I love this book. The more I read about translating, the more interesting it seems. It combines close reading with creative writing, psychology (what did the author mean by that phrase? What will the reader understand by this translation?) and more. Whenever I read a translation, I seek out anything the translator has written about the translation process. They have to solve a dozen problems on every page – the ingenuity that goes into a translation is quite amazing.
Kate Briggs writes about translations generally and specifically, from Helen Lowe-Porter translating Thomas Mann to her own experience of translating Roland Barthes’ lectures. She has a lot to say about that, and it’s interesting and insightful even if she’s much more of a Barthes fan than I am.
I noticed that there is a blurb from Lydia Davis, who recently translated Proust’s first volume. Unfortunately I was so immersed in this book, and later in Proust’s book itself, that I can’t remember whether Briggs writes about Proust. And it’s not that easy to find out because, despite the many many authors and translators cited, This Little Art has no index! It’s the only real flaw in an otherwise wonderful book.