Suzanne Jill Levine: The Subversive Scribe

[Eric]

I'm reading an interesting book by the American literary translator Suzanne Jill Levine who has specialised in translating authors from Argentina and Cuba, such as Guilliermo Carrera Infante, Manuel Puig, Julián Ríos and Severo Sarduy. One of the things she has had to tackle is the special use of Spanish in both Argentina and Cuba, and how to render these things in American English. The book is quite a close reading of these and similar aspects aspects of writing, and the process of literary translation:

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?GCOI=15647100182860

And a long interview with her here:

http://wordswithoutborders.org/artic...ne-jill-levine

[RamonaQ]

Thanks for this recommendation!

"Rather than regret translation's shortcomings, Levine stresses how translation is itself a creative act, unearthing a version lying dormant beneath an original text, and animating it, like some mad scientist, in order to create a text illuminated and motivated by the original"

Yes! As a (mad?) scientist that enjoys the art of translation, I do agree

[Eric]

I was looking at this book just this afternoon. Compared with the rambling showing off and name-dropping of some books on translation, this one deals with concrete authors and concrete translators' problems, such as puns, allusions, and so on. This, and "Why Translation Matters" by Edith Grossman, are two books that get to grips with the textual and extra-textual aspects of literary translation, instead of being yet another romp through bags of anecdotes about Saint Jerome and traducing translators for a lay audience of drooling sophomores.