Swann in Love, by Marcel Proust, a new translation by Brian Nelson #BookReview

I feel I’ve had a privileged insight into the birth of this book.  Back in April, it was my good fortune to attend a Celebration of French Literature hosted by AALITRA (the national association for literary translators) at which notable French translators Julie Rose and Brian Nelson spoke about the translation of their latest works. Julie spoke about translating Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, and Brian read from and talked about his new translation of Proust’s Swann in Love for Oxford World’s Classics, 2017.

Now I have read Proust, the 2002 Penguin edition published in six volumes, which I read over many months back in 2004-5.  The Penguin translation was notable for having had different translators for each volume, which serves to highlight the monumental achievement of C.K. Scott Moncrieff in translating the whole thing between 1922 and 1930.  (Du Côte de chez Swann was first published in 1913, with the last…