Publisher's Synopsis
This new anthology is a comprehensive, exuberant, wonderfully readable insider's look at the life and art of translation, "a largely solitary activity as well as an invisible one." Andrew Wilson has gathered stories from more than 50 of the best translators at work today, including Paul Auster, Cathy Hirano, Umberto Eco, and Yael Sela-Shapiro. Their accounts of the trials, travails, and joys of their work reveal as much about the difference between people and cultures as the difference between languages. The subjects in this inclusive compilation range from Swahili versions of the Bible to a Pidgin edition of Alice in Wonderland to Hebrew translations of science fiction. All of the translators grapple with the power and politics of language and describe the wild range of technical, professional, political, and philosophical questions that come with the territory. Wilson weaves their stories and reflections together with scholarly rigor, yet this collection never loses a sense of joy and playfulness.
