“Translation always helps us to know, to see from a different angle, to attribute new value to what once may have been unfamiliar,” writes Edith Grossman in the preface of this fourth installment of the Why X Matters series published by Yale University Press. “As nations and as individuals, we have a critical need for that kind of understanding and insight. The alternative is unthinkable.” The celebrated translator of writers such as Miguel de Cervantes and Gabriel Garcia Marquez argues for the cultural importance of translation, and an appreciation for the translator’s role, in the hope to “stimulate a new consideration of an area of literature that is too often ignored, misunderstood, or misrepresented.” With chapter titles such as “Translating Cervantes” and “Translating Poetry,” and “A Personal List of Important Translations,” Grossman inspires new ways to think about and discuss translation.
