Translation is made in the moment where the uniqueness of a word sounds differently to different people. In prose as much as in verse, the rhythms of spoken language, of inner monologue, of the memories of emotion and response, are not the same in any two languages. Idioms are not heard alike by two individuals, even if we are aware of those differences and use them to communicate. It is not a question of being faithful or treacherous; for how could we agree on what that faithfulness would be? This is not only an effect of translation, but part and parcel of the language we use generally; the language we use to communicate thoughts which are no longer there, and which as reader you will not have witnessed in the making. We communicate, we agree or disagree on the basis of the relations, distances and proximities we sense in relation to our own experience, and which we might share with others; or we might resent others for not responding as we do to this sense of relation. Conversation arises from the way we hear differently, and such is the way of translation too.
from the Translators’ Foreword
by Delphine Grass and Timothy Mathews