The school holidays are eating my brain. There are so many things I ought to be blogging about!
First of all, the winners of CEATL's Spot the Translator video contest are here! Hurrah! An end to translator invisibility!
Secondly, 90% of almost 2000 respondents to a survey in German trade mag Börsenblatt said translators ought to be named on book covers! This may have something to do with there not being a lobby in favour of translator invisibility. The lovely Isabel Bogdan wrote a guest column in the mag about one reason why translators tend to be invisible - because our names are so rarely on book covers. Perhaps things will change in that respect in Germany, as they have for the most part in the USA. Oddly, British publishers are quite stubborn about these things - but on the other hand, they pay better.
2 comments:
The NY Times has a good obituary today for the great translator Michael Henry Heim.
http://tinyurl.com/95l92j4
I especially enjoyed this bit:
"In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 2001, Mr. Heim described the sleight-of-hand that informs the translator’s art:
“The reader must believe he or she is reading a work in French or Japanese and yet be reading it in English,” he said. “That’s the real paradox. It’s a scam, if you like. A feat of legerdemain. But I think it can be done.”
I've come to this rather late but this is really interesting, thoughtful and well written.
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