Edith Grossman (1936–2023)

Edith Grossman is an award winning translator of Spanish language novelists and poets such as Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Jaime Manrique and Nicanor Parra, who is best known and respected for her recent translation of "Don Quixote" (which I read several years ago and highly recommend). This book was based on a series of lectures that she recently gave at Yale, as part of the university's "Why X Matters" series.

The book is divided into four sections: an show more introduction, in which Grossman convincingly makes the case for the importance of translation for authors, readers, and modern societies; an insightful discussion of the life of a translator, including interactions with writers, readers and publishing companies; a description of the joys and difficulties she faced in translating "Don Quixote"; and the challenges of translating modern and Renaissance poetry. According to Grossman, a good translator must not simply transcribe the text word by word from one language to the other; she must understand the prose or poem as fully as possible, and rewrite the work in the second language, while maintaining its rhythm and the intent of the writer.

The book includes quotes from influential writers and translators about the importance of this underappreciated craft, and ends with a list of translated books recommended by Grossman.

I found "Why Translation Matters" to be very well written and most insightful, which gave me a much better understanding and appreciation of the art of translation, in a conversational style that was easy to digest. She skewers publishers and reviewers in the UK and US for their narrow minded attitudes and ignorance about translated literature and the process of translation, which at times seemed overly personal, but this is a minor critique of an otherwise brilliant and highly recommended work. show less

A lovely insight into the philosophy and work of a professional translator and writer. It is wonderful to see the art of translation so skillfully revealed from first principles to worked examples.

I particularly liked the author's lack of ego, as evidenced by her regular references to the works of fellow translators, including Ralph Manheim, whom she quotes with obvious approval as likening translators to "actors who speak the lines as the author would, if the author could speak show more English."

Here is the translator as interpretive performer, revealing the same relationship to the original text "as the actor's work does to the script, or the musician's to the composition."

This is a wonderful little book - a manifesto for the translator as a bridge between two cultures; recommended. show less

When one of the best translators working today write a book about translation and its meaning, the book cannot be bad. Or so I thought.

"Why Translation Matter" is a short and easily readable book. But this is where the good parts end. Grossman spends a lot of those pages wondering why UK and US publishers publish a lot less translations than their non-English colleagues (and somehow it does not even cross her mind that maybe the reason is that a non-English editor has a bigger choice in all show more language except their own (where this subset includes English) than an English editor has in non-English books; grumbling that reviewers don't even bother to mention translators (her thesis is that the translator is more important that the author and that when a reviewer praises someone's style, they praise the translator style; not to mention that all reviewers should be bilingual and should have read both versions) and generally complaining how hard it is to be a translator. The first time you read this, you smile. The second time, you get annoyed. When she started on that again, I was wondering why I keep reading. Add to this a complaint that no editor would even look at a non-English book until they see 2 chapters and a resume (or something like that) translated and the whole "How hard it is to be a translator and how everyone hates us" is getting loud and clear.

Not that the book does not have good moments but they get lost under all that trash.

When she is not writing about that, she is convincing the reader that translations allow everyone to sample the world literature; that authors and readers expand their horizons because of the translations and so on... which is what I expected to read about in the book. Except that these arguments are getting repeated again and again.

She cites a lot of authors about translations; she has a few interesting stories to tell - both personal and from the history of the translation. And these save the book a little bit. Only a little.

And then comes the third chapter. It is about translating poetry and it could have been the saving grace of the book... despite all the mess of the first two chapters and the introduction. After a few pages of general things about poetry and her experience, Grossman decides to go technical - comparing Spanish and English texts and discussing specific choices... which you cannot judge or even understand in some cases if you do not know Spanish. And then she finishes the chapter with a Spanish/English poem that requires you to know both languages. She does not even attempt to translate it or to give literal translations to the example poems and sonnets she is using -- literal translation is bad and I agree with her on that but when she discusses why she chose a different meaning or words, a literal "this is what the Spanish text is saying" would have helped. I do not speak Spanish. At all -- so this last chapter was... undecipherable. I read it - but it just made no sense without knowing the language.

A book that could have been very good was drown into mediocrity. She is a great translator (or so I am led to believe - not speaking any Spanish, I cannot decide for myself - but I know that I can read the books she translated and they sound good) but something in this attempt to justify the profession simply did not work.

The funny part is that I am the last person that needs convincing that translation is needed -- my native language is one of the small languages so most of the world classics came to me in translation; and I had dabbed into translation myself- including poetry. And yet, the book might have convinced me that translators are people that care only about seeing their names in print and who are more concerned about their craft and getting their message across than anything else.

Translators are important - but not in the way the author of this book is trying to make them be important.... show less

Edith Grossman, translator of notables such as Cervantes and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, explains in short essay form the perspective of those who transform literature from one language into another. She brings up the woeful plight of the translator, underpaid and unappreciated, and stresses how many of the world's favorite works owe their enduring popularity to those tireless workers. She brings up a good point. How often when you read Nabokov or Aristotle do you realize that you are reading a show more translated work? Because the words flow just as easily in on tongue as in another, we too often give all the credit to the original author. Grossman argues that the translator should have equal billing.

It was a tough point to get at first, but she won me over when she described how the myth of literal translation is damaging to the craft. Grossman describes how she weighs more on translating the rhythm, cadence, and essence of words, rather than obsess over finding the exact word translation (because often there is none.)

Grossman is an obvious lover of words, her verbosity is better suited for readers in academia, but that is perhaps her exact audience for these essays. The first one, the Introduction, took up almost half of the book, and I felt like it could have been easily cut down. The wonderful later essays, where she decribes the actual work of translation, should have been expanded instead.

I came away from this book with a greater appreciation for translated works. I know I'll be checking my next reading from a foreign author to see exactly who the translator is and how he or she is credited. show less