priority of translation

Texts

Einmal Ist Keinmal
Boasting about sales figures and large print-runs on book jackets is a vulgar practice reserved to airport blockbusters; but it is perfectly respectable for even the most “literary” of books to boast about the number of languages into which it has been translated. As if to say, “It’s so good, it addresses such universal concerns, that it works in nineteen languages!” The literary...