Reflections on translators and authors

Abstract

Reflections of three sorts on the relations between translators and authors: autobiographical, polemical, and historical. The autobiographical reflections focus on the relation between the author and the German novelist Jeannette Lander and between the author and the German-Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig. The polemical reflections call into question the notion that the translation is of less value than the original, the translator a lesser writer than the author. The historical reflections focus on the history of translating Yiddish into English in America.