Preserving Her Semi-Colons
Author Lydia Davis Comes to Concordia
American writer Lydia Davis, in her 2010 Paris Review essay, “The Sins of a Translator,” said, “If a translation is as fine as it can be, it may match the original timelessness, too—it may deserve to endure.”
Davis, who read at Concordia as part of the Writers Read series on Nov. 4, states, later in that 2010 essay, that, “As we translate, it is not our own choice that confronts us, but the choice of another writer, and we must search more consciously for the right words with which to convey it.”
“It is then that we summon all the so-called synonyms in our own language, in the hope of finding just the right one.”
To try and sum up her reading—to try to translate it to you—would do her it, and her words, some great injustice. And it’s true: her writing is understated, yet so effective that her short stories—sometimes just a sentence long—can haunt you afterward for days. Here she is, in her own words.
