If the translation is treason

If translation is treason by Gregory Rabassa ... this book is pure enjoyment about the art of translation, and an exciting journey into the world of unknown translators. In it, Gregory Rabassa reveals to us the secrets of his personal experience in conveying meaning, feeling, intention, purpose, and the original message in the specific context in which it appears, and the methods he devised to face the challenges of translating works by a number of giants of Latin American literature into English, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortazar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jorge Amado, and Miguel Angel Asturias. Rabassa's skillful translation of the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude contributed to achieving the novel a status it did not have when published in its original language. Marquez said about him: he is the best Latin American writer who writes in English. His meticulous translation is credited with introducing Marquez and his fame outside Latin America, and with winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. Rabassa mastered Latin, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and French, and his academic study of languages and his expertise in translating works by more than 30 writers enriched these memoirs, explaining the breaches of trust committed during translation, the cultural, linguistic, grammatical, and structural differences between languages, and answering the most common question when talking about translation: is translation treason?