Passing Judgment

The sixth episode of “On Translation”

In “On Translation,” the third season of the podcast The Critic and Her Publics, Merve Emre convenes a panel of translators and publishers for a seven-episode series of conversations on literary translation. The panel discussions were hosted in 2024 by the Hawthornden Foundation. The Review is collaborating with Lit Hub to publish transcripts and recordings of each episode.

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This conversation begins with the poet, writer, and translator Daisy Rockwell reading her poem “The Music Metaphor.” For translators, the question entertained by this poem arises all the time, though in many different forms and situations: How do we decide which translations are better than others? 

To answer, the two publishers on this panel, Jacques Testard of Fitzcarraldo Editions and Adam Levy of Transit Books, talk through how they evaluate commissions and acquisitions and how they navigate the editing of translated work. And, because so many of the guests on this show have served on prize juries, we all compare our experiences making judgments that can feel at once arbitrary and hugely consequential.