Lawrence Venuti and his obsession

An interview with Lawrence Venuti (courtesy of PEN America, from the PEN Ten series) translated by Paola Brusasco

In his works, Lawrence Venuti – a leading translation theorist and literary translator from Italian, French and Catalan – interfaces theory with practice and points to the pursuit of fluency as the origin of the low status of both translators and translations, and of the resistance of Anglophone culture to things foreign. In line with PEN’s tradition, Lauren Cerand’s questions also explore issues of responsibility and freedom.