Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto (Mit Press)

This is an interesting, practical text on translation. I recommend it for anyone translating between languages or interested in common issues faced by translators. I learned a lot from it that I can apply in my own translation work.

Here is a common translator's dilemma. What do you do with a term that is familiar to native speakers but would mystify most Western readers—the Japanese word "natto" for example?My dictionary defines natto as "fermented soybeans." But to stick closely to the original Japanese and translate that a character was eating fermented soybeans at breakfast does not convey the reality that natto (with a burning hot yellow mustard) is seen by many Japanese as promoting health and regularity. Perhaps an analogy would be say that the character was eating muesli for breakfast. But if readers don't know "muesli"—which in content, texture, and odor is entirely different from natto—I'm not sure you've accomplished much, aside from distorting Japanese breakfast dishes.A discussion of this and other translation challenges is Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto by Mark Polizzotti who is the publisher and editor-in-chief at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. According to the flap copy, Polizzotti has translated more than fifty books from French and Spanish, so he's been around the block a few times. His book sketches some of the high points in the history of translation and discusses not only the challenges of translating but also the economics and ethics of translating and makes a case for translation itself.The translation issue of course goes back to the third century B.C. when seventy (or seventy-two) Hellenistic Jewish scholars translated the bible into Koiné Greek—the Septuagint. Seven hundred years later, Saint Jerome "undertook a new Latin translation based on the Hebrew and Aramaic source texts, bypassing the Greek." St. Augustine of Hippo criticized it because it wasn't based on the orthodox Greek version. About a thousand years later, Martin Luther translated the New Testament into "a radically simplified, 'sweet and good' German that was intelligible to the common man" which "aroused the ire of the Church fathers." There are two translation issues with the Bible: What is the source? And: Does the translation convey the sense (meaning, implications, intentions, message) of the original? (Plus, in the 16th Century there was another question: who should be able to read the text at all?)Polizotti argues that "the translated text is a collaboration. It's not the same as the original but is by necessity a reinterpretation, a second writer's reading and re-creation of the first writer's sentences, in other words an unavoidably subjective process—which is why, when I talk about Modiano's English readers, I really mean ours, his and mine . . . Much as I hate to admit it, my version of Modiano is no more purely 'him' than Barbara Wright's, or Joanna Kilmartin's, or Damion Searls's, or any of the other translators who have tried their hand at his books."He believes that in general a translation should convey meaning and—to radically simplify his argument—be easy for an educated reader to read. If the translation is a chore to read in English, why read it at all unless you are dragooned into doing so for grade in class? I would like the translations my conversation partner and I make to be enjoyable for what they evoke of Japanese life and culture and for the English to be unnoticeable while doing so.Sympathy for the Translator makes an informed and convincing argument that "the single most valuable service translation can render is to identify and bring us into contact with those rare minds and voices that are truly unique, that have something to say that is dissimilar from what anyone else has to say. That make a difference, in every sense of the word. That literally change our minds."

Mark Polizzotti's book will fire your curiosity to read more translated works. The author gently takes the reader from the nature and history and arguments of translation to the problems and complications of translating prose and poetry. His chapters progress logically from the simple to the complex. His writing is friendly and easy to understand and the journey is as humorous and entertaining as it is informative and provocative for the curious layperson as well as for the seasoned linguist. How do we judge a good translation? The author gives us the tools to decide that for ourselves. This book should be in the library of anybody who loves to read world literature. Be warned: this book will change the way you think about translated works; you'll never be satisfied again reading only one version of the same novel!

This translation manifesto is well presented and worth reading. Recommended!

I appreciate the respect shown for language, period, and wish that attitude were more widespread in the U.S. and around the world. Words are vital for shaping thought, and the more people who spend time considering whether or not their words are accurately conveying a concept, the better off humanity will be.I hope to see this book available in Spanish, so that I can read it and consider which ideas I would have used different words for, and why. I would also love it if this book became available in an audiobook!

It is interesting to come to this book immediately after completing an MA in translation, to see the theory and ivory-tower mentality so carefully husbanded in academia so gleefully tossed out on it's ear. Humphrey Davies, a favorite Arabic>English translator, once said that theory "is the first thing that any translator throws out the window when they actually get down to work." This book is a celebration of the fact the theories can be useful, but translators tend to just get on with the practice of their art and craft.

Got the quality and exactly what I expected at an excellent price. Thank you

Very good book about the foibles of translation. Translation can make or break a book.