The Philoctetes Center Event on Translation

A couple weeks ago, the Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination (one of the best names I’ve ever come across), hosted an interesting event on translation:

Borges once noted that nothing was more central to the “modest mystery” of literature than translation. Across centuries and language barriers, culture survives through translation, and it’s an essential consideration in the art of reading. This panel will explore translation’s role in literary culture, as well as the figure of the translator. Topics for discussion include the nature of the relationship between translation and original writing; the influence of editors and publishers; translators’ aesthetic, political, and psychological concerns; and the role of translation in contemporary global culture.

And what a lineup or panelists! Peter Cole, Peter Constantine, Jonathan Galassi, Edith Grossman, Suzanne Jill Levine, and Qiu Xiaolong . . . And you don’t have to just read about this event—a video of the full 2-hour event is available on the website. (I wish more venues would do this. Sure, this video is really well cut, edited, and produced, but even a down-and-dirty single-shot recording would be interesting to a lot of people.)

The format of this event is really interesting as well. A true roundtable, the guests all sit facing each other, with the audience outside of the circle. Seems much more conducive to interaction than your typical all-in-a-straight-line panel . . .

[Addendum: I’ll second Edie Grossman’s assertion that Macedonio Fernandez was “the most eccentric man who ever lived in the northern or southern hemispheres.” And it’s really cool that one of our authors—Macedonio’s The Museum of Eterna’s Novel comes out next January—was the first thing Edie ever translated.]