Published on March 15, 2010 in the Huffington Post.

NEW YORK — If you’re a fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez or have purchased the latest edition of “Don Quixote,” you might know the name Edith Grossman.

You would have seen her listed on the cover of “Don Quixote,” right under author Miguel de Cervantes, or recognized her from “Love in the Time of Cholera” and other Garcia Marquez books. You’d be happy to know that she is well compensated, highly regarded and in steady demand.

It’s a good life for any writer, but it’s especially charmed for the art form Grossman has mastered: translation.

An ancient and invaluable profession, the passport for a given culture’s journey abroad, translation has been practiced by literary greats such as Alexander Pope, Ezra Pound and Saul Bellow. Some of the most famous phrases in English, from “Of arms and the man I sing” to “Abandon hope all ye who enter here,” are translations.

But the typical translator’s status can be likened to a ghost writer’s – an appendage obscure and underpaid. Like ghost writers, they often receive flat fees and no royalties. Reviewers often overlook them or faintly praise them – and this drives Grossman crazy – for “ably” translating the original text.

“`Ably translated,’ compared to what?” asks Grossman, whose “Why Translation Matters,” a brief, forceful defense of her profession, is being released by Yale University Press. “The reviewer clearly doesn’t read Spanish. How would they know if it is ably translated? They quote long passages to indicate the style of the writer and never credit the translator.” More.

See: The Huffington Post

See also:

• Gabriel García Márquez, Nobel laureate writer, dies aged 87

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