Chang-Rae Lee Quotes

The English book world is relatively closed to translation, so only a small amount of foreign language work can come in.

I wish more Italian literature were translated and read in English. I've discovered so many extraordinary and diverse writers: Lalla Romano, Carlo Cassola. Beppe Fenoglio, Giorgio Manganelli, just to name a few.

Sweden is a small country, and a Swedish writer can barely make a living as an author. We were able to quit our jobs as journalists only after we had been translated into, among others, German.

If you're a Norwegian writer, you are not visible in the world. The door of the English language is very hard to open for a Norwegian writer.

One effect that the Nobel Prize seems to have had is that more Arabic literary works have been translated into other languages.

A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations.

I rarely ever put my head above the rampart and see where this big lumbering behemoth called 'global literature' is going.

Sometimes I wonder how my life would have worked out if my books had been translated into English sooner, because English is the language that's spoken worldwide, and when a book appears in English it is made universal, it becomes a global publication.

Of course my books are translated into many languages. I have here, in my home, translations on my shelf of my books into forty-five different languages. Almost none of them I can read. I can read only the English editions. But, I know that a translation of a work of literature is like playing a violin concerto on the piano. You can do this. You can do this very successfully on one strict condition: never try to force the piano to produce the sounds of the violin. This will be grotesque. So, different musical instruments provide for different music.

Hindi film industry makes film for the rest of the world. Tamil films are watched by Malay people. When a film is not bound by a language, why should an actor be?

When you've finished reading every last thing by a famous writer, literary convention holds that you move on to his or her letters, the DVD extras peddled by publishers.

It's so wild to be able to say that I can do shows in front of thousands of people and have them sing my songs in Korean and in English - that is wild to me.

Music is common language. I can sing 'Bebot' in front of white people and they will dance.

When I went to London, they told me I spoke with a funny accent - English with a Chinese accent.

Language doesn't seem to be a barrier for me to do films in the south.

I think that a lot of teams aren't as close-knit as we are because a lot of the Spanish speakers don't know English and some of the English guys don't care to try and learn Spanish and relate to Latin players.

I grew up around Vietnamese refugees, around people who don't speak English as a first language.

Being able to play all over the world to different audiences and have them sing my lyrics back to me, even if they can't speak the same language, is crazy.

In America, they don't need to look outside their country for anything, so they definitely don't need to look elsewhere for rappers with weird accents that they have to get accustomed to, which is like homework to them.

I'm inspired by many artists whose language I don't understand.

To be selling out shows and these kids who don't speak English singing along every word? It's wild.

I guess people feel that if you're working with good directors and are known in the Hindi film industry, then you won't work in South films. However, I believe that films have no boundaries of language, religion, or cast. If it's a good script and a good director, I can do a film in Spanish as well.

The advantage of doing away with words is that you can reach out to any part of the world.

It's rare to find an Indian who speaks Chinese. It's rare to find a Chinese who can speak any of the Indian languages. Neither of them at the trading level - I want to repeat this, at the trading level - can speak English, either.

The last thing an Englishman wants to hear is a man from Brussels trying to imitate his language - you want to hear a different point of view. You may not be able to understand the details, but you can understand the feeling.