"Although he neither speaks nor reads Persian, he is a popular interpreter of Rumi, rewriting the poems based on other English translations" white liberals lmao (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 8 months ago by privatized_sun@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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check out these categories:

American translators

Iranologists

Poets from Tennessee

Sufi poets

University of California, Berkeley alumni

this mf is a bit on Trillbilly's podcast lol

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[-] Parzivus@hexbear.net 4 points 8 months ago

if the only acceptable person to participate is a bilingual poet we're not going to get many poetry translations

A small group that's actually collaborating would be fine too, but it doesn't sound like that's what's happening.
I will admit to being a stickler for this kind of thing, though.

[-] Dolores@hexbear.net 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

it doesn't sound like that's what's happening

he worked with John Moyne (a translator) & some Sufi that lived in Philly, apparently. like some people with related expertise have measured criticism you can find, mostly about "secularizing" the original work, but the pidgeonholing based just on the language/educational pedigree is the very-online devolution of an academic debate

[-] Parzivus@hexbear.net 1 points 8 months ago

No need to be rude. The person at the top of the thread said it was usually an uncredited grad student doing the translation, and as someone who has done uncredited grad work in the past, I know firsthand how shitty that is and how mediocre the output tends to be. If that isn't what Barks is doing, good on him.