This book is a collection of selected articles based on talks given by established academics and translators, as well as younger researchers, at the third postgraduate symposium organized by the School of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, UK. The objective of the third postgraduate translation symposium at the University of East Anglia was to explore the current relevance of theory to the practice of translation. This volume builds on the key ideas and discussion that arose from the symposium, bringing together, amongst others, the current debates concerning the complex relationship between theory and practice in the field of translation studies, taking into consideration a wide range of perspectives, both modern and traditional. A broad cross-section of research exploring the present relevance of translation theory to practice is presented by many of the individual contributors to this volume. These papers provide both current theoretical insights into the relevance of theory to translation and also, in some examples, offer first-hand experiences of applying appropriate strategies and methods to the practice and description of translation.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Seven-year-old Chula lives a carefree life in her gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside her walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar reigns, capturing the attention of the nation. “Simultaneously propulsive and poetic, reminiscent of Isabel Allende...Listen to this new author’s voice—she has something powerful to say.” —Entertainment Weekly When her mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city’s guerrilla-occupied neighborhood, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona’s mysterious ways. Petrona is a young woman crumbling under the burden of providing for her family as the rip tide of first love pulls her in the opposite direction. As both girls’ families scramble to maintain stability amidst the rapidly escalating conflict, Petrona and Chula find themselves entangled in a web of secrecy. Inspired by the author's own life, Fruit of the Drunken Tree is a powerful testament to the impossible choices women are often forced to make in the face of violence and the unexpected connections that can blossom out of desperation.

Punctuated by thoughtful wit, this engaging volume of essays offers Jeffrey M. Green's personal and theoretical ruminations on the profession of translation. Green begins many of the essays by relating the specific techniques and problems associated with translating from Hebrew texts. From this intimate perspective, he forges wise reflections on such subjects as identifying and preserving the writer's voice, the cultural significance of translations and their contents, the research and travel that are part of a translator's everyday life, and the frequent puzzles associated with the craft. Green combines a contemporary frankness about the financial, practical, theoretical, and ethical aspects of translation with an aspiration to write “like a good literary critic of the old school”—considering the moral and spiritual implications of the translation as well as its content. Thinking Through Translation shows us, with eloquent honesty, that translation is a delicate art and skill, and presents the trade as a way of attaining insight about history, the world, and oneself.

Literary Translation and the Making of Originals engages such issues as the politics and ethics of translation; how aesthetic categories and market forces contribute to the establishment and promotion of particular “originals”; and the role translation plays in the formation, re-formation, and deformation of national and international literary canons. By challenging the assumption that stable originals even exist, Karen Emmerich also calls into question the tropes of ideal equivalence and unavoidable loss that contribute to the low status of translation, translations, and translators in the current literary and academic marketplaces.

Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability argues for a rethinking of comparative literature focusing on the problems that emerge when large-scale paradigms of literary studies ignore the politics of the “Untranslatable”—the realm of those words that are continually retranslated, mistranslated, transferred from language to language, or especially resistant to substitution. In the place of “World Literature”—a dominant paradigm in the humanities, one grounded in market-driven notions of readability and universal appeal—Apter proposes a plurality of “world literatures” oriented around philosophical concepts and geopolitical pressure points. The history and theory of the language that constructs World Literature is critically examined with a special focus on Weltliteratur, literary world systems, narrative ecosystems, language borders and checkpoints, theologies of translation, and planetary devolution in a book set to revolutionize the discipline of comparative literature.

Contra Instrumentalism questions the long-accepted notion that translation reproduces or transfers an invariant contained in or caused by the source text. This "instrumental" model of translation has dominated translation theory and commentary for more than two millennia, and its influence can be seen today in elite and popular cultures, in academic institutions and in publishing, in scholarly monographs and in literary journalism, in the most rarefied theoretical discourses and in the most commonly used clichés. Contra Instrumentalism aims to end the dominance of instrumentalism by showing how it grossly oversimplifies translation practice and fosters an illusion of immediate access to source texts. Lawrence Venuti asserts that all translation is an interpretive act that necessarily entails ethical responsibilities and political commitments. Venuti argues that a hermeneutic model offers a more comprehensive and incisive understanding of translation that enables an appreciation of not only the creative and scholarly aspects of what a translator does but also the crucial role translation plays in the cultural and social institutions that shape human life.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A marvelous new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Lowland and Interpreter of Maladies about a woman questioning her place in the world, wavering between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. “Another masterstroke in a career already filled with them.” —O, the Oprah Magazine Exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit. In the arc of one year, an unnamed narrator in an unnamed city, in the middle of her life’s journey, realizes that she’s lost her way. The city she calls home acts as a companion and interlocutor: traversing the streets around her house, and in parks, piazzas, museums, stores, and coffee bars, she feels less alone. We follow her to the pool she frequents, and to the train station that leads to her mother, who is mired in her own solitude after her husband’s untimely death. Among those who appear on this woman’s path are colleagues with whom she feels ill at ease, casual acquaintances, and “him,” a shadow who both consoles and unsettles her. Until one day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun’s vital heat, her perspective will abruptly change. This is the first novel Lahiri has written in Italian and translated into English. The reader will find the qualities that make Lahiri’s work so beloved: deep intelligence and feeling, richly textured physical and emotional landscapes, and a poetics of dislocation. But Whereabouts, brimming with the impulse to cross barriers, also signals a bold shift of style and sensibility. By grafting herself onto a new literary language, Lahiri has pushed herself to a new level of artistic achievement.