In Tragic in Novels, Lucky in Friends in the Forward Benjamin Ivry raises some interesting questions about the new English translation (by Michael Hofmann) of Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters (see the publicity pages at W.W.Norton and Granta, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk) -- most notably: why the hell did they rely on that particular German edition (and why didn't they know any better ?):
These and other missing words in Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters might be explained by a translator's preface dated January 2011, which, although noting the inadequacies of Kesten's edition and how it is "a little strange" that no better edition exists, adds, "Kesten, though, was not a scholar -- and nor am I." This candid admission does not explain how in a university setting Hofmann managed to avoid hearing or reading about the ongoing project of a new edition of the Roth-Zweig letters in his homeland. Or even traveling to Fredonia, N.Y., where all of Roth's surviving messages to Zweig repose in the Daniel Reed Library of S.U.N.Y., Fredonia, readily available for consultation.Too bad; Roth deserves better.