Translating can be a lot like acting.
How was W.S. Merwin to successfully translate Mandelstam without speaking a word of Russian? How does Daniel Day Lewis play someone who lived a century before him, or Toshiro Mifune incarnate a Samurai from the 16th Century?
The British actor Charles Laughton spoke of great acting as being more like oil painting than photography. Therein lies the success of Merwin's unforgettable translation: he takes the work and devours it, what comes out is entirely different from its original, and yet something of its essence has been captured. Nothing is precious. The original must be destroyed in order to be born anew. Through rigorous research into a culture, a deep investigation of the work and its author, the translator may (like an actor) become the other while remaining entirely themself.
Of course there is merit in a translation that seeks to help a reader come close to their own understanding of a work simply by remaining more literal. And the spectrum of so-called "successful" translation is broad. But great translation remains a bold endeavour, and requires all the vulnerability and pizazz of great acting.
Alexandra Zelman-Doring’s plays have been presented at The Flea Theater, Access Theater, The Edinburgh Fringe, 59E59th, Dixon Place, and HERE Arts Center. She is a winner of the 2013 Financial Times/Bodley Head essay prize, and first prize winner of the Glascock poetry prize. She is artistic director of Throes Theater.