Literary Translation and the Making of Originals

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Literary Translation and the Making of Originals engages such issues as the politics and ethics of translation; how aesthetic categories and market forces contribute to the establishment and promotion of particular originals; and the role translation plays in the formation, re-formation, and deformation of national and international literary canons. By challenging the assumption that stable originals even exist, Karen Emmerich also calls into question the tropes of ideal equivalence and unavoidable loss that contribute to the low status of translation, translations, and translators in the current literary and academic marketplaces.

Reviews

Emmerichs engaging essays demonstrate how editorial choices help construct texts as monuments: allegedly permanent, enduring artifacts that demand preservation and honor, not interpretation or discussion about their fraught histories as oral texts or written documents. * Public Books *
This book is long overdue. Karen Emmerich's focus on the shaping effect translation has on originals is not only unique but compelling, and she writes in a lively, accessible, and everywhere intelligent style that makes every line a pleasure to read. * Douglas Robinson, Professor of English, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong *
Karen Emmerichs study gives sustained attention to a topic so central to translation yet largely neglected in translation research. To treat editing as an interpretive act that constructs texts for further use redefines basic concepts like the source text, authorship, even translation itself. This book promises to direct the field into productive new directions. * Lawrence Venuti, Professor of English, Temple University, USA *
By combining textual studies with translation practice, Emmerich confronts a number of inconvenient facts about translation that lead to some convenient conclusions, which have not often been acknowledged. These include the fact that source texts in the original language are unstable and have often been revised or damaged in republication; the fact that translations, just like originals, are subject to contingencies of publication; and, most important, the fact that while the translation is supposed to be the same work as the original, it is always in fact one hundred percent different from the original. A translation is both the same and different from ... from what Emmerich asks. Textual instability dogs both original and translation, which are simultaneously the same but different and are subject to the play of personalities and production contingencies. Translation is newly creative, entailing gain as well as loss. * Peter Shillingsburg, Former Svaglic Chair in Textual Studies, Loyola University Chicago, USA *
Literary Translation and the Making of Originals should be essential reading for literary translators, translation scholars, and professors, especially those who teach literary translation. It will also be of interest to devotees of translated literature. * World Literature Today *
Karen Emmerichs new book Literary Translations and the Making of Originals is a brilliant contribution to the arena of textual criticism, translation theory, and practice. Drawing on her own extensive experience in translating from Greek and Spanish, she presents an innovative and creative approach to translation as translingual editing, where translators both negotiate existing versions of a certain work and create a new version of their own in the translated works textual history. -- Shengyu Fan, Australian National University * Comparative Literature Studies *

Author Bio

Karen Emmerich is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University, USA. She has published eleven books of Greek literature in translation and her academic work has appeared in journals such as Comparative Literature, Arion, Translation Studies, and the Journal of Modern Greek Studies.