SOURCE: WASHINGTON POST

She made the marvels of Cervantes and Gabriel García Márquez available to English readers through her literary alchemy and championed translation as an art form in its own right

Edith Grossman, who made the marvels of Spanish and Latin American literature available to English readers through the alchemy of translation, an underappreciated craft that she championed as an art form in its own right, died Sept. 4 at her home in Manhattan. She was 87.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, said her stepson, Kory Grossman.

In the realm of literature, translators have traditionally been relegated to the shadows as “humble, anonymous handmaids-and-men,” in Dr. Grossman’s description, toiling in the service of writers regarded as immortal greats.

Dr. Grossman, one of the foremost practitioners of her profession, was content to play no such role. Taking on such works as “Don Quixote,” she insisted that her name appear on the cover alongside the author’s — Miguel de Cervantes, in the case of that 17th-century landmark of Western literature — and trumpeted the central role of translators in the world of letters.