Let’s make it short: “Why read translations?” Answer: “Because we cannot read all languages.” Full stop. Simple question, simple and comple...
Let’s make it short: “Why read translations?” Answer: “Because we cannot read all languages.” Full stop. Simple question, simple and complete answer. And this, please believe me, is serious and not an ironic or coquettish statement.
It is like this: We all are born in Babylon, we all have to look at how to get the good things, and it would be an act of truly idiotic self-hindering to renounce the huge cosmos of texts and works in foreign languages just because our knowledge of languages is naturally limited – that, I think, doesn’t need to be explained further now.
This is why so many wise people have always expressed their gratitude and appreciation for the often overlooked community of translators, a group of pioneers, virtuosos and scouts of international cultural exchange who are rarely in the limelight and are much too often not valued highly enough. They help us to get out of the inescapable limitations of our access to world literature (Goethe: “Weltliteratur”) and into the wisdom and truth of texts from all parts of the world and from all generations, and to whom we all owe so much.
Especially my house, the Goethe-Institut: How much could I learn on my various...
