Edith Grossman is honored on the occasion of her 80th birthday. One of the most celebrated literary translators of our time, Grossman has been praised for her translations of work by Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Antonio Muñoz Molina, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and many others. Her acclaimed 2003 translation of Cervantes’ Don Quixote is already considered a classic.
This tribute was written by Peter Constantine. He is the translator of German, Russian, French, Modern Greek, Ancient Greek, Italian, Albanian, Dutch, and Slovene literature. His latest translation is The Essential Writings of Rousseau.
I admire Edith Grossman in many ways, for she is a truly great translator and through her work, a great teacher. One of her many admirable literary qualities is her ear for the melody of the sentence: she sees and hears the rhythms behind and between the words of the text she is translating and captures them, bringing them just as they are into English, which is what makes her work so exceptional.