3 Review(s)

The essays included in the anthology offer a broad, luminous spectrum of Translation Studies. During the last three decades Translation Studies or Translatology has developed into an independent discipline of rich potentials leading to the establishment of full-fledged departments in many universities. The history of literary translation in the West is, by and large, the history of two opposing views—freedom versus fidelity—what fidelity consists and how much freedom a translator can claim. The more conservative school believes that a translator is a traitor if his translation is not literal while the advocates for freedom hold that in literary translation, paradoxically, a translator must be a traitor to the letter in order to be loyal to the spirit because, they insist, the soul is more important than the body. In addition to giving a brilliant exposition to the history, theories, and problems of translation, the essays also assiduously examine translation in practice, revealing in the process subtle nuances and complexities involved in the act of translation. Anybody interested in the study of translation will find the book intellectually stimulating and practically useful.