Last year I discovered Jhumpa Lahiri through a short story course. I loved her "The Third and Final Continent" which is in the New Penguin Book of American Short Stories. (If you live in the UK, and have a Kindle or Kindle app, you're in luck: the Kindle version of this book costs just £1.99.)

Lahiri has recently written a book called Translating Myself and Others, a book of literary essays. I've been sent a copy to review, and am greatly looking forward to reading it. I've already started it, and my initial impression is that it's a really interesting exploration of the issues involved in translating. It's not simply a matter of converting a word in one language to its equivalent in another (assuming there is an equivalent). It is usually more nuanced than that.

Although the book does not, as far as I know, touch on using Google Translate, this seems the right time to consider that. Why bother asking someone to translate anything, given that Google Translate will probably do a reasonable-ish job in a fraction of a second? I think the point about nuance provides the answer. Google Translate can't decide what the best word is in a given context to convey the mood of the piece. It's fine for getting the gist of a website or something like a restaurant menu, but otherwise it's a bit like using Roget's Thesaurus to find a synonym without knowing what the synonym you've chosen actually means or how to use it. I've come across some unintentionally humorous examples, such as someone stating that they like this "quite a great". Well, you can see what he meant, but it's not the point.

Back to "Translating...", the book is a series of essays, and is produced on beautiful quality paper. I shall report here more fully in due course. In the meantime, if you click on the cover of the book (above) you will be instantly transported to its page on the Princeton University Press website.