St Jerome, patron saint of translators (picture from Scroll.in website)

“It’s easy to say what a bad translation is. The ones that are accidentally jagged like the person wielding the scissors was drunk. The ones where someone has misunderstood the original, or perhaps misinterpreted it. The ones where all individuality has been smoothed out. But how do we identify a successful translation? When have we done our job well? What is it we want to achieve, beyond mere fluidity?”

These questions were posed by editor and translator Katy Derbyshire. Here (http://myemail NULL.constantcontact NULL.com/Seagull-Newsletter---April-2018 NULL.html?soid=1117322804977&aid=fuEe9qSw1Sg) and here (https://scroll NULL.in/article/876969/what-makes-a-translation-great-ten-literary-translators-from-across-the-world-weigh-in) are the answers from ten literary translators from across the world – and why we need to be talking about it.