The Prague Post has an article by Courtney Powell featuring five literary translators on the art of turning written Czech into readable English. Robert Wechsler on working with an author: "Sometimes authors are pains in the ass; sometimes they're extremely helpful; sometimes they couldn't care less. Generally, I don't think an author's personality or feelings about his work are all that important to translating it. ... Often it's best to disregard the author's personality, because his writing is the best part of him." (Via Blogo Slovo.)
Posted by languagehat at October 10, 2003 08:42 AM"Often it's best to disregard the author's personality, because his writing is the best part of him..." OUCH!!
Posted by: beth at October 10, 2003 07:30 PMSad but true.
Posted by: language hat at October 10, 2003 07:38 PMSort of a classic statement of a deep truth of literary criticism, but I've never seen it said that way before before.
Posted by: Zizka at October 13, 2003 01:29 AM