A Quote by Ken Liu

Translation is an act of recreation.

Ken Liu

Quote Topics

Act Recreation Translation

Quote Author

Ken Liu
American - Writer
Born: 1976

I've never translated more than one book by any author. But I'm fascinated by translators who have, like Richard Zenith, who's translated so much of Fernando Pessoa's work. I get restless for a new kind of influence. The books I've translated are books I want to learn from as a writer, to be intoxicated by. And translation is an act of writing in itself. It's an act of recreation - of a writer's cadence and tone and everything that distinguishes the voice in the book.

Idra Novey

I want as many people to see the show [Hamilton] in its musical theater form as possible before it's translated, and whether it's a good act of translation or a bad act of translation, it's a leap, and very few stage shows manage the leap successfully.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Translation is the paradigm, the exemplar of all writing.... It is translation that demonstrates most vividly the yearning for transformation that underlies every act involving speech, that supremely human gift.

Harry Mathews

Every act of communication is an act of translation.

Gregory Rabassa

In its happiest efforts, translation is but approximation, and its efforts are not often happy. A translation may be good as translation, but it cannot be an adequate reproduction of the original.

George Henry Lewes

The oldest cliché in the world is about "what's lost in translation," but you don't very often read much intelligent about what's gained by translation, and the answer is everything. Our language is a compendium of translation.

Sam Hamill

Many people do not know that Jesus did not speak Latin or English or Hebrew; he spoke Aramaic. But nobody knows that language. So we're talking about the Bible itself being a translation of a translation of a translation. And, in reality, it has affected people's lives in history.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o

In translation studies we talk about domestication - translation styles that make something familiar - or estrangement - translation styles that make something radically different. I use a lot of both in my translation, and modernism does both. For instance, if you look at the way James Joyce presents Ulysses, is that domesticating a classic? Think of it as an experiment in relation to a well-known text in another language.

Elliott Colla

Theater is a recreation. It can be much more, but unless it's recreation, I don't see the point of it.

Tom Stoppard

For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act?

Cyril Connolly

Teaching translation is more of an editing job. You act as editor. But you can have fun with it.

Gregory Rabassa

There is an old Italian proverb about the nature of translation: "Traddutore, traditore!" This means simply, "Translators-traitors!" Of course, as you can see, something is lost in the translation of this pithy expression: there is great similarity in both the spelling and the pronunciation of the original saying, but these get diluted once they are put in English dress. Even the translation of this proverb illustrates its truth!