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"World literature," writes David Damrosch in What is World Literature? (2003), "is literature that gains in translation." This bold statement places translation at the heart of the project of world literary studies, while also overturning a supposed "truism" about translation as loss. To be sure, certain textual ele- ments are tightly bound to their existence in particular languages, such that the réinscription of a work in a new language is often perceived as loss. This understanding of translation rests on the deeply ingrained habit (often accom- panied by misguided expectations of linguistic "equivalence") of comparing translations with the originals they aim to represent. As such, it often overlooks the basic fact that every translation, even a poor translation, is a gain: like a new work of original writing, a translation gives us a text that quite simply did not exist before, written in a language with its own rich set of referents and literary mechanics.
The editors of this special section were invited to present a selection of some of the best new English translations of Modern Greek literature. We decided to publish prizewinning work from the 2013 MGSA Constantinides Memorial Translation Prize competition. The competition celebrates the gains that English translations of Greek works offer to readers, scholars, teachers, and students alike. It also celebrates the translators who undertake this difficult, often under-acknowledged and under-rewarded task. What, indeed,...