Why Translation Matters (Why X Matters S.)

"Grossman and others like her continue to offer us enlightenment. . . . [The subject] is passionately explored and patiently explained."-Richard Howard, New York Times Book Review "In this slim but powerful volume, Edith Grossman argues that translation performs a function that is too often ignored or misunderstood."-Edward King, Sunday Times "A passionate defense of the translator's art."-Peter Terzian, The Boston Globe "A brief, forceful defense of [translation]."-Hillel Italie, The Associated Press "Grossman writes with passion and clarity, and with a wisdom acquired through decades of practice. . . . Why Translation Matters is well argued and stylishly written. Or, to put it another way, it is both able and seamless."-Daniel Hahn, Times Literary Supplement "Required reading for publishers the world over. . . . It should also be given to all reviewers, agents, writers and readers. . . . In clean language that is a pleasure to read, Grossman argues why and how a good translation is just that."-Julie Rose, The Australian "Here, in the first of a new series from Yale University Press, she makes a passionate and provocative case for the continuing importance of literary translation, art that she believes has been 'too often ignored,' misunderstood or misrepresented."-London Review of Books "A passionate and provocative case for the continuing importance of literary translation."-London Review of Books "There is a fair bit here about the mechanics of translation, including an excellent account of how Grossman overcame her anxiety about approaching Don Quixote....But it is her unswerving confidence in the metier and her blunt yet sophisticated defence of it that matter most, in the end."-The Observer ". . . straight-talking and thought-provoking. . . . Translation matters. Having read this, you won't be in any doubt."-Nora Mahony, Irish Times "In this fascinating book, the author, a renowned translator herself, discusses her own methods of translation and argues the case that a bringing a literary work into a new language often gives it another identity while being intimately bound to the original. . . . This scholarly work . . . should become a classic of its kind."-Gazette & Herald "This trio of essays is a record of a professional's clear-sighted reflections on an often misunderstood craft. Composed with clarity and insight in what Orwell himself would have called 'windowpane prose,' the book is a beautifully written and boldly argued piece of scholarship."-Thomas Patrick Wisniewski, In Other Words-The Journal for Literary Translators "This scholarly work is surprisingly easy to read and should become a classic of its kind."-Bill Spence, Yorkshire Gazette & Herald Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2010 in the Language & Literature category "Edith Grossman, the Glenn Gould of translators, has written a superb book on the art of the literary translation. Even Walter Benjamin is surpassed by her insights into her task, which she rightly sees as imaginatively independent. This should become a classic text."-Harold Bloom

From the celebrated translator of Cervantes and Garcia Marquez, a testament to the power of the translator's art Why Translation Matters argues for the cultural importance of translation and for a more encompassing and nuanced appreciation of the translator's role. As the acclaimed translator Edith Grossman writes in her introduction, "My intention is to stimulate a new consideration of an area of literature that is too often ignored, misunderstood, or misrepresented." For Grossman, translation has a transcendent importance: "Translation not only plays its important traditional role as the means that allows us access to literature originally written in one of the countless languages we cannot read, but it also represents a concrete literary presence with the crucial capacity to ease and make more meaningful our relationships to those with whom we may not have had a connection before. Translation always helps us to know, to see from a different angle, to attribute new value to what once may have been unfamiliar. As nations and as individuals, we have a critical need for that kind of understanding and insight. The alternative is unthinkable." Throughout the four chapters of this bracing volume, Grossman's belief in the crucial significance of the translator's work, as well as her rare ability to explain the intellectual sphere that she inhabits as interpreter of the original text, inspires and provokes the reader to engage with translation in an entirely new way.