In their April 2021 issue, Words Without Borders published a very interesting essay by Jhumpa Lahiri who recently published her first self-translated novel Dove mi trovo / Whereabouts. In her essay, she reflects on the process of deciding whether or not to translate the novel herself, the translation process, and how this self-translation will affect future editions of the original.
Here are three quotes of her very interesting reflections on self-translation:
"... self-translation is like one of those radioactive dyes that enable doctors to look through our skin to locate damage in the cartilage, unfortunate blockages, and other states of imperfection."
"Self-translation is a bewildering, paradoxical going backward and moving forward at once. There is ongoing tension between the impulse to plow ahead undermined by a strange gravitational force that holds you back."
"That original book, which now feels incomplete to me, stands in line behind its English-language counterpart. Like an image viewed in the mirror, it has turned into the simulacrum, and both is and is not the starting point for what rationally and irrationally followed."
To read the complete essay, please go visit the Words Without Border journal:
https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/april-2021-where-i-find-myself-on-self-translation-jhumpa-lahiri
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