"It began to rain cows"
Arts & Culture From Alumni Bulletin - 11 years ago
When a Latin American poet asked me to look over some recent translations of his work into English, I critiqued them as only an inexperienced yet ambitious beginning grad student would. "These are all right, but I could do better." He responded, "Go ahead"—and I suddenly realized what I'd gotten myself into. Thus, somewhat serendipitously, began my career as a literary translator. As a long-time foreign language learner, I had certainly attempted translation before. I tried my hand at it in college…