In a comment to my previous post on Writers Worth Day, Sam Berner asks:
So tell me - you don't believe in the translator's invisibility, do you, if you see yourself as a writer? I am struggling with this "invisibility" issue, trying to fathom where it comes from - which sacred cannon - and would love to hear your thoughts on it.
I'm not sure that viewing myself as a writer is necessarily incompatible with translator invisibility. If a text is well translated, by someone with good writing skills, then it should read like a piece of original prose in the target language. The fact that it's a translation is therefore invisible.
On the wider question, though, and when it comes to literary translation, I think Sam has a point. Why is translator invisibility considered by some to be such a holy grail? Why should the translator, alone among creative professionals, be invisible? Shouldn't translators be viewed, like actors, musicians, dancers and stage directors, as artists in their own right and as interpreters of the original author's work?
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