In Praise Of Opacity

The view of translation as a second-rate, derivative form of writing, seems to prevail in Western discourse on the subject since sometime around the 17th century.
the lowly status of translation is reflected in standard book publishing practices and in modern copyright law. It is perhaps because of our desire to think of the translations as a trancparency, a clear window through which we see the meaning of the original, that we lose sight of the obvious impossibility of one-to-one correspondence and take for granted the presence of the translator and the choices and praxis involved in the task (Matvei Yankelevich).