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A translator’s responsibilities are as formidable as a transplant surgeon’s

17 September 2022

9:00 AM

17 September 2022

9:00 AM

Translating Myself and Others Jhumpa Lahiri

Princeton University Press, pp.136, 16.99

When asked what it is we do, translators often resort to metaphors. We liken the act of translation to performing a piece of music, taking on a role in a play, kissing a bride through a veil or building bridges between cultures. But as the peerless Norwegian translator Damion Searls has said, when we sit down to work ‘there’s no metaphor at all really.

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