Invoking Ralph Manheim's metaphor, Grossman compares the translator's art to that of the actor transforming a playwright's words in performance. Thus asserts award-winning translator Grossman, who has worked with some of Latin America's greatest authors and most recently translated Don Quixote
. The art of translation “expands our ability to explore through literature the thoughts and feelings of people from another society or another time.” Grossman believes that U.S. and U.K. publishers, who limit the number of translations to 2%–3% of their lists, are not meeting their “ethical and cultural responsibility” to literature. After discussing her method for translating poetry, Grossman offers tuition in poetic forms and fascinating examples from the 16th century to the present. Based on lectures Grossman gave at Yale, this book provides a succinct argument for the importance of those who “bring a text over” from another language and make it accessible to a wider audience. (Mar.)
