About this item
A deep dive into the nature of translation from one of its most acclaimed practitioners Avoiding theoretical debates and clichéd metaphors, award‑winning translator Damion Searls has written a fresh, approachable, and convincing account of what translation really is and what translators actually do. As the translator of sixty books from multiple languages, Searls has spent decades grappling with words on the most granular level: nouns and verbs, accents on people's names, rhymes, rhythm, "untranslatable" cultural nuances. Here, he connects a wealth of specific examples to larger philosophical issues of reading and perception. Translation, he argues, is fundamentally a way of reading - but reading is much more than taking in information, and translating is far from a mechanical process of converting one word to another.
About the Author
Damion Searls is the author of "The Inkblots": a scientific and cultural history of the Rorschach test and the first biography ever of its creator, Hermann Rorschach. He has also written fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; translated thirty books from German, French, Norwegian, and Dutch; and produced an abridged edition of Thoreau's "Journal" and an experimental edition of Melville's "Moby Dick." www.damionsearls.com
