Nov 17, 2022

Translation is the Closest Way to Read

A Discussion with Ann Goldstein and Saskia Ziolkowski

Ann Goldstein and Saskia Ziolkowski

Hosted by Novel Dialogue

Summary

In our season finale, Ann Goldstein, renowned translator of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, gives a master class in the art and business of translation. Ann speaks to Duke scholar Saskia Ziolkowski and host Aarthi Vadde about being the face of the Ferrante novels, and the curious void that she came to fill in the public imagination in light of Ferrante’s anonymity. In a profession long characterized by invisibility, Ann reflects on her own celebrity and the changing orthodoxies of the book business. Where once having a translator’s name on a book cover would be sure to kill interest, now there are movements to display author’s and translator’s names together.

Ann reads an excerpt in Italian from Primo Levi’s The Truce, followed by her re-translation of the autobiographical story for The Complete Works of Primo Levi. She then offers an extraordinary walk through of her decision-making process by honing in on the difficulty of translating one key word “scomposti.” Listening to Ann delineate and discard choices, we are reminded of Italo Calvino’s assertion (echoed by Ann) that translation is indeed the closest way to read. This season’s signature question on “untranslatables” yields another brilliant meditation on word choice and the paradoxical task of arriving at precise approximations. Plus, Ann and Saskia reveal some of their favorite Italian women writers, several of whom Ann has brought into English for the first time.

Mentions:

--Elena Ferrante
--Jennifer Croft
--Primo Levi, The Periodic Table
--Primo Levi, The Truce, from The Complete Works of Primo Levi
--Stuart Woolf, original translator of Levi, If This is the Man
--Catherine Gallagher, Nobody’s Story
--Italo Calvino
--Marina Jarre, Return to Latvia
--Elsa Morante, Arturo’s Island
--Emily Wilson, only female translator of The Odyssey
--Jenny McPhee
--Cesare Garboli

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Find out more about Novel Dialogue and its hosts and organizers here. Contact us, get that exact quote from a transcript, and explore many more conversations between novelists and critics.

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