Comments on readings

 I find it very sarcastic how someone, especially an author, would say that “translators are like ninjas. If you notice them, they’re no good.” Jennifer Croft’s article was written in a powerfully eloquent way that conveys how important a role translators play in the international and inter-linguistic exchange of literature. Having most of my background reading translated literature coming from Japanese works, I am used to seeing Dennis Washburn, Meredith McKinney, Edwin McClellan, and Jay Rubin’s names on book covers. Being in the department where Prof. Elliot is a respected lecturer as well has made me think that translators are just as well-known as the authors. This article brought me to see some unfortunate reality about the translated literature industry—that it really isn’t granted that translators get to stand under the spotlight. However, every word in the translated work is the translator’s!

Indeed, Jhumpa Lahiri’s article “The book that taught me what translation was” also gave me an idea of what translation is. It is truly incredible that one single connecting word, “invece,” can have so many layers of meanings and significance to a book. Although I haven’t done too much translation beyond translating wakes here and there for projects and my own interest, I can resonate with this article in that It is really through the reading, contextual interpretation, word choice, forming sentences, re-reading the translation in comparison to the original, adjusting the sentence structure and searching for better words, and repeating this process that makes translation an art form in and of itself.

It truly is a shame that translators aren’t receiving the recognition that they deserve, and that American readers aren’t as interested in reading works from overseas in its translation. I have two thoughts reading the “Why do Americans read so few books in translation” article. The first thought that came to my mind is: maybe the diversity in the American population is working in reverse—people think that they have enough diversity in america so they feel sufficient reading literature produced by the local diverse groups of writers. This is not helpful, however, because all Americans, regardless of the ethnical or religious background they come from, as long as they identify as American, there’s a homogenous cultural norm (e.g.political favoritism of a democratic society) that they all fall prey of without realizing. This makes the seemingly diverse group of American writers not so diverse as the readers might think. Another thought that I had but wasn’t sure was: do you think that because of the large number of immigrants present in america who are likely to have proficiency in a non-english language and hence can consume oversea literature in its original that’s making translated literature from abroad not as well-sold here?

Jiayi