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Trying To Disappear: One Translator Among Many Authors, Michael Favala Goldman

The Bridge

A literary translator ought, as much as possible, take on the voice of the author, or the author’s characters, in much the same way an actor takes on a role in a play. The goal is that the reader forget that the words they are reading have been translated at all. The new work needs to stand on its own as a legitimate work of literature, hopefully bearing successfully the unspoken attitudes and inferences of the original author, but in the new language. The artifice involved ought to be invisible.