
Can a Translation Be a Masterpiece, Too? - laurex
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/01/21/can-a-translation-be-a-masterpiece-too/
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ggm
Lacking Spanish and French fluency I cannot but read them through translation.
Carlos Fuentes work was translated by Margaret Sayers Peden and is a joy to
read. Fantastic prose.

Proust was mangled by GK Scott Moncrieff but rescued by Terence Gilmartin.
Stendhal, Dumas are somewhat florid in English but as period romps not high
prose work fine.

I am told Cervantes in translation loses its edge. Key linguistic jokes don't
survive. Perez Reverte hints at this in some of his writing. About the pseudo
battles between the glitterati conducted through jobbing poets. (Perez-Reverte
either writes beautifully in E flown or has good translators)

Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky? Half the world only know them by translation. Or
Rabindreth Tagore. He still won a Nobel prize didn't he?

