For six years, I have had a tradition: right around the beginning of December, when the Florida heat finally cools off, I slip my copy of Banana Yoshimoto’s "Kitchen" off the shelf and allow it to rekindle a warmth within my being. Translated in English by Megan Backus, the light, intricate, and mouth-watering prose of the novella has delighted me endlessly.| Reading in Translation
“The philosophical account of translation in this book is of what it means to read like a translator” (5) writes Damion Searls. Some might object that philosophy isn’t particularly good at describing reading (or writing, for that matter) and argue that one should prefer literary theory, but Searls enlists philosophers to describe what translators do (they read). Philosophy, moreover, usefully displaces translation ‘theory’ which too often, in his view, involves telling translators w...| Reading in Translation