In Translation
In
TRANSLATORS ON THEIR WORK AND WHAT IT MEANS
Edited by
ESTHER ALLENandSUSAN BERNOFSKY
Columbia University Press New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright 2013 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-231-53502-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
In translation : translators on their work and what it means / edited by Esther Allen and Susan Bernofsky.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-231-15968-5 (cloth : alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-231-15969-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-231-53502-1 (electronic)
1. Translating and interpreting. 2. LiteratureTranslationsHistory and criticism. 3. Language and culture. I. Allen, Esther, 1962- II. Bernofsky, Susan.
PN241.I45 2013
418'.04dc23
2012031223
A Columbia University Press E-book.
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COVER DESIGN: Julia Kushnirsky
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Contents
ESTHER ALLEN AND SUSAN BERNOFSKY
PETER COLE
ELIOT WEINBERGER
DAVID BELLOS
MICHAEL EMMERICH
CATHERINE PORTER
ALICE KAPLAN
ESTHER ALLEN
FORREST GANDER
MAUREEN FREELY
JOS MANUEL PRIETO, TRANSLATED BY ESTHER ALLEN
CHRISTI A. MERRILL
JASON GRUNEBAUM
HARUKI MURAKAMI, TRANSLATED BY TED GOOSSEN
TED GOOSSEN
LAWRENCE VENUTI
RICHARD SIEBURTH
SUSAN BERNOFSKY
CLARE CAVANAGH
We would like to express our utmost gratitude to the contributors whose essays appear here; their achievements as translators and as thinkers about translation were what inspired us to create this anthology.
In addition, the support, engagement, and advice of many other friends, colleagues, and institutions has helped immeasurably to make this volume possible.
Esther Allen would like to thank translators extraordinaires Michael Scammell, Brian Nelson, and Bill Johnston, for guidance, inspiration, and prodding; Damion Searls for pointing the way to Murakami's essay on translating Fitzgerald; and Regina Galasso for helping to develop the essay Allen contributed to this volume. She is grateful to Larry Siems and Caro Llewellyn, former colleagues at the PEN American Center, and to Carolyn McCormick and Carles Torner, former colleagues at International PEN and the Institut Ramon Llull, respectively, for friendship, good will, and exemplary leadership. Alma Guillermoprieto, Roberto Tejada, and Francisco Goldman have contributed more than they know by sharing their friendship, mirth, experience, insight, and wisdom. Gabriela Adamo and the Fundacin TyPA offered the valuable experience of the Semana de Editores en Buenos Aires, and Susanna Seidl-Fox, Peter Bush, and John Balcom organized the wonderful Session 461 of the Salzburg Global Seminar, while Ivor Indyk and Chris Andrews of the Writing and Society Research Group of the University of Western Sydney did excellent work putting together the wide-ranging Sydney Symposium on Literary Translationall three forums had considerable impact on this volume. Jean Strouse and the 20092010 class of Fellows at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library provided invaluable support and resources during the inception of this book. And thanks, most of all, to Nathaniel Wicefor love, a kind and attentive ear, editorial expertise, and happiness.
Susan Bernofsky would like to thank some of the mentors and colleagues who guided and accompanied her on her forays into the field of translation studies: her teacher, friend, and colleague William Weaver; Rainer Schulte, who invited her to an American Literary Translation Association conference when she was only a young student; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for supporting her research on the history of translation; Breon Mitchell for hosting her at the American Translation Center in Bloomington; Jrgen Jakob Becker of the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, which invited her to workshops on several occasions; acclaimed German translator Christa Schuenke, with whom she co-taught her first graduate translation workshop; the Goethe Institut for its Translator Study Trips; Linda Gaboriau and Susan Ouriou of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre; Peter Utz and Irene Weber Henking of the Centre de Traduction Littraire at the University of Lausanne; William Martin and Sal Robinson of the Bridge Series; Chad Post for writing about translation on his blog Three Percent and founding the Best Translated Book Award; translation scholar Bella Brodzki of Sarah Lawrence College; Peter Connor of Barnard College, who hosted the Pedagogies of Translation conference in May 2012 together with Lawrence Venuti; fellow translators John Biguenet, Russell Valentino, Becka McKay, Sean Cotter, and Aron Aji; her Queens College translator colleagues Roger Sedarat and Ammiel Alcalay; her predecessor as chair of the PEN Translation Committee, Michael Moore; writing group members Elizabeth Denlinger and Fiona Wilson; and Cathy Ciepiela for recommending the essay by Clare Cavanagh.
Both of us are grateful to Rosanna Warren, founder of Boston Universitys legendary Literary Translation Seminar, who has long been a great beacon to many. We are also immensely thankful for the gift of Edith Grossmans work, example, and friendship. Susan Harris of Words Without Borders is a major support and inspiration to translators everywhere. Amy Stolls and the late Cliff Becker, in their work for the Translation Fellowship program of the National Endowment for the Arts, have contributed greatly to the field of literary translation in the United States. And the biennial Graduate Students National Translation Conference has been a continual source of new ideas and attitudes, energy and uplift; we particularly benefited from its inaugural session at the University of California at Los Angeles in 2004; its 2008 iteration at Columbia University, organized by Idra Novey; and the 2010 session at the University of Michigan.
