Culture Talk

Translated fiction: which translators do you actually trust?

I've got into the habit, on night shifts with a quiet hour, of reading translated novels, and I've started noticing that I follow certain translators more than certain authors.

Edith Grossman's Don Quixote made me laugh out loud. Deborah Smith brought Han Kang into English and started a whole argument about faithfulness versus voice. Philip Gabriel and Jay Rubin give Haruki Murakami quite different flavours, and once you notice it you can't stop noticing.

So, two questions. Whose name on a cover makes you buy a book? And for those who read in two languages: has a translation ever made you angry because it got your own language wrong?