Ten Literary Translators On The Art Of Translation

Lydia Davis: “In translating, then, you are … always solving a problem. It is a word problem, an ingenious, complicated word problem that requires not only a good deal of craft but some art or artfulness in its solution. And yet the problem, however complicated, always retains some of the same appeal as those problems posed by much simpler or more intellectually limited word puzzles — a crossword, a Jumble, a code.” (Among the other translators included are Jhumpa Lahiri and Vladimir Nabokov, who makes the job sound impossible for anyone but himself.)

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