Out of these four articles, there were two ideas that caught my attention.
The first came from Wendy Lesser’s article, “The Mysteries of Translation”. She spoke of the connection between translator and original author, where there is a precarious balance between achievement and voice of the respective parties. I thought this was a good idea to highlight. Whilst a main goal of a translator is to maintain an author’s voice and purpose from the original text, it would be remiss to speak about it without mentioning a translator’s desire to leave a mark on the work as well. There is a reason as to why they have chosen this author, this work to translate, along with attaching their name to it. For this reason, I agree with Lesser’s analysis that translated works are more of an author-translator hybrid than just one of them individually. I believe it is impossible to completely separate yourself from a translation, and even more so the idea of seeking recognition with a written work.
On the other hand, an idea from the interview of Michael Emmerich is the image of an author. Since the order of stories published in translated languages and original text language can be different, readers from different cultures will have different images of the author. While part of this is due to the author themselves changing the atmosphere of each respective story, some of it may also be due to the translators. The article gave the example of Lin Xiaohua, whose background influenced a translation of Murakami with an air of Chinese classics. I thought this was interesting, since there is also an argument of whether it is wrong to translate in a way where it's easier for the reader to understand (especially with cultural differences).
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