Umberto Eco's Translation As Negotiation In Mouse Or Rat?

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Umberto Eco, a bestselling and renowned Italian novelist, literary critic, philosopher and professor at the University of Bologna, is known internationally for his novel Il nome della rosa, published in 1980. In all his works, this writer always combines semiotic in fiction with biblical analysis, earlier investigations, literary theory, languages and studies on translation. Owing to the wide range of themes and his capacity, he is one of the most brilliant writers able to produce a book which can sound interesting and very approachable with the subtitle "Translation as Negotiation".
In Mouse or Rat?, by reason of his own experiences as a translator, editor and also his work with different groups of translators, Eco recollects, shows and explains a series of essays and lectures given in Toronto and Oxford, not only about the obstacles and difficulties related to the issue of translation, but also about its delights and …show more content…

Some of them could have been avoided, because sometimes he sounds a little repetitive and some of them are very long. In addition, we may also not be really familiar with every language he uses, so in several examples and quotes a great deal of the nuances are lost. It would be better to have a working knowledge of languages as Italian, German, French and Spanish in order to understand better the book.
Apart from this, Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation, is a good and entertaining book written by Umberto Eco about a really fascinating subject, translation. It is written in a humorous and enjoyable style and is not strictly linguistic, so, in different ways, he make us feel comfortable with the topics which are covered. As Goethe said, "When one learns a foreign language, one acquires a new country". That is why I think that, with this book, Eco make us understand the pleasure of being able to speak different

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