Catching Fire: A Translation Diary

What started as a blog to chart the process of translating Chilean author Diamela Eltit’s novel Never Did the Fire (Charco Press, 2022), turned into a book by translator Daniel Hahn describing the challenges he met along the way and the care that’s put into literary translation. Covering three and a half months, the entries were written in real time and include rough first drafts, painstaking edits, and discussions about the book title. Hahn does not aim to be instructional, but rather hopes to share with humility the work of producing translation and to enhance the pleasure of reading translated literature. “Translation does not develop smoothly, predictably, neatly—or at least, it doesn’t for me—and what might seem an occasionally shambolic diary is a more honest representation, I think, than something that suggests premeditation, predictability and order,” writes Hahn. “Progress is something halting; but you can be reassured, the translation will get done in the end.”