Sympathy for the Traitor

A Translation Manifesto

Nonfiction, Reference & Language, Language Arts, Translating & Interpreting, Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism
Cover of the book Sympathy for the Traitor by Mark Polizzotti, The MIT Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Mark Polizzotti ISBN: 9780262346719
Publisher: The MIT Press Publication: April 13, 2018
Imprint: The MIT Press Language: English
Author: Mark Polizzotti
ISBN: 9780262346719
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication: April 13, 2018
Imprint: The MIT Press
Language: English

An engaging and unabashedly opinionated examination of what translation is and isn't.

For some, translation is the poor cousin of literature, a necessary evil if not an outright travesty—summed up by the old Italian play on words, traduttore, traditore (translator, traitor). For others, translation is the royal road to cross-cultural understanding and literary enrichment. In this nuanced and provocative study, Mark Polizzotti attempts to reframe the debate along more fruitful lines. Eschewing both these easy polarities and the increasingly abstract discourse of translation theory, he brings the main questions into clearer focus: What is the ultimate goal of a translation? What does it mean to label a rendering “faithful”? (Faithful to what?) Is something inevitably lost in translation, and can something also be gained? Does translation matter, and if so, why? Unashamedly opinionated, both a manual and a manifesto, his book invites usto sympathize with the translator not as a “traitor” but as the author's creative partner.

Polizzotti, himself a translator of authors from Patrick Modiano to Gustave Flaubert, explores what translation is and what it isn't, and how it does or doesn't work. Translation, he writes, “skirts the boundaries between art and craft, originality and replication, altruism and commerce, genius and hack work.” In Sympathy for the Traitor, he shows us how to read not only translations but also the act of translation itself, treating it not as a problem to be solved but as an achievement to be celebrated—something, as Goethe put it, “impossible, necessary, and important.”

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

An engaging and unabashedly opinionated examination of what translation is and isn't.

For some, translation is the poor cousin of literature, a necessary evil if not an outright travesty—summed up by the old Italian play on words, traduttore, traditore (translator, traitor). For others, translation is the royal road to cross-cultural understanding and literary enrichment. In this nuanced and provocative study, Mark Polizzotti attempts to reframe the debate along more fruitful lines. Eschewing both these easy polarities and the increasingly abstract discourse of translation theory, he brings the main questions into clearer focus: What is the ultimate goal of a translation? What does it mean to label a rendering “faithful”? (Faithful to what?) Is something inevitably lost in translation, and can something also be gained? Does translation matter, and if so, why? Unashamedly opinionated, both a manual and a manifesto, his book invites usto sympathize with the translator not as a “traitor” but as the author's creative partner.

Polizzotti, himself a translator of authors from Patrick Modiano to Gustave Flaubert, explores what translation is and what it isn't, and how it does or doesn't work. Translation, he writes, “skirts the boundaries between art and craft, originality and replication, altruism and commerce, genius and hack work.” In Sympathy for the Traitor, he shows us how to read not only translations but also the act of translation itself, treating it not as a problem to be solved but as an achievement to be celebrated—something, as Goethe put it, “impossible, necessary, and important.”

More books from The MIT Press

Cover of the book Big Data, Little Data, No Data by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book Out of the Crisis by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book Worker Leadership by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book Handbook of Collective Intelligence by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book Sharing Cities by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book Safe Spaces, Brave Spaces by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book Foundations in Music Psychology by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book Chaos and Organization in Health Care by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book Scholarship in the Digital Age by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book Low Power to the People by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book You'll see this message when it is too late by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book Knowledge Unbound by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book Paul Lauterbur and the Invention of MRI by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book Democratizing Innovation by Mark Polizzotti
Cover of the book The Craft of Economics by Mark Polizzotti
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy