Edith Grossman

Edith Grossman (born March 22, 1936) is an award-winning American translator specializing in English versions of Spanish language books. She is one of the most important translators of Latin American fiction in the past century, translating the works of Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, Mayra Montero, Augusto Monterroso, Jaime Manrique, Julián Ríos and of Álvaro Mutis.

In a speech delivered at the 2003 PEN Tribute to Gabriel García Márquez, held in New York City on November 5, 2003, she explains her method::"Fidelity is surely our highest aim, but a translation is not made with tracing paper. It is an act of critical interpretation. Let me insist on the obvious: Languages trail immense, individual histories behind them, and no two languages, with all their accretions of tradition and culture, ever dovetail perfectly. They can be linked by translation, as a photograph can link movement and stasis, but it is disingenuous to assume that either translation or photography, or acting for that matter, are representational in any narrow sense of the term. Fidelity is our noble purpose, but it does not have much, if anything, to do with what is called literal meaning. A translation can be faithful to tone and intention, to meaning. It can rarely be faithful to words or syntax, for these are peculiar to specific languages and are not transferable."

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Grossman now lives in New York City. She received a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, did graduate work at UC Berkeley, and received a Ph.D. from New York University. Her translation of Cervantes' "Don Quixote", published in 2003, is considered one of the finest translations of the Spanish masterpiece in the English language, praised by such author/critics as Carlos Fuentes and Harold Bloom.

elected translations

Miguel de Cervantes

* "Don Quixote," Ecco/Harper Collins, 2003.

Gabriel García Márquez

* "Love in the Time of Cholera," Knopf, 1988.
* "The General in His Labyrinth," Penguin, 1991.
* "Strange Pilgrims: Stories," Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.
* "Of Love and Other Demons," Knopf, 1995.
* "News of a Kidnapping," Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
* "Living to Tell the Tale," Jonathan Cape, 2003.
* "Memories of My Melancholy Whores," Vintage, 2005.

Mario Vargas Llosa

* "Death in the Andes", Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996.
* "The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto", Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
* "The Feast of the Goat", Picador, 2001.
* "The War of the End of the World"
* "The Bad Girl", Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.

Ariel Dorfman

* "Last Waltz in Santiago and Other Poems of Exile and Disappearance", Penguin, 1988.
* "In Case of Fire in a Foreign Land: New and Collected Poems from Two Languages", Duke University Press, 2002

Mayra Montero

* "In the Palm of Darkness", HarperCollins, 1997.
* "The Messenger: A Novel", Harper Perennial, 2000.
* "The Last Night I Spent With You", HarperCollins, 2000.
* "The Red of His Shadow", HarperCollins, 2001.
* "Dancing to "Almendra": A Novel", Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.
* "Captain of the Sleepers: A Novel", Picador, 2007.

Álvaro Mutis

* "The Adventures of Maqroll: Three Novellas", HarperCollins, 1992.
* "The Adventures of Maqroll: Four Novellas", HarperCollins, 1995.
* "The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll," NYRB Classics, 2002.

Other Works

* José Luis Llovio-Menéndez, "Insider My Hidden Life as a Revolutionary in Cuba", Bantam Books, 1988.
* Augusto Monterroso, "Complete Works & Other Stories," University of Texas Press, 1995.
* Julián Rios, "Loves That Bind", Knopf, 1998.
* Eliseo Alberto, "Caracol Beach: A Novel", Vintage, 2001.
* Julián Rios, "Monstruary," Knopf, 2001.
* Pablo Bachelet, "Gustavo Cisneros: The Pioneer", Planeta, 2004.
* Carmen Laforet, "Nada: A Novel," The Modern Library, 2007.
* "The Golden Age: Poems of the Spanish Renaissance", W.W. Norton, 2007.

External links

* [http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/26/on_translating_the_prince_of_w/ The Guernicamag.com Interview about "Don Quixote"]
* [http://www.iadb.org/idbamerica/index.cfm?thisid=3453&lanid=1/Interview On her Translation of "Don Quixote"]
* [http://www.pen.org/audio_archive/Grossman_Rabassa.mp3 PEN audio interview with Gregory Rabassa and Edith Grossman]