If This Be Magic

Shakespeare was an English writer of the sixteenth century, yet every year millions of readers from Bogotá to Borneo meet Hamlet for the first time in their own language. Daniel Hahn's book asks a deceptively simple question: when every single word of a play has been replaced, what is it that still makes it Shakespeare?

Hahn looks at the many small and large problems translators face. There are word order, puns and punctuation, metaphor, accent and song. Romeo and Juliet's first exchange forms a sonnet in English, so what happens to it in a language where the lines cannot rhyme or fit that shape? How do you build wordplay around the letter "I" and its sound when other languages give that letter no such meanings? Translators must cut or add beats, keep rhymes alive, adapt names and places, and hold on to meaning without always putting it first, all the while aware that for every line they settle on, another possible version is still waiting to be found.

To see how it is done, Hahn draws on the work of some of the finest Shakespeare translators and travels the world to talk with writers and actors who work with the plays. His versions of the Bard turn up in Chinese, Dutch, Turkish and well over a hundred other languages. He also brings his own stories, including that his great-grandfather produced one of Brazil's earliest Shakespeare translations.

You need no second language and only a passing familiarity with the plays to enjoy it, though it offers fresh insight into both. Hahn is a funny, enthusiastic and nerdy guide, and there is even a chapter devoted to commas. It is a warm, readable tribute to Shakespeare and to the translators who carry him across the world.