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4.0 

Catching Fire

By Daniel Hahn
Catching Fire by Daniel Hahn digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

An energizing real-time journey through the translation of Never Did the Fire and the process of literary translation.

In Catching Fire , the translation of Diamela Eltit's Never Did the Fire unfolds in real time as a conversation between works of art, illuminating both in the process. The problems and pleasures of conveying literature into another language—what happens when you meet a pun? a double entendre?—are met by translator Daniel Hahn's humor, deftness, and deep appreciation for what sets Eltit's work apart, and his evolving understanding of what this particular novel is trying to do.

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Catching Fire Reviews

4.0
“So cool! I think the idea animating this book is really interesting, but alone wouldn't have been able to sustain more than an essay alone. Hahn writes that essay, as the introduction to this book. Fascinating in its own right, it details everything that readers will see him grapple with through his translation of Diamela Eltit's novel. At its core lie the very things that animate good writing, the decisions authors make in constructing their stories, characters, and settings. He discusses how different languages tackle and create different problems, the need for a simultaneously ambiguity and clarity in writing (especially fiction), and how certain authorial tics can give rise to a specific creative voice. That essay is fantastic and worth the read. The rest, however, is just as good. Instead of reiterating each of these ideas from this birds-eye view, Hahn gives a practical deep-dive into his process (which necessarily tackles the challenges he referenced in his introduction) as he works through one translation. The nitty-gritty details and iterations become windows into both his and the original author's language. He teases out the complexities and big questions of his original argument in specific examples. Each is giving as much weight as it takes for him to process it as he works. These little entries are so digestible, it was perfect for a quick Metro ride or the limnity (I am inventing a word) of waiting outside a musuem. Nevertheless, this is still a book about big ideas. At the core, Hahn is helping himself and his readers make sense of good writing. The decisions, the assumptions, the idiosyncracies we often don't pay attention to are of utmost importance to him as a translator; it's of course his job to somehow recognize and capture and transform those things from one language to another. I think this teases them out so persuasively. It's not just that the curtains are blue, if you will, but rather why they are blue, or curtains, or mentioned at all. And how to restructure their effect when sentence structures in another language change how and when the information is conveyed. Even with these deeply philosophical and existential questions about writing, Hahn's writing never takes on the academic esotericism they might suggest. His writing voice is so inviting and clear, always grounded in the text and work he was doing. I loved following along with his thoughts and insights. I puzzled out some of the decisions he made alongside him, weighing how I would have done things the same or differently. I can't imagine how to better tackle this topic than this book, so 5 stars it is. Thanks to the New York Times Book Review for bringing this to my attention through some random article I clicked on. I had such a thoroughly good time reading this, even though it was so dramatically different than anything I'd normally choose for myself.”

About Daniel Hahn

Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator with over eighty books to his name. His translations (from Portuguese, Spanish and French) include fiction from Europe, Africa and the Americas and non-fiction by writers ranging from Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago to Brazilian footballer Pelé. Recent books include the new Oxford Companion to Children's Literature and a translation of Julián Fuks’ Resistance and Occupation . He is a former chair of the Society of Authors and is presently on the board of a number of organisations that deal with literature, literacy, translation and free expression. In 2021 Daniel was made an OBE for his services to literature.

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