Andrew Bromfield

British editor and translator

Andrew Bromfield is a British editor and translator of Russian works. He is a founding editor of the Russian literature journal Glas, and has translated into English works by Boris Akunin, Vladimir Voinovich, Irina Denezhkina, Victor Pelevin, and Sergei Lukyanenko, among other writers.

"With two languages as different as Russian and English, even many of the basic forms of language cannot be rendered in a simplistically 'literal' manner. But my effort is always directed to 'recreating the author' in English, not to authoring a text of my own. I'm not one of those translators who think that the translator owns the text and can remodel it to suit himself." "My job is to provide the readers of a translation with an experience which is as close as possible to the experience that the author provides to readers of the original — the author's authentic voice and relationship to his characters (and readers) should come across in the same way in a translation. Also, the translated text should, ideally, read just as naturally as the original (and conversely, if an author doesn't read comfortably in the original, that should be reflected in the translation)." "After the effort of coming up with appropriate equivalents for the elements of style required to convey a modern author's voice and intonation, what I am eventually left with is a whole range of points that require special decisions — like cultural references that are entirely foreign and require explanation or sub textual assumptions of shared experiences that don't extend from Moscow as far as London (not to mention New York). That's where the ultimate difficulties arise, in deciding which solution to adopt — ignore, modify, omit or substitute."