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Front Row

The art and craft of translating fiction

Duration: 30 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LW

Available for over a year

Novelist Naomi Alderman reports on the art of translating fiction, with writers Ian McEwan, A S Byatt, Ali Smith and David Baddiel.

Every novelist dreams of being translated into dozens of foreign languages, but the relationship between author and translator can be fraught. If it goes right, it can lead to close friendship - but what happens when it goes wrong? And is a translation ultimately closer to being an original work than we might think?

Naomi also joins three professionals for a translation slam. Adriana Hunter, Daniel Hahn and Frank Wynne discuss their different English versions of paragraphs from the French novel Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. Show less

Contributors

Presenter:
Naomi Alderman
Interviewed Guest:
Ian McEwan
Interviewed Guest:
AS Byatt
Interviewed Guest:
Ali Smith
Interviewed Guest:
David Baddiel
Producer:
Nicki Paxman

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