Knowing the Original Language

From Martin Riker's Notes Regarding the Editing of Translated Literature:

An editor need not be an expert in the original language because the editor’s primary concern must always be toward the quality of the work in English, that it creates for an English-language reader an experience approximate to the experience the book’s original readers had. An editor needs to know English, and needs to know how to edit. There are far more people who have competence in a foreign language than there are people who know how to edit a book well, yet when it comes to making a book the best book it can be, skill in editing—in other words, skill with the English language—is by far the more important attribute. The editor first and foremost must be a reader of English, and a person for whom the translation must read, in English, like an original work—which in many senses it is.

Comments

[fausto]

Which is where translators play a major part by not only translating: interested as they are in the literature of the language they are translating, they are best placed to introduce editors to noteworthy works. But I think only a handful of them really do it.