Q: How does one know, without resorting to reviews that can be confusing and contradictory – and of course not knowing the language in question – if the translation of a novel is a good one?
Paul Walton

A: Sam Taylor is an author and the translator of nearly 30 French novels including HHhH by Laurent Binet, and Lullaby by Leila Slimani
There are two answers to this question. One: one doesn’t. Two: judge for yourself. These answers may seem contradictory, but they’re not really. It all comes down to what you define as a “good translation”. Take the recent controversy about Deborah Smith’s translation of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, which won the 2016 Man Booker International prize. Most readers and critics loved it, so in that sense it was certainly a “good translation”.

Then came the backlash: Korean academics complaining about mistakes and a major alteration in the text’s tone and diction. So does that make it a “bad translation”?

Ultimately, it’s a question of taste. My personal ideal for a translation is one that makes the reader forget they are reading a translation at all, but not everyone feels the same way. There is no alternative translation of The Vegetarian as yet, so we have no point of comparison, but with most foreign classics there are several versions available. In that case, what you should do is read a few sentences – the same sentences – from each translation, and pick the one that you most enjoy. In the end, short of learning the language yourself, that is the only way to judge a good translation.

If you’ve got a question for Book Clinic, submit it below or email bookclinic@observer.co.uk