The Millions: Reading in Translation

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June 20, 2007

Reading in Translation

Tomorrow, as part of Scott's month-long Reading the World series, I'll have a review of Per Petterson's In the Wake up at Conversational Reading. Reading the World is focused on "bringing international voices to the attention of readers," and reading In the Wake and considering it as a "work in translation" rather than simply a novel got me thinking about how much non-English language reading I actually do. As it turns out, I don't read many books that weren't written in English. I don't think this is necessarily a deficiency, but considering how much I've enjoyed the literature in translation that I've read, it seems I should seek these books out more often. Here are the books in translation I've read over the last few years (As you might expect, Ryszard Kapuscinski figures heavily.)

2003:

Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski
The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Alvaro Mutis
The Lonely Hearts Club by Raul Nunez - my thoughts
The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski

2004:

Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes - my thoughts
Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuscinski my thoughts

2005:

Generations of Winter by Vassily Aksyonov my thoughts
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - my thoughts

2006:

Television by Jean-Philippe Toussaint
White Spirit by Paule Constant
Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi Wa'Thiong'O - Garth's review

2007:

In the Wake by Per Petterson

- C. Max Magee @ 9:45 PM ~ comments: 1 ~ Links to this post

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Comments:

Has anyone read Perfume by Patrick Suskind or any of Haruki Murakami's works? I just read South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami. It was a decent read but I was left wanting. I feel it was because its a translation. Can a translation ever be as good as the original? I wonder. Its like watching a movie with subtitles, you are caught between watching the movie and reading the subtitles. You are concentrating so much that you can never just go with the flow of the movie.

My thoughts on the book: South of the Border, West of the Sun

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