Translating myself and others

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Title:

Translating myself and others

Added Title:

Why Italian?

Containers : introduction to Ties.

Juxtaposition : introduction to Trick.

In praise of Echo : reflections on the meaning of translation.

An ode to the mighty optative : notes of a would-be translator.

Where I find myself : on self-translation.

Substitution : afterword to Trust.

Traduzione (stra)ordinaria / (Extra)ordinary translation : on Gramsci.

Lingua/Language.

Calvino abroad.

Author:

Lahiri, Jhumpa. author.

Starnone, Domenico, 1943- author.

Summary:

Translating Myself and Others is a collection of candid and disarmingly personal essays by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, who reflects on her emerging identity as a translator as well as a writer in two languages. With subtlety and emotional immediacy, Lahiri draws on Ovid’s myth of Echo and Narcissus to explore the distinction between writing and translating, and provides a close reading of passages from Aristotle’s Poetics to talk more broadly about writing, desire, and freedom. She traces the theme of translation in Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks and takes up the question of Italo Calvino’s popularity as a translated author. Lahiri considers the unique challenge of translating her own work from Italian to English, the question “Why Italian?,” and the singular pleasures of translating contemporary and ancient writers. Featuring essays originally written in Italian and published in English for the first time, as well as essays written in English, Translating Myself and Others brings together Lahiri’s most lyrical and eloquently observed meditations on the translator’s art as a sublime act of both linguistic and personal metamorphosis. -- Amazon.

Contents:

Why Italian? -- Containers : introduction to Ties / Juxtaposition : introduction to Trick / In praise of Echo : reflections on the meaning of translation -- An ode to the mighty optative : notes of a would-be translator -- Where I find myself : on self-translation -- Substitution : afterword to Trust / Traduzione (stra)ordinaria / (Extra)ordinary translation : on Gramsci -- Lingua/Language -- Calvino abroad -- Afterword : translating transformation.

Physical Description:

x, 198 pages ; 23 cm

Genre:

Personal Subject:

Subject Term:

Translating and interpreting.

Self-translation.

Translators -- Biography.

Author(s):

Starnone, Domenico, 1943-

Publisher:

Princeton University Press,

Publication Date:

2022

ISBN:

9780691231167

Publication Information:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2022]

Call Number:

418.02 LAHIRI

Holds: Copies:

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Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003564906	Adult Nonfiction	418.02 LAHIRI	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

Luminous essays on translation and self-translation by an award-winning writer and literary translator

Translating Myself and Others is a collection of candid and disarmingly personal essays by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, who reflects on her emerging identity as a translator as well as a writer in two languages.

With subtlety and emotional immediacy, Lahiri draws on Ovid's myth of Echo and Narcissus to explore the distinction between writing and translating, and provides a close reading of passages from Aristotle's Poetics to talk more broadly about writing, desire, and freedom. She traces the theme of translation in Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks and takes up the question of Italo Calvino's popularity as a translated author. Lahiri considers the unique challenge of translating her own work from Italian to English, the question "Why Italian?," and the singular pleasures of translating contemporary and ancient writers.

Featuring essays originally written in Italian and published in English for the first time, as well as essays written in English, Translating Myself and Others brings together Lahiri's most lyrical and eloquently observed meditations on the translator's art as a sublime act of both linguistic and personal metamorphosis.

Author Notes

Jhumpa Lahiri is the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program at Barnard College. A writer in both English and Italian, she is the author of Interpreter of Maladies , which won the Pulitzer Prize, and the editor of The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories . She has translated three novels by Domenico Starnone into English.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Pulitzer-winning novelist Lahiri (Whereabouts) explores her relationship with literature, translation, and the English and Italian languages in this exhilarating collection. In "Why Italian?" Lahiri reflects on her desire to learn the language, concluding it is like breeding a "new variety" of plant through grafting: "A foreigner who arrives from abroad, who learns a new language, who works to contribute to a new society, who integrates herself: this person embodies the word graft." "In Praise of Echo" sees Lahiri describe translation as a "radical, painful, and miraculous transformation" that evokes the translator's ability to "look into a mirror and see someone rather than herself." "Where I Find Myself" offers fascinating commentary on Lahiri's experience translating her own work--self-translation, she writes, is "like one of those radioactive dyes that enable doctors to look through our skin to locate damage... and other states of imperfection." "Calvino Abroad" is a consideration of the Italian novelist's relationship to language, and includes some of his own thoughts on translation (he wrote in one essay that it "requires a sort of miracle"). Lucid and provocative, this is full of rewarding surprises. (May)

Library Journal Review

Novelist Lahiri, internationally known for writing fiction in both English and Italian (e.g., Dove mi trovo, or Whereabouts, which she wrote in Italian, then translated into English), is also an established literary translator and theorist of translation at Princeton. This volume collects her essays about translation (most previously published or given as lectures), some appearing in English for the first time; an appendix includes two essays in Italian. The collection is singular for Lahiri's ability to integrate the personal and the theoretical, drawing her examples from literature and from life. These texts take on the tone of a personal essay when Lahiri writes about teaching translation in Princeton seminars, or being asked by Italians why an American of Bengali descent would be interested in "their" language. Essays about Pliny or the distinction between the Italian words "lingua" and "lingue" are more scholarly in style. VERDICT Though the topic of translation studies might have a limited non-academic readership, Lahiri writes so beautifully that this collection will have broad appeal for anyone interested in literary essays.--David Azzolina

Introduction	p. 1
(1) Why Italian?	p. 9
(2) Containers	p. 23
Introduction to TiesDomenico Starnone
(3) Juxtaposition	p. 33
Introduction to TrickDomenico Starnone
(4) In Praise of Echo	p. 44
Reflections on the Meaning of Translation
(5) An Ode to the Mighty Optative	p. 60
Notes of a Would-be Translator
(6) Where I Find Myself	p. 70
On Self-Translation
(7) Substitution	p. 86
Afterword to TrustDomenico Starnone
(8) Traduzione (stra)ordinaria / (Extra)ordinaxy Translation98
On Gramsci
(9) Lingua/Language	p. 131
(10) Calvino Abroad	p. 141
Afterword	p. 147
Translating Transformation
Acknowledgments	p. 157
Notes on the Essays	p. 159
Appendix: Two Essays in Italian	p. 161
Selected Bibliography	p. 182
Index	p. 191

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Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Library Journal Review

Table of Contents