Translator visits Lilly Library

Hebrew and English were both understood in the Lilly Library lounge Wednesday afternoon. Moshe Ron, known for his translations from English to Hebrew, visited IU to speak about the differences between cultures and the importance of translating literature between cultures.\nThe event was sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature as part of its 50th anniversary celebration, and was cosponsored by the Department of English and the Jewish Studies Program.\n"Literary translation provides a conduit for the culture of one nation to flow into another nation," Breon Mitchell, professor of comparative literature and Germanic studies, said. "That's why I think (Ron's) work is so important."\nRon, a native of Tel Aviv, Israel, started by translating a Raymond Carver novel into Hebrew. He continued by publishing an anthology of 21 stories by American author Donald Bartleby. \n"I was interested in the type of authors who would publish their books in the fiction category," Ron said.\nRon focused on Raymond Carver, who he feels is a model writer for Israelis. He noted that Carver has a unique style that Hebrew literature has failed to accomplish in the past. \n"Israel is a small linguistic community of only about four million people, and I am using my skills to bring in literature from other broader cultures," he said. He said he feels that young Israeli authors have already begun to learn from translated texts, and hopes they will learn more in the future.\nIn the near future, Ron said he plans to publish a revised and enlarged version of his Bartleby anthology and an anthology of seven 19th-century authors from different countries, all involving portraits. The anthology will include American writers Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James.