“He pushes the limits of Italian, but also as in his poems things aren’t always what they seem. For example, ‘Mr. Dudron’ is sometimes pedantic and sometimes hilarious — it can be hard to tell what exactly he’s trying to say or reveal,” Heim said.

The relationship between de Chirico’s paintings and written works is sometimes literal, sometimes more figurative, but definitely something Heim recognized as a translator. 

“I’ve been thinking a lot about how he uses the tools of writing (words) just like he uses the tools of painting — as material. And how he approaches the same ideas he’s interested in — memory, nostalgia, longing, the mythical overlay of everyday life — through this different medium.  

The visual language of de Chirico is also apparent in his choices of grammar and syntax and how they express the surrealist images he creates with his sentences.

“He does incredible work with imagery in his writing, as well as with simile — there are really incredible and often hilarious ones. But also syntax — I often think about him using sentences to move the reader’s attention through an idea as he would move a viewer’s eyes across a canvas,” she said.

Heim is a poet herself, which helps her approach the task of moving de Chirico’s prose and poems into English. 

“My work as a poet and translator are totally intertwined,” she said. “Translation and poetry are to me both ways of thinking through and about language and they’re often inextricable. When I’m translating, I’m writing. And when I’m writing my “original” stuff it’s always already in conversation with so many voices and thinkers. In all cases I think of language as a tangible material for thought. It’s very exciting!”

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Frances Badgett covers the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the College of Fine and Performing Arts Communications. Reach out to her with story ideas at badgetf@wwu.edu.