What makes a good translation?

[tiganeasca]

I spent a little time this morning poking around some of the various websites I routinely visit and came across this essay on translation. Too many of them are too theoretical for me, although I have long been interested in the general topic and problems of translation. I found this essay, while somewhat abstract, also very concrete and, better still, well-written and quite interesting. So, I offer you a link to "Lost and Found in Translation: Storytelling and the Untranslatable," which is by a Polish scholar, Michał Rusinek, a lecturer in literary theory, rhetoric, and creative writing at Jagiellonian University (Kraków) and appears on the World Literature Today website (the fine folks who publish that great magazine and bring you the Neustadt prize as well.

 

[Leseratte]

I spent a little time this morning poking around some of the various websites I routinely visit and came across this essay on translation. Too many of them are too theoretical for me, although I have long been interested in the general topic and problems of translation. I found this essay, while somewhat abstract, also very concrete and, better still, well-written and quite interesting. So, I offer you a link to "Lost and Found in Translation: Storytelling and the Untranslatable," which is by a Polish scholar, Michał Rusinek, a lecturer in literary theory, rhetoric, and creative writing at Jagiellonian University (Kraków) and appears on the World Literature Today website (the fine folks who publish that great magazine and bring you the Neustadt prize as well.

Very insightful and interesting.

 

[MichaelHW]

I spent a little time this morning poking around some of the various websites I routinely visit and came across this essay on translation. Too many of them are too theoretical for me, although I have long been interested in the general topic and problems of translation. I found this essay, while somewhat abstract, also very concrete and, better still, well-written and quite interesting. So, I offer you a link to "Lost and Found in Translation: Storytelling and the Untranslatable," which is by a Polish scholar, Michał Rusinek, a lecturer in literary theory, rhetoric, and creative writing at Jagiellonian University (Kraków) and appears on the World Literature Today website (the fine folks who publish that great magazine and bring you the Neustadt prize as well.

I have translated academic texts for some time. Also, a few literary ones. Sometimes when I read something that others have written, I realize that it is flawed and might be improved. I am then very uncertain about what to do. Should I translate the mistakes, and risk being labelled a "bad translator" by people who might never read the original, or should I "polish" the text a little in the process? Academic clients pay me to do the latter, but will literary ones? It is a puzzle.