‘The Translator Is A Writer, The Writer Is A Translator.’ Oh, Really?

“How many times have I run up against these assertions? — in a chat between translators protesting because they are not listed in a publisher’s index of authors; or in the work of literary theorists, even poets. … In recent months, I have been dividing my working day between writing in the morning and translating in the afternoon. Maybe comparing the two activities would be a good way to test this writer–translator equation.” For Tim Parks, at least, they’re not at all the same. – The New York Review of Books