Today’s Guardian Review includes a reasonable piece by Jennie Erdal on literary translation. It has no especially profound insights to offer on the process/art/act of translation but is more concerned with the profile of translators and translation in the world of books in the UK (woeful, but improving slightly). However, I liked the final sentence:

“Translators let us see another way of life, other possibilities, other matters, other manners, increasing the understanding between nations far better than politicians.”

This is a significant function not only of translation but of much art of whatever form.