American - Publisher | 1949 -
A translation needs to read convincingly. There's no limit to what can go into it in terms of background research, feeling, or your own interests in form and history. But what should come out is something that reads as convincing English-language text.
Jonathan Galassi
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I was nearly 40 when I published my first book. I was a slow starter - or rather, I was slow to gather my work together, though I had published translations, mainly of the Italian poet Montale, by then.
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I think poetry should be read very much like prose, except that the line breaks should be acknowledged somehow.
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I never thought I could write fiction.
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I think publishers need to be the ones that publish the books and control that process: finding writers, helping them with their work, finding readers. I think writers need that.
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A lot of great authors are published before their time. That's not wrong; it's just the way it works.
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There's been a fragmentation of how the market functions, but I believe printed books are here to stay. People like the tactile experience, the smell of them; there's a great romance to them.
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When you're in the throes of writing, I find, the lessons you've casually imparted to others are not in the forefront of your mind. Which may be good or bad. Probably both.
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There are courses you can take to learn the mechanics of the business, like the Radcliffe course, but I don't think they teach you how to edit.
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Editing is more by-the-hip. You look at a text and ask yourself how it can be improved.
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One thing I have noticed is that when you're a younger editor, you're more intense about it. As you go along, you relax a little. More and more, I feel that the book is the author's. You give the author your thoughts, and it's up to him or her to decide what to do.
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I think that a really good agent should be able to get the right publisher, which the agent has already figured out, get as much money as she can from that publisher, and make a deal, rather than have the amount of money determine the sale. That's what the best agents do.
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