The Many Lives of Anna Karenina
Journalist and author Masha Gessen discusses the challenge of translating a literary masterpiece.
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Listen to Lexicon Valley Episode No. 52: The Many Lives of Anna Karenina
Last November saw the publication of two new translations—by Marian Schwartz with Yale University Press and Rosamund Bartlett with Oxford University Press—of Leo Tolstoy’s epic love story Anna Karenina. But why does a novel that already has at least six or seven English-language editions need yet another update? Journalist and author Masha Gessen discusses the difficulty of translating a literary masterpiece and argues the more the better.
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