In Praise of Opacity: A Collection of Translator's Writings is a project initiated by Daniel Frota de Abreu which consists in a selection of notes and introductions in which translators reflect on the various approaches to transparency and authorship in their mediation. Featuring contributions from fifteen practitioners addressing similar issues in their work, the book consists of facsimile reproductions of selected pages from their personal libraries.
“The view of translation as a second-rate, derivative form of writing, seems to prevail in Western discourse on the subject since sometime around the 17th century. The lowly status of translation is reflected in standard book publishing practices and in modern copyright law. It is perhaps because of our desire to think of the translations as a transparency, a clear window through which we see the meaning of the original, that we lose sight of the obvious impossibility of one-to-one correspondence and take for granted the presence of the translator and the choices and praxis involved in the task” (Matvei Yankelevich).
