Translating the Classics: Between the Old and the New

Should we read previous translations before attempting a new version? Should we keep the language of the original period, or modernize the language for a new readership? If modernizing, how do we walk the tightrope between language that seems too archaic and too contemporary while retaining the “feel” of the earlier period of the original? A panel of professional translators of works considered classics will share their experiences, discuss their processes, and encourage a lively Q&A from the audience.

Handout for Marian Schwartz. (opens in new tab)

Handout for Geoffrey Brock. (opens in new tab)

Handout for Susan Bernofsky. (opens in new tab)

Handout for Sandra Smith. (opens in new tab)

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Moderator

Geoffrey Brock is the author of two books of poetry, the editor of The FSG Book of 20th-Century Italian Poetry, and the translator of numerous books of various genres, most recently Giuseppe Ungaretti’s Allegria and Marion Fayolle’s The Tenderness of Stones. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas.

Presenters

Susan Bernofsy directs the Literary Translation program at Columbia University. She has translated Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, and is currently working on a new translation of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain for W.W. Norton. Her biography of Robert Walser is forthcoming from Yale University Press in 2021.

Marian Schwartz translates Russian literature. Her most recent publication is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s March 1917: The Red Wheel, Node III, Book 2. In 2018 she received the Linda Gaboriau Award for Translation from the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She is a Past President of ALTA.

Sandra Smith has translated Camus’ L’Etranger (The Outsider), Maupassant’s The Necklace and Other Stories, and Némirovsky’s Suite Française, among others. She has won the French-American Foundation Prize, the PEN Translation Prize, and the National Jewish Book Award. She teaches at NYU and is a member of the PEN Translation Committee.