Why Translation Matters More Than You Think
I need to tell you something that might change how you read forever. Last week I picked up The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers in two different English translations, published decades apart. Same German source text. Completely different books in English. One translator rendered the protagonist’s internal monologue as choppy, fragmented thoughts. The other chose flowing, literary prose. Both were “accurate.” Both were art.
This is the translation question that keeps me up at night. When you fall in love with Elena Ferrante or Haruki Murakami, are you falling for the author or the translator? The answer is both, and that’s what makes reading translated literature so thrilling. You’re not just getting one artist’s vision. You’re getting a conversation between two creative minds across languages, cultures, and sometimes centuries.
As we slide into the season of longer nights and deeper reading, I want to share some translations that show just how powerful this art form can be. These aren’t just good books that happen to be translated. They’re books where the translation itself becomes part of the magic.
When Translators Become Literary Heroes
Let’s start with Constance Garnett, who single-handedly brought Russian literature to English readers in the early 1900s. Her Crime and Punishment shaped how we think about Dostoevsky for generations. But here’s the thing: Garnett sometimes smoothed over Dostoevsky’s deliberately clunky, neurotic prose style. She made him more palatable to English readers by making him less Russian. Revolutionary for its time, yes. Problematic by today’s standards, absolutely.
Now compare that to Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s recent retranslation of the same novel. They preserve Dostoevsky’s awkwardness, his repetitions, his manic energy. Reading their version feels like being trapped inside Raskolnikov’s fevered brain. It’s less comfortable than Garnett’s version, but it’s probably closer to what Russian readers experience.
This winter, try reading both versions of your favorite Russian classic. Notice how different translation choices create entirely different reading experiences. Garnett’s Brothers Karamazov versus Pevear and Volokhonsky’s version is like comparing a well-tailored suit to raw, unfinished wood. Both have their place, but they serve different purposes entirely.
The Poetry Problem and Other Translation Mysteries
Poetry translation is where things get really wild. How do you translate a haiku and preserve both meaning and form? How do you render Pablo Neruda’s passionate Spanish into equally passionate English without losing the music?
Take W.S. Merwin’s translations of Neruda versus Mark Eisner’s more recent work. Merwin, a poet himself, creates English poems that sing on their own terms. Eisner, focused on scholarly accuracy, stays closer to the literal meaning. Reading both versions of Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair is like hearing two different musicians perform the same composition. Same notes, completely different emotional impact.
For your seasonal reading, I recommend diving into Anne Carson’s translation of Sappho’s fragments. Carson doesn’t try to fill in the gaps where the ancient papyri have decayed. Instead, she leaves brackets around missing words, creating a haunting visual representation of time’s destruction. It’s translation as archaeology, translation as art installation.
Or try Don Mee Choi’s translation of Kim Hyesoon’s Korean poetry, which deliberately breaks English grammar to mirror the Korean experience of living between languages. It’s disorienting and beautiful. Like reading poetry through a funhouse mirror that somehow reveals more truth than a straight reflection.
Contemporary Voices Breaking Translation Rules
The most exciting translation work happening right now throws old rules out the window. Jennifer Croft’s translation of Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights reads like it was written in English first, but it preserves the Polish author’s distinctive fragmentary structure and philosophical depth. Croft doesn’t just translate words. She translates the rhythm of thought itself.
Then there’s Anton Hur’s translation of Sang Young Park’s Love in the Big City, which captures not just Korean slang but the attitude behind it. Hur finds English equivalents that preserve the snark, the vulnerability, the specifically queer Korean millennial voice that makes the original so powerful. It’s translation as cultural bridge-building.
For something completely different, pick up Yoko Tawada’s work. She’s a Japanese author who writes in German, then works with translators to bring her books into English. Her novel The Emissary exists in this weird linguistic limbo, where translation becomes part of the creative process rather than something that happens after the fact.
Building Your Translation-Conscious Reading Life
Here’s what I want you to do this season: start paying attention to translators’ names. Read their acknowledgments and afterwords. Many translators are scholars, poets, and cultural historians who bring their own expertise to the text. Edith Grossman’s afterword to her Don Quixote translation is a masterclass in translation theory. Lydia Davis’s notes on translating Flaubert reveal how much detective work goes into rendering 19th-century French psychology into contemporary English.
Try this experiment: pick an author you love who writes in a language you don’t speak. Find two different English translations of the same work. Read them back-to-back. Notice what each translator emphasizes, what they sacrifice, what they bring to the text. You’ll never read translated literature the same way again.
Some publishers are getting better at crediting translators prominently on covers and in marketing. Europa Editions, New Directions, and Archipelago Books treat translation as the art form it is. Support these publishers when you can.
Translation isn’t just about making foreign books accessible. It’s about expanding what English can do, what stories we can tell, what ways of thinking we can express. Every great translation makes our language richer. This season, as you’re choosing what to read by the fire or on those long commutes, consider picking up something that will challenge not just your ideas about story and character, but your ideas about language itself. Trust me, you’ll want to call someone at midnight when you finish, because I guarantee you’ll have thoughts you need to share.