Translating Neruda

"If you’re interested in translation – or even if you’re not – Felstiner has done wonderful work in these two books on Pablo Neruda and Paul Celan. He writes brilliantly about translation, which is very difficult to do. In both of these books he deals with very complex poets. Translating Neruda is kind of a diary of the practice of translation, and it’s very untheoretical which makes me happy. It’s extremely practical in terms of what the challenges were in the original, and how he went about solving those challenges in his translations. The first chapter especially is an entire course on translation. It’s just brilliant. It’s a book not only about translating, but about Neruda’s poetry and by extension about Neruda himself. I would love to see more and more of it. I think it’s very helpful for the reading of the original. It is illuminating as far as the actual practice of translation is concerned. As a translator, of course I think that’s very important. Translators tend to be given short shrift. But the work translators do is too important for it to be put in second place. Yes, I think that is happening. Certainly in the US, there are more and more academic programmes in translation, so it’s possible to specialise in translation in graduate school. That hardly existed at all when I was in school. I’ve taught translation myself over the years. I left full-time teaching many years ago and started full-time translating, though I still teach courses from time to time. I’m apparently one of the few translators in the United States who works at it full time. There isn’t much money to be made in translating. So you take a vow of poverty, and proceed. But that’s getting better too, as translators become more sophisticated, begin to use lawyers and take care of their contracts."