Translating Myself and Others

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With subtlety and emotional immediacy, Lahiri draws on Ovid s myth of Echo and Narcissus to explore the distinction between writing and translating, and provides a close reading of passages from Aristotle s Poetics to talk more broadly about writing, desire, and freedom. She traces the theme of translation in Antonio Gramsci s Prison Notebooks and takes up the question of Italo Calvino s popularity as a translated author. Lahiri considers the unique challenge of translating her own work from Italian to English, the question Why Italian?, and the singular pleasures of translating contemporary and ancient writers.