Borges translation?

...onlly 20+ years back I should say, with some relief, that 30 was looking pretty intense

still awake, i dug around a little - here's a letter from one of my professors, Dick Barnes, to Variaciones Borges, airing out his grievances with the estate and with, mainly, Viking (later Viking/Penguin I think). as I now work in books I do find some notes here a little odd - for example I personally would not undertake a lengthy work of translation unless and until I was under contract, because you never know where you stand until you're under contract. but the case for publication of the translations seems strong to me both on the merits of the work & the testimony of Merwin, Wilbur, et al; I treasure my copy of the small selection Bob gave me some years back.

anyway, an interesting read. Dick Barnes died in May of 2000.

https://www.borges.pitt.edu/sites/default/files/0518.pdf

Thanks Dow and Chachi.

Remarkable document, thanks! Those verses---and so Merwin, Wilbur, Hollander withdrew permissions for their translations in protest, woo. Yeah, I've done extended writing on spec even when I was way too dependent on contract income, but sometimes that's---what happens.

way too dependent on *freelance* contract income, that is (def not rec).

Finally just now read A Universal History of Infamy (Dutton PB 1979, trans. by Di G.): each entry is just a few pages, and some may have just a few words that strike ancient notes of dread, doom, awe, blind memory, as our chatty tour guide takes us down the buried corridor, past the niche---so easy to just keep turning pages, 'til I find myself maxed out on infamy for the day or night, however flat some of the delivery (Di G. makes sure we feel the key details through sandals, also the overall distance covered in each little tromp). Nothing but surfaces, the author assures us in two intros, the self-amusement of a young man "who was unhappy," and we start with sociopaths carving their way through American wildernesses of infamy and other wilderness, but always with a few engaging quirks in the see-and-raise audacity of the lonely, latter several accounts of seekers going forth and down, often somewhat more obediently than the Americans--in abjection, and/or with a secret purpose, to a lowest point, where the worm can turn: lots of vengence in here.
Then again, there's the theologian who just keeps writing, leaving out the role of charity in salvation: he doesn't know he's dead, and the angels come around, present him with opportunities to change his mind, so he can get into or nearer heaven, or not the bad place, but even when he senses what is missing, and includes charity, his words soon disappear, because he doesn't really mean it, and he can't change his nature, nor can the angels, and his punishment, his fate, is cause and effect, nature beyond nature, the system---oops spoiler, but I left out some powerful imagery, and the experience that you can only get from reading the original.
(Not all of these are equally effective, and a couple of bonus tracks are only that, but overall effect---!)

*Later* several accounts, I meant (faves are in the Middle East)

I’ve got the Hurley translation in the collected edition which I bought in 1999 and finally read… today?

So I loved “Forking Paths” but, having read this thread, am I doing a disservice reading this translation — is there another translator that’s conclusively better?

Would be great to hear anyone’s recommended stories too

I haven't read much Hurley, but all the other translations I've come across seemed pretty good--Alfred says the original Spanish text is tight, clean, so I guess hard to mess up, pretty much---but for nuanced precision my fave is Norman Thomas Di Giovanni, as mentioned upthread (good discussions on here). xpost Universal History of Infamy is the latest read from my JLB/NDG stash. Several translations mention a bar of sulphur in a desk drawer; Di G. presents it as "a candle."

"a sulphur candle," that is---sorry!