A member of the PEN Translation Committee and a fierce advocate for translators and translated literature, Margaret Carson is a fixture in the NYC translation community. She translates contemporary fiction, poetry, and drama from Latin America.

Carson's recent translations include Sergio Chejfec's My Two Worlds. She’s also translated fiction by José Manuel Prieto, and Matilde Daviu, plays by Virgilio Piñera and Griselda Gambaro, and poetry by Mercedes Roffé and Nancy Morejón.

Here's an excerpt of the interview she gave to our colleagues at New Spanish Books, the online guide of titles from Spanish publishers and literary agents with rights for translation in the U.S.

What makes a good literary translation great?

You have to start with a great book—a book that’s done something unusual or masterful and can reach beyond its original readership in translation. It doesn’t have to be famous or canonical. Some recent great translations have been of works that are somewhat forgotten in their home countries (for instance, one of my favorite translations last year, The Cardboard House by the Peruvian Martín Adán, translated by Katherine Silver, is a novel from the 1920s overshadowed by the “Boom” novels).

For me, a great translation has to pay attention to the deliberate choices of the original author and to the nuances and quirks of his or her language. I’m extremely interested in what happens at the level of language: word choice, syntax, how the author bends the rules and how the translator follows suit. I also associate great translations with excellent commentaries by the their translators in which they narrate the story of the translation and the challenges they faced. I highly recommend reading Lydia Davis’s essays on her Proust or Flaubert translations, Clayton Eshlemann on his César Vallejo translations, and Rosmarie Waldrop on her translations of Edmond Jabès.

Do you believe that literary translation can be taught?

Yes, beginning translators can benefit from working on a text with more experienced translators, especially one who translates from the same language. This can be in person, but literary translators can also learn a lot by reading translations side by side with the original and seeing what kinds of moves and choices the translator made. It can be very revealing, sometimes surprising. There are many styles of translation— some are rather free, some stay very close to the original, some fall in between. I don’t believe there’s a “right” way to translate that can be taught, but workshops are excellent for creating a sense of community among translators and for motivating more literary translations. It’s a good time to be starting out as a literary translator, because right now there are more opportunities to publish than ever before, in print and especially in online magazines such as Words Without Borders, Asymptote, InTranslation, the Buenos Aires Review and other online venues.

Is it necessary for a literary translator to also be a writer?

Absolutely, even though the sort of writing you do may be very different from the sort of work you translate. You also have to be an intense and voracious reader. Sometimes solutions to a translation puzzle will leap out at you when you’re reading something completely unrelated. Your antennae are always picking up on words and expressions that might come in handy.

What makes poetry translation difficult? Is there a theory behind it?

Poetry is often seen as inseparable from the language it’s written in. The question of form often comes up and poetic forms are seldom compatible between languages. But maybe there’s too much of a mystique about translating poetry, and too much theory can get in the way. I’m not sure theory provides much insight into what happens when a poem is being brought from another language into English. When I translate poetry, I tend to work with contemporary poets who write in free verse, so there’s no formal rhyme scheme to recreate. You have to be inventive in other ways to suggest the rhythms and cadences of the original, through alliteration, assonance, slant rhyme, etc. It’s an incredibly complex process, with the ultimate aim of creating a new poem in English.

What work have you enjoyed the most translating?

My Two Worlds by the Argentine writer Sergio Chejfec, which was published by Open Letter Books in 2011. My current project, Baroni: A Journey, is also by Chejfec, and now that I’ve done a few rounds of revisions I’m finally beginning to read the translation with less of a critical eye and with more pleasure.

Read the complete interview here.