Gabriel García Márquez on Translators

"I have great admiration for translators except the ones who use footnotes. They are always trying to explain to the reader something which the author probably did not mean; since it's there the reader has to put up with it. Translating is a very difficult job, not at all rewarding, and very badly paid. A good translation is always a re-creation in another language. That's why I have such great admiration for Gregory Rabassa. My books have been translated into twenty-one languages and Rabassa is the only translator who has never asked for something to be clarified so he can put a footnote in. I think that my work has been completely re-created in English. There are parts of the book which are very difficult to follow literally. The impression one gets is that the translator read the book and then rewrote it from his recollections. That's why I have such admiration for translators. They are intuitive rather than intellectual. Not only is what publishers pay them completely miserable, but they don't see their work as literary creation. There are some books I would like to translate into Spanish, but they would have involved as much work as writing my own books and I wouldn't have made enough money to eat."

-- Gabriel García Márquez in an interview by Peter H. Stone ("The Art of Fiction No. 69". The Paris Review. Issue 82, Winter 1981).