If This Be Magic

What does it mean to translate Shakespeare into another language? When we change all the poetry, all the wordplay, all the syntax – all the words! – is it still Shakespeare? And if we do all this, is it still any good?

Award-winning translator and Shakespeare fanatic Daniel Hahn considers all these questions and more in his scintillating book If This Be Magic, which gets into the nerdy nuts and bolts of how you translate the Bard’s work into more than 30 different world languages. From why Hamlet might be even longer in Japanese to how you rebuild a 400-year-old joke into a new culture but with none of the same words; the book reminds us that it is through the graft and ingenuity of translators that Shakespeare’s works are known and revered across the world.

Join Daniel for some fascinating revelations about the craft of translation and the enduring power of words.

Chaired by Rosie Goldsmith