The Value of Differences: Jennifer Lindsay on Noticing Translation

Summary

Inattention to translation is not limited to prizes for translated literature; it is also found in reviews of translated books. As an exercise, I surveyed reviews of translated literary fiction and poetry in the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, and the Australian Book Review over the course of 2023.2 I wanted to see how much translated literature was reviewed, and how it was done. What did the reviewers notice? In terms of the frequency of reviews, the winner by a country mile was the NYRB, with thirty-two reviews of translated literary fiction and poetry over twenty issues (and another eight reviews of translated non-fiction). It was difficult to find an issue where there was not at least one review of translated literature. The LRB was no slouch either, with twenty-six reviews of fiction and poetry over twenty-four issues (and another seven reviews of non-fiction). The ABR trailed a long way down – at only nine reviews of translated literary fiction and poetry over twenty-two issues (and another seven non-fiction). Notably, only the NYRB included the source language in the review titles. The fact that the other journals did not is often problematic; a curious reader has to look for clues to discover the original language in which the book under review was written. Overall, the review articles fell into three categories: those that focused on a single book; those that focused on the work of a single author, with more than one translated book by the same or various translators; and reviews of recent re-translations of well-known (usually old) books. Of the thirty-two NYRB reviews, nineteen of them discuss the translation, many in detail. This compares to thirteen of the LRB’s twenty-six reviews, and only three of the ABR’s nine reviews. The other reviews either do not mention the translation at all or make an unsubstantiated comment (‘ably translated by’, ‘superbly translated by’, an ’elegant’, ‘meticulous’, ‘capable’, ‘dexterous’, ‘perfect pitc...