Die Blechtrommel

Translating books into other languages is chic, even when it has no right to be — Dan Brown's latest is set to be translated into more than 50 of them. Serious scholars, however, pick serious material; professor Breon Mitchell picked The Tin Drum by Günter Grass. On a level of chic, this explodes the scale. For one, The Tin Drum had only been translated into English by one other person, Ralph Manheim, who did it nearly 50 years ago. Manheim softened some of the sex, which Mitchell reaffirmed. Then there’s this: Mitchell had access to the source material. He spent a week with the author in Germany as part of a “translators’ party,” in which Grass read passages from the book and then took questions — not only from Mitchell, but also from nine other people who were translating the text into their own languages for the 50th anniversary of the Nobel Prize–winning classic. Very, very cool, if you’re into convocations of worldly academics presided over by a literary God, with bier. Tonight, Mitchell hosts his own sit-down at the lecture-food gathering Lit&Lunch: Re-translating a Masterpiece: Breon Mitchell on Günter Grass.
Tue., Nov. 10, 12:30 p.m., 2009