Interview with Alissa Valles on translating Zbigniew Herbert

“In translating, do you tend more toward trying to make the reader forget that this isn’t the original, or trying to actively remind the reader that this is from a different language?

I strive to avoid translationese. One has to make the language sound completely natural, without allowing readers to forget the writer’s words are coming from farther away. It’s a conundrum. 

Can a translation be as good as the original?

Yes, it can even be better—but both cases are extremely rare.

And lastly, do you think it’s important to read works in translation? What part of your own reading do works in translation make up?

In my view it’s important both to study foreign languages and, since one can’t learn them all, to read translations.

It’s a scandal that translations make up only 6% of the total number of books published yearly in the United States—it’s a measure of cultural isolation. Translations make up at least half of my reading, if not more.”

[read the rest of this interview between Alissa Valles and Scott Esposito at Conversational Reading: http://esposito.typepad.com/con_read/2007/06/reading-the-w-1.html]