new translation of Heidegger’s Beiträge

It’s HERE.

And it’s different translators. But it’s the same publisher, Indiana.

I’ve not heard any industry gossip about this, but I guess Indiana must have decided to pull the plug on the original Emad/Maly translation.

I have never heard of another case where a publisher republished a book with a new translation by new translators. [ADDENDUM: Lawlor’s version of Derrida’s Voice and Phenomenon was published by Northwestern, Allison’s original by SUNY, so that was a different situation. And I know nothing about that story either, except that Lawlor’s title is more literally accurate.] It is a stunning vote of no confidence in the first translation by Indiana, and is embarrassing enough that one would normally let the incident pass by discreetly without drawing attention to it. But I mention it overtly this time because there has already been such public discussion of the first translation. (And again, I have no inside information on this. Maybe the new translators just cleaned up the first translation, for all I know. But I doubt it, since Emad and Maly’s names are nowhere to be seen.)

Quick remark: nothing is easier than scoring cheap points on someone else’s translations. Try translating a book yourself sometime, and you’ll soon find out what a difficult and thankless task it is. Everyone, from referees to reviewers to sometimes authors, will enjoy lecturing you. You will inevitably make some mistakes that you will cringe when reading later. And so forth. The point being, everyone will think they’re in a position to improve your translation. And given what a brutal job it is, I try my best not to criticize translators or nitpick their terminological choices.

That said, the Emad/Maly translation is painful to read. Not because they don’t know German well (of course they do), but because they are simply too Heideggerian, in the sense that they think that Heidegger’s German can’t possibly be translated into normal English. Admittedly, Heidegger’s own prose in that book almost tempts the translator into pretension. But unfortunately, Emad and Maly were too quick to take the bait.

First, “Vom Ereignis,” the subtitle. “Event” is perfectly good normal English for “Ereignis.” Calling it “En-Owning,” as Emad and Maly did, was preposterous. That’s not nitpicking, that’s just calling Heidegger pretension what it is.

Even worse, translating “Abgrund” (“abyss,” to you and me) as “Ab-ground.” Someone should have told the original translators that no such word as “Ab-ground” exists in English or even should exist. It must be among the most wretched coinages in the history of translation.

If you think the English misses the subtlety on some German word, just use a normal English word and add a footnote. While I do feel some human sympathy for the abuse this translation took, in many respects they brought it on themselves. As mentioned, I’m always reluctant to attack translation work due to its innate difficulties. But what I’m attacking here is not so much the translation as the punch-drunk Heideggerian religiosity that gave rise to it.

We’ll have to see the next translation (the Beiträge will never be easy to translate) but I would expect a considerable improvement from this new version.