M. R. GHANOONPARVAR, Translating the Garden, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002). Pp. 196. $32.95 cloth

Extract

In this book, M. R. Ghanoonparvar describes his experience of translating Shahrokh Meskoob's Guftugū dar bāgh (Dialogue in the Garden), a fictionalized dialogue between a writer and his painter uncle during the course of which many aspects of Iranian culture are discussed through the prism of gardens, long held to be significant to the Persians. The author clearly states the thesis of his book on the very first page: “[this book] is about the act of translating, the actual process of translating.” In what follows, the reader accompanies the author–translator along the path that leads from the latter's interest in Dialogue in the Garden to his numerous struggles and decisions regarding individual words, passages, and concepts, and then ultimately to the completed translation of the work, which is presented at the end of the book (pp. 125–68).