On Self-Translation: Meditations on Language

This is a collection of essays, interviews, and other ephemera previously published by the author Ilan Stavans in other formats and brought together here for the first time. These essays run from long ones published as introductions to shorter ones published in magazines and everything in between; they all deal with the same topic, in a general sense, as meditations on language. From translating your own writing from one language to another to thinking about the alphabet and why it is the way it is. In collections such as this, there is no need to read from front to back, as each selection is self-contained and stands on its own. But that brings up the other end as well, there is really nothing new and no new thinking; everything here has been published before and often in non-academic settings. So there is not much to commend this book to students wanting to know more about language, other than it might help younger students that do not want to get bogged down in minutiae.