Translation

The National Book Critics Circle asked its members and past nominees and winners of NBCC book awards this question: "Which work in translation has had the most effect on your reading and writing?" A recent post on the NBCC blog, Critical Mass, distills the nearly 80 responses received into a nice (somewhat lengthy) review. Books by Thomas Mann, Albert Camus, and Milan Kundera received multiple votes. Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time garnered plenty of votes as well. Even Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones, which was described in a New York Times review as "an odious stunt," received a vote.