{"id":17275,"date":"2025-01-07T18:08:40","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T23:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=17275"},"modified":"2025-01-07T18:08:43","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T23:08:43","slug":"episode-620-damion-searls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-620-damion-searls","title":{"rendered":"Episode 620 – Damion Searls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 620:
\nDamion Searls<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_620_-_Damion_Searls.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“The thing about translation in our culture is that people have this skewed idea because they’re thinking of their French 1 or Greek 1 class.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Translator & author Damion Searls<\/a> kicks off our 2025 season with a talk about his amazing new book, THE PHILOSOPHY OF TRANSLATION<\/a> (Yale University Press). We talk about how all writing \u2014 translation or not \u2014 involves constraints, he balanced the book between philosophical argument and concrete examples of translation, and how he came to define translation as “reading one thing and writing something else.” We also get into where all the languages \u2014 German, Dutch, Norwegian, French \u2014 started for him (+ his lockdown project of teaching himself modern Greek), how the business of translation has changed during his career and the problems with the English market’s dominance, how a ‘book report’ led to him becoming the translator of Nobel-winner Jon Fosse<\/a>, how he edited an abridged version of Thoreau’s (7000 pages of) journals<\/a>, and why he only put one negative example in The Philosophy of Translation<\/em>. Plus we discuss how he doesn’t look over his own translators’ shoulders, why he resents critics’ bias against translation and the notion of “a ‘faithful’ translation” or “getting it right,” the fetish Great Books programs have for The Original Text, how he & his peers fought for royalties over fee-for-service and the days when translators treated like typesetters, and plenty more. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read The Philosophy of Translation<\/a>!<\/p>\n

“I’m not here to make people eat their vegetables. I just think these books are good, I want to read them, and it’s rewarding to me to give people access to them.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n