Nevertheless Grossman sees not indifference but a vast hostility to translation. Translation is often “discounted as menial hackwork or reviled as nothing short of criminal” (p. 64); publishers have a “lethal disinclination” to publish translations (p. 43), evincing “suspicion and resistance” (p. 49); editors show “bare-faced chauvinism and unforgivable, willful know-nothingness (p. 45); translators face dismissive and “iniquitous” reviewers (p. 65); the growth of America’s “intense jingoistic parochialism” (p. 42) leads many readers to “stubbornly and willfully insist on remaining ignorant” of other cultures (p. 56); some people apparently believe that “translators are acutely and incurably pathological” (p. 64)

Grossman especially demands more English translations, because without intermediate translations into English, many people could not have access to world literatures. She writes that most translations are not from the original language but from English translations of the originals. Latin American readers first encountered Russian novels through translations from their French versions. There may be no translator capable of translating Croatian poetry directly into Vietnamese, for example, but one person can translate the Croatian original into English, and another translator can turn that English version into Vietnamese.

Poetry translations are notoriously challenging, but Grossman rejects Robert Frost’s notion that poetry is what gets lost in translation…

Never far from marketplace pragmatism, she also argues that writers must be published in English to make a living, because their native language markets are too small, or to win the Nobel prize, since judges cannot read all languages. Poets and fiction writers might be less interested in Grossman’s ab irato arguments against publishers, reviewers, and editors, than in her principles and praxis. As a translator, she is necessarily more attentive to specifics of language and literary form than many literary critics and reviewers.

Grossman’s principles align her with the paraphrasts whom John Dryden identified as the best of the three types of translators, not the literalists or imitators. She translates so that her reader “will perceive the text, emotionally and artistically, in a manner that parallels and corresponds to, the aesthetic experience of its first readers” (p. 7). Good translations are “faithful to contextual significance,” not to words or syntax (p. 71). A good translation is “faithful to the aesthetic and emotive reality of its source and is a consistently true and accurate reflection” of the original (p. 100).

In additon, the author does not address flawed translations, except as they arise from faulty methodology, but even these can be enlightening to readers and writers. Clumsy early 20th-century translations of Chinese poetry and Ernest Fenollosa’s inaccurate The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, for example, brought a vast and rich literature to western readers, profoundly influencing western poetic development.

Poetry translations are notoriously challenging, but Grossman rejects Robert Frost’s notion that poetry is what gets lost in translation (p. 64). She identifies the linguistic and artistic difficulties clearly, not as a cause for despair but as a guide to composing the best translation possible. Trying to recreate too many aspects of the original is impossible, which is why she finds Vladimir Nabokov’s translation of Eugene Onegin nearly unreadable. “How would I write the poem if I were composing it in English within the formal constraints set by the poet?” (p. 96), the author questions, perceiving the process of translation as “essentially auditory” (p. 12). The most important element to preserve from the original poem is rhythm, the beat of a line being “crucial to both the spirit and the letter of the entire poetic statement” (p. 97).

Grossman convincingly argues that translation is like the primary act of writing, “as noteworthy and estimable as the original,” (p. 92), and potentially “of equal value” (p. 99). Here she endorses John Felstiner’s call for recognition of the translator as a creator co-equal with the original poet or novelist, and suggests in an aside that universities should begin programs in translation studies. Her reader is likely to agree after reading her detailed analyses of her own translation experiences and her astute remarks about the nature of writing, poetry especially.