Great translations

[Mr.lucifer]

I am looking for foreign books that have great translations in english and are faithful to the original.

[PeterL]

So are all people who have ever read a translation.

[kiki1982]

Haha, I like that!

For God's sake, stay away from any Constance Garnett for the Russians! Whatever people say and whatever you think when you read it, it is not at all like the original! Let it be known.

For the rest I can't really help you...

[Mr.lucifer]

I already know about constance garnett, how good is andrew macandrew? I have his translation of the brothers karamazov.

[Wilde woman]

Even though Seamus Heaney wrote a wonderful Beowulf poem, it is not really faithful to the original, partially because he's not an Anglo-Saxonist. My class is reading Roy Liuzza's translation, which is much more accurate.

[dfloyd]

When I read Dostoyevsky et al Russians (1960s), the Garnett translations were the ones most used. I am not about to start over again because someone says these translations are not true. I have never talked to anyone that knew anymore than I did about the plot or characterization of Dostoyevsky's novels. New translations are always the favorite ones which were tranlated in the readers' lifetime. Not to be overly critical or disparaging, I have disagreed with many of your posts. You have your opinions and I have mine. We both have a right to these opinions, but I don't think you are categorically right in yours.

[stlukesguild]

Even though Seamus Heaney wrote a wonderful Beowulf poem, it is not really faithful to the original, partially because he's not an Anglo-Saxonist. My class is reading Roy Liuzza's translation, which is much more accurate.

The term "accuracy" is open to numerous interpretations. There are translations made by academics who are experts in the language that they are dealing with that remain faithful to the rhyme and meter... and succeed in producing the most boring and literally dead writing. And there are translations such as the King James Bible or Pope's Homer that are in no way faithful in academic terms... but succeed in producing a brilliant work of literature. I've always agreed with Dante Gabriel Rossetti who made some wonderful translations of Dante's La Vita Nuova and other poems of the Italian Renaissance. He prefaced his collection by declaring:

The life blood of translation is this- that a good poem not be turned into a bad one. The only true motive for putting poetry into a fresh language must be to endow a fresh nations, as much as possible, with one more possession of beauty. Poetry not being an exact science, literality of rendering is altogether secondary to this chief aim. I say literality- not fidelity, which is by no means the same thing.

To my thinking, the fact that Roy Liuzza's translation of Beowulf is more accurate in a literal sense, than Seamus Heaney's, because Mr. Luzza is an academic versed in Anglo-Saxon literature is irrelevant. What matters is which translation is the greatest artistic achievement. I read for pleasure and I am seeking out the translation that gives me the greatest aesthetic pleasure... that is most successful in endowing me with one more possession of beauty.

As for the OP... you may do well to be a bit more specific. What authors... or even what languages are you looking to for recommended translations? I have literally thousand from ancient Greece, India, and China through modern Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, etc...

[Jive One]

There's a new translation of 1001 Nights published by Penguin that's decent. It can be found here (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140449388/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0140442898&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0QP4ERYWYNKCV7X2WAD2). It's a complete translation and is much more concise than the previous Burton translation, on the other hand it loses some of the beautiful descriptive/informative passages.

If only Jules Verne's works could get a faithful translation I would be eternally grateful. As it is his English translations are atrociously outdated and were bad to begin with.

[Mr.lucifer]

I was thinking of foreigin works that are famous for having gorgeous prose like the works of tolstoy, in search of lost time, the divine comedy, madame bovary, etc etc.

[kiki1982]

Here (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~karamazo/translations.html) is a link of a small section with Garnett, MacAndrew and Peavear & Volkhonsky's translations.

Garnett, and from there also MacAndrew to a certain extent, is much too lyrical. The Russian is much less lyrical. P&V keep the healthy middle. Possibly Garnett is so lyrical because she translated in another day and age and that's how she perceived it to be in English, although she is sometimes quite 'sloppy' in the choice of her wording... for her Victorian-minded readers obviously.

@ Dfloyd: I don't say you should read them all again. And you can be entitled to your own opinion, only I do not see how anyone can comment who doesn't know the language even a little bit. And yes, Garnett is the most used. Firstly because she was the very first, secondly because apparently translators copy from one another which kills any open-mindedness about change whatsoever (translations are even made by people who do not know the original language and who have just corrected the rough translation of a computer!) and thirdly, in the meantime Garnett is out of copyright so that makes it easier to print your own edition and it is cheaper. Why not use it? But let it be said that it does not sound like Dostoevsky. If I can see that as a starter, I dread to think what a full-blown Russian would make of it.

[Lokasenna]

Even though Seamus Heaney wrote a wonderful Beowulf poem, it is not really faithful to the original, partially because he's not an Anglo-Saxonist. My class is reading Roy Liuzza's translation, which is much more accurate.

I like Liuzza's translations in general as he does a really good job of preserving the poetic quality of the text - however, for linguistic accuracy, Michael Swanton has the edge on him, at least for Beowulf.

As for Heaney's version, I'm not a huge fan of it - I'm too much of a purist.

[Seasider]

I read Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky in French and thought it an excellent novel, Then I read Sandra Smith's translation and I think she did a marvellous job. I do not claim to be a French scholar but she fulfilled my, possibly rather limited, expectations. I enjoyed both experiences.

[mortalterror]

There's a new translation of 1001 Nights published by Penguin that's decent. It can be found here (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140449388/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0140442898&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0QP4ERYWYNKCV7X2WAD2). It's a complete translation and is much more concise than the previous Burton translation, on the other hand it loses some of the beautiful descriptive/informative passages.

I noticed that too. The Penguin version is far more literal and about half the size of the Burton, but the Penguin is so businesslike. The Burton is just luscious and an excellent example of that era's prose. It's one of those examples of a translator improving on the original the way that Edward Fitzgerald or Moncrieff would.

As for the Garnett translations, I like them. I don't know why people are protesting that they aren't as close to the Russian as others. From what I hear, Dostoyevsky had a terrible prose style and maybe it's better cleaned up in translation.

[PeterL]

There's a new translation of 1001 Nights published by Penguin that's decent. It can be found here (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140449388/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0140442898&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0QP4ERYWYNKCV7X2WAD2). It's a complete translation and is much more concise than the previous Burton translation, on the other hand it loses some of the beautiful descriptive/informative passages.

It wouldn't be hard for a translation to more concise than Burton's, but Burton tried too hard to write in the same pririt as the original. I think it would have been better, if Burtn hadn't been so familiar with the English language, because in is attempt to use the same kind of language he sed obscure colloquial words that were never common and had gone out of use hundreds of years ago.


If only Jules Verne's works could get a faithful translation I would be eternally grateful. As it is his English translations are atrociously outdated and were bad to begin with.

I have also been amazed at how bad the translations of Verne are. He writing in't difficult, but the translators really mess it up.