3 ms·
Shambhala is an odd publisher. On one hand, it has produced a few editions of classical Asian texts that are almost (but never quite) of equal quality to a scho
by Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Shambhala is an odd publisher. On one hand, it has produced a few editions of classical Asian texts that are almost (but never quite) of equal quality to a scholarly press – Cleary’s translation of the Avatamsakasutra comes to mind. On the other hand, Shambhala have put out many supposed translations of classics that are just the fanciful imagination of the translator (who in some cases doesn’t actually have any training in the source language), but they sure sound hip and so they sell well to naïve buyers.
- aarpmcgee 6y agoI'm curious. Can you offer any names of such translations?
- Mediterraneo10 6y agoOf renderings instead of actual translations? One of the most notorious examples is Coleman Barks’ "translations" of Rumi that Shambhala put out. Barks does not actually know Persian, and his versions of Rumi are based on existing English translations along with his own personal inspirations.
- blacksmith_tb 6y agoAt least when it comes to poetry, in a perfect case you'd have a totally fluent bilingual translator who also happens to be a poet. That's not very common (David Hinton[1] comes to mind) but far more often you either have a language scholar with a tin ear, or a poet who's faking a knowledge of the source material. That latter case can make for some good poetry, but it won't be an 'accurate' translation for sure. 1: https://poets.org/poet/david-hinton https://poets.org/poet/david-hinton
- aarpmcgee 6y agoStoked to see Hinton in a HN thread. I refer to his I Ching translation often.