Sunday 18 April 2010

translators on translation: two interviews


Two short but good interviews by translators on translating fiction: Marian Schwartz in the Boston Globe on translating Russian fiction, and the ubiquitous Chris Andrews on Bolaño in the New Yorker, with some nice examples of tricky problems in the text. Russianists may be interested in Schwartz's hints and tips about Russian translation and Russian resources here and here.

My only thin, reedy, querulous complaint: how, in the New Yorker of all publications, can an interviewer not know the difference between the present tense and the past tense of the verb 'to lead'? Am I the only person who remembers that the past tense is 'led'? Next you're seeing 'loose' for 'lose' and then Aughrim is really lost. 'Ware spellchecks.

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