"'Tis not in mortals to command success; but we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it."

Joseph Addison, ‘Cato’.

I am an Australian male, I like to write poetry and am interested in translation, especially German to English. Have done my own translations of Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front) which was used for study in Australian universities, and Der Steppenwolf (Steppenwolf.) Also attempted Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice) but got defeated by Mann's (entirely understandable) need to be obtuse.

In my opinion, poor linguistic and cultural translation has caused many of history's disasters. If Im Westen Nichts Neues could have been studied in schools from the 1920s in Germany, instead of being banned as it was by the Nazis, a lot could have been done to avoid another world war. And if it could have been studied in a good translation in the English-speaking world, also great results might have been achieved. The book is that good.

I am also very interested in the work of Prem Rawat (Maharaji). His work has been of great benefit to me personally, and many others, but also suffers from the gulf between the inner experience he speaks of, and the cultural concepts that most of us English-speakers share.

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This URL tells you how many users have my homepage on their watchlist. [1] (All for the best and most altruistic reasons, of course.)