SOURCE: Norich, Anita. “Isaac Bashevis Singer in America: The Translation Problem.” Judaism 44, no. 2 (spring 1995): 208-18.

In the following essay, Norich examines Saul Bellow's 1953 translation of “Gimpel the Fool,” addressing issues of translation and the preservation of Yiddish.

Rabbi Yehuda said: “If one translates a verse literally, he is a liar; if he adds to it, he is a blasphemer and a libeller.”

—Talmud, B. Kiddushin 49a

I sometimes suspect that the Universe is nothing but a bad translation from God's original and this is the reason that everything here is topsy-turvy. My cabalist theory is that the Almighty trusted Satan to translate His Creation and it was published before He could correct it. I am not going to make the same blunder.

—Isaac Bashevis Singer, Address to Pen American Center, 1971

Translators and their critics are repeatedly drawn to citing and glossing the Italian epigram “traduttore, traditore” [the translator...