Philosophy of Translation
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A deep dive into the nature of translation from one of its most acclaimed practitioners
“Searls’s philosophy is ultimately one of freedom—to move beyond mere equivalence, to translate how a text communicates rather than simply what it says.”—Max Norman, New Yorker
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. This sharp and inviting exploration of the theory and practice of translation is for anyone who has ever marveled at the beauty, force, and movement of language.
“Searls’s philosophy is ultimately one of freedom—to move beyond mere equivalence, to translate how a text communicates rather than simply what it says.”—Max Norman, New Yorker
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. This sharp and inviting exploration of the theory and practice of translation is for anyone who has ever marveled at the beauty, force, and movement of language.
Damion Searls studied philosophy at Harvard and is a prominent translator from German, Norwegian, French, and Dutch, including of books by Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Rilke, Proust, Victoria Kielland, Saša Stanišić, Jelinek, Mann, Modiano, and Jon Fosse. His own writing includes fiction, poetry, and a widely translated biography of the creator of the Rorschach test.