Books about translation and writing

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Books about translation and writing

Thanks to reader Paul Froese for suggesting this topic; Paul e-mailed me, asking about textbooks that might help one become a better translator, or that might be helpful to beginning translators. Paul referenced the free translation course that’s available from logos.it, and wondered whether there are comparable textbook resources out there.

I have a few of my own suggestions, but Paul’s question prompted me to research this question in more detail. I find that for this kind of thing, Goodreads is often more helpful than Amazon, because Goodreads users can create suggested book lists on any topic. There are several Goodreads lists with suggestions of translation-related books:

Those should contain enough books to keep you busy for approximately the rest of this lifetime, but I’ll mention a few others. These are all easy to find on Goodreads and Amazon if you want to purchase them.

  • Why Translation Matters, by Edith Grossman. If I had unlimited time to read books, I would start by reading the entire Why X Matters series from Yale University Press. Honestly, they all look fascinating. But if you haven’t read Edith Grossman’s book, start with that!
  • Although technically a memoir and not a translation textbook, Gregory Rabassa’s If This Be Treason is probably my favorite book about translation.
  • Then there’s the “Topics in Translation” series from Multilingual Matters. These are mostly from the late 90s and early 2000s, but a lot of the topics are not time-sensitive and they seem to get quite good reviews on Goodreads and Amazon.
  • When I was in grad school for French Literature, we read Jeremy Munday’s Introducing Translation Studies and I remember it as being a good overview of translation theory, with helpful case studies of how the theory applies in the read world.

Then, since translation is, after all, writing, there are tons of great books on writing. Any recommendations here must be prefaced with Dorothy Parker’s advice, “If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.” Aside from that, The Elements of Style is a great book about writing, and is consistently named as one of the most influential books written in English, period. Back in the day (in the 80s, when I was in junior high and high school), this book was always referred to as “Strunk and White,” rather than The Elements of Style. And it took me an inordinately long time to realize that “White” was not only the author of advice about serial commas, but also of books that I had read until they fell apart at the binding (Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, Trumpet of the Swan). This one should definitely be in your arsenal!

I like style guides, so I use The Chicago Manual of Style on an almost-daily basis. Descartes’ writings or Descartes’s writings (option b)? Northern California or northern California (option a)? Does iPod use an initial lowercase letter even when it’s the first word in a sentence (yes)? Those dilemmas can only be solved with a style guide.

Then, if you just want to read a really good book on writing, read Stephen King’s On Writing. For someone who once described his own writing as “good salami,” Stephen King is incredibly good at writing about writing. From the obvious but often unsaid (leave out the boring parts) to the liberating (it’s OK to use regular words, like “said”), this book is just great.

I’m sure that other readers have good suggestions too; let’s hear them!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Elaine says

    The first book that came to my mind was ‘On Writing’. It really is a great read. On the other hand, I remember being distinctely unimpressed by ‘The Elements of Style’. I still don’t see what all the fuss is about.

    Reply

    • Corinne McKay says

      Thanks, Elaine! That’s great to hear about “On Writing.” I’m actually not a big fan of Stephen King’s novels (not really my genre), but if I had to recommend one book about writing, it would be his! And I’ll forgive you for The Elements of Style 🙂

      Reply

  3. Lillian A Payero says

    Thank you for this post! I’m definitely adding your suggestions to my reading list. I have an old copy of The Elements of Style that I laugh over now and then; it’s a fun read.

    Reply

    • Corinne McKay says

      Thanks, Lillian! I agree, maybe it’s weird, but I also break out The Elements of Style now and then for fun!

      Reply

  4. Douglas Carnall says

    If you were to ask me to recommend only one book to those embarking on professional translation, it would be Brian Mossop’s ‘Editing and revising for translators’. Its concise discussion of revising translations cuts directly to the heart of the issue of what constitutes an acceptable translation. And what does not.

    Honourable runners-up: Chesterman and Wagner’s Socratic dialogue ‘Can theory help translators?’ puts translation theory in its place; Hofstader’s ‘Le Ton Beau de Marot’ is a wonderful, playful exposition of creativity and variation in translation.

    What did I actually read first? Impatient, Newmark’s aphoristic ‘Paragraphs on translation’.

    Reply

  5. Konstantin Stäbler says

    I just recently bought “Das Tüpfelchen auf dem i” (German) which is a very useful and concise guide for all things relating to typography.

    I don’t have an English book recommendation, but I think many translators have to brush up on their knowledge of typographyical conventions or learn them from scratch. I remember my first weeks as a pretty clueless agency intern fresh out of Translation School. I realized that many things we really should know as translators (proper use of correct dashes, protected spaces, correct quotation marks etc.) are not being taught to translation students. I think about 90% of all translations I have reviewed as a freelancer contain at least one typographical issue. This is a major problem that is hardly ever discussed among translators.

    Reply

    • Corinne McKay says

      Thanks, Konstantin! It must be something about Germany and typography…my husband is also a typography nerd (he does the layout for my books), and is always upholding German typography guides as the gold standard.

      Reply

  8. Nik says

    Very usefull and interesting article. Thank you. I read Stephen King’s On Writing and this style you have already used? I think translation is an art absolutely.

    Reply

  9. Paulo Mendes says

    Here go a few tips on books on writing.

    For writing in general, look up Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, by Joseph Williams. It’s an order of magnitude better than Strunk and White–much more detailed, deeper, and more thorough. The downside, if you can call it that, is that, its very thoroughness and depth make it a lot harder to work through than S&W.

    I read about Joseph Williams’ book in You Don’t Say, by John E. McIntyre, the Baltimore Sun’s terrific language blog. This blog introduced me not only to the aforementioned book, but also to Geoffrey Pullum’s ‘gentle savagings’ of S&W. Unsurprisingly, Mr. McIntyre is rather critical of S&W as well.

    Mr. McIntyre also wrote The Old Editor Says, a collection of maxims on editing distilled from his decades of experience at the craft. Geared mostly at journalists, this short book is both entertaining and useful.

    If you’re into medical/scientific writing, Mimi Zeiger’s Essentials of Writing Biomedical Papers is the best out there. It suffers from the same downsides as Joseph Williams book, but in a higher degree. I haven’t finished working through it yet.

    Finally, the standard reference for medical writing is the AMA Manual of Style.

    There you go–4 books that will keep you busy, and a blog as a bonus.

    Reply

  10. Victoria Patience says

    I’m a bit late in coming to this, but a couple more which are useful if you work with academic texts are “The Craft of Research” (Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams , the latter of “Style: Towards Clarity and Grace” fame, mentioned above) and Helen Sword’s downright fabulous “Stylish Academic Writing.” I think we translators often forget how much being a writer is part of our work, and to that end we should be constantly doing what good writers do to improve: read. What to read? Anything well-written in whatever fields interest us or that we work in, be it fiction, journalism, academic research, poetry, ANYTHING. Actually, sometimes crossing genre divides can really help give you a fresh perspective and brighten up your language. So if you’re doing a technical environmental translation, take time out with Mary Oliver’s poems, for instance. Finally, as a linguist, I love literature that explores the world of language and celebrates multilingualism. One of my favorite recent reads in this sense has been Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis trilogy (Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, Flood of Fire) which explores the Opium War in a cacophonous symphony of 19th-century nautical English backed by various Southeast Asian languages.

    Reply

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