New Selected Stories by Thomas Mann, translated by Damion Searls

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'New Selected Stories' by Thomas Mann

In the 20th century, humor was often lost in translation. The prevailing attitude of the men and women who translated foreign language literature into English was that the work by important writers just couldn’t be funny. They’re too serious! A similar bias has always prevailed at the Academy Awards whose Best Picture voters favor drama over comedy. But at least in literature, the prejudice is lessening. Examples include a new translation of The Brothers Karamazov, revealing Dostoyevsky’s sharp satire, and a collection that uncovers the funny side of Thomas Mann.

The introduction to Mann’s New Selected Stories by translator Damion Searls is worth reading for his thoughts on the meaning of literature and ethnicity as well as the art of translation. And art it is, because a translation can be right and still be wrong. 

New Selected Stories offers an often-radical reintroduction to the German author. Even the names of some stories have changed. The collection’s opener, “Chaotic World and Childhood Sorrow,” is a fresh title for “Disorder and Early Sorrow,” as it was previously rendered in English in 1936. Searls explains that the earlier translator’s title was “too wan and genteel” and unpacks the full implications of the story Mann called “Unordnung und frühes Leid.” 

Although Mann is understood as characteristically German, his mother was Brazilian. On closer examination, she was half-Creole, meaning partially of African descent. Searls explores the implications with penetrating insight. So, Mann isn’t exactly a dead white male (not that this should be pejorative), but Searls, following African American essayist Brandon Taylor, refuses to allow the work of “ethnic” writers to be “reduced to testimonials of identity.”

And perhaps most of all, Mann is often warm and surprisingly funny in Searls’ translation. Here’s hoping Searls’ next project will be Doctor Faustus, considered one of Mann’s great novels but hard to read in its 1948 translation.