From the end of the interview, with a couple of my notes:
Q: Which of the translations that you’ve worked on was the most challenging? Why?
A: I suppose the Szentkuthy ones, not least because he was writing on a formidable range of subjects, from what most people think of as fairly abstruse mathematical theory, physics, botany, music, literary theory, painting, and so on.
[It was overwhelming to read. I can't imagine what it was like to translate.]
Q: Which one author do you think most deserves wider recognition worldwide?
A: I could easily add a couple of dozen other living Hungarian authors, but let me content myself with just mentioning György Spiró.
[Yes! I've made the wish that more of his work available in translation.]
Be sure and check it out.
2 comments:
Oh, dear. I'm close to finishing Mr Wilkinson's translation of Spiró's Captivity, and I wonder if he used a couple of assistants who speak English as a second language. (Plus, his publisher apparently refuses to employ a copy-editor.) The prose is graceless, the command of grammar uncertain. Perhaps he was on a very tight deadline?
I noticed a few spots in Captivity where things didn't seem quite right, but I'm not sure why. I still enjoyed the book, fortunately, but it is troublesome when you run into something like that.
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