In the Wall Street Journal Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg considers How Many Times Can a Tale Be Told ? wondering: "What possesses a publisher to produce a new version of a classic ?" as he looks at the phenomenon of re-translations.
Among the hilarious reasons given -- because absolutely every publisher moans about how expensive it is to pay for translations -- is that: "costs are low".
His focus is on the bona fide 'classics', but re-translation is surprisingly common (indeed, the next review I'll post at the complete review, today or tomorrow, is new translation of 1948 title, first published in English in 1950 -- and the very next post here at the Literary Saloon is, in (significant) part, about ... re-translations). Still, one does have to ask -- as Trachtenberg does: two new translations of Anna Karenina next year alone ? Seriously ?
Among the hilarious reasons given -- because absolutely every publisher moans about how expensive it is to pay for translations -- is that: "costs are low".
His focus is on the bona fide 'classics', but re-translation is surprisingly common (indeed, the next review I'll post at the complete review, today or tomorrow, is new translation of 1948 title, first published in English in 1950 -- and the very next post here at the Literary Saloon is, in (significant) part, about ... re-translations). Still, one does have to ask -- as Trachtenberg does: two new translations of Anna Karenina next year alone ? Seriously ?