Performing without a Stage

Every performing art -- acting, singing, dancing, playing an instrument -- places the performer on a stage in front of an audience. Every one, that is, except literary translation, the performing of a literary work in a different language. Every performing art has hundreds of books about the people who do it, about its history, its pains and its joys. Every one, that is, except literary translation.

Performing Without a Stage is a lively and comprehensive introduction to the art of literary translation for readers of foreign fiction and poetry who wonder what it takes to translate, how the art of literary translation has changed over the centuries, what problems translators face in bringing foreign works into English, and how they go about solving these problems. It is based on extensive reading, on dozens of interviews with translators, and on the author's years of experience editing literary translations.

Performing Without a Stage will also be of interest to translators, writers, editors, critics, and literature students, dealing as it does with such matters as the publishing, reviewing, and teaching of translations, the nearly nonexistent public image of the stageless translator, the state of translation today, and the value for writers and scholars of studying and practicing translation.

Translation is a truly multicultural event, without all the balloons and noisemakers. It enriches not only our personal knowledge and taste, but also our culture's literature, language, and thought. If it weren't for literary translation, we would be without the great Russian novelists and classic poets, not to mention without any knowledge of contemporary writing abroad. And the rest of the world would be without Shakespeare and Milton, Morrison and Roth.

Performing Without a Stage gives American readers access to the art that gives us access to world literature.