El original es infiel a la traducción”
(The original is unfaithful to the translation)
— Jorge Luis Borges“Malheur aux faiseurs de traductions littérales, qui en traduisant chaque parole énervent le sens ! C'est bien là qu'on peut dire que la lettre tue, et que l'esprit vivifie.”
(Woe to those literal translators who by translating each word deplete the meaning! In such a case one can well say that the letter kills and the spirit gives life)
— Voltaire
About Literary Translation
Literary Translation at the University of Rochester consists of: degree-granting and certificate programs for undergraduate and graduate students; Open Letter, the university’s publishing house, which features modern and contemporary works from around the world translated into English for the first time; Three Percent, an online resource for international literature; and a plethora of events such as readings, interviews with authors from around the world, and discussions with translators on the art and craft of literary translation.
The academic programs are designed for students fluent in English and highly proficient in at least one other language. Language proficiency—both in English and in the other languages students plan to work with—involves not only a high level of linguistic sophistication, but also the cultural sensitivity required to understand and transmit the delicate nuances and subtle contextual references characteristic of literary language. Furthermore, since translation, and especially literary translation, entails the conveyance of fine distinctions of meaning from the source language into another idiom, students in the graduate and undergraduate programs must be highly accomplished and sensitive writers.