If This Be Magic

How does Shakespeare remain Shakespeare when every word is changed? In this playful, meditative exploration of translating the world’s most beloved playwright, Daniel Hahn guides us through the magic of bringing the Bard to a global audience. "For those who care deeply about language, and about Shakespeare. . . this will be a treasured book." —James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of Shakespeare“A deliciously fresh reading of Shakespeare. . . . It is a stirring celebration of the plurality of languages.” —The Wall Street JournalShakespeare may have breathed the air of sixteenth-century England, but today, all the world is his stage. Every year, millions of people, from Bogotá to Borneo, read Hamlet for the first time, thanks to the tireless work of translators. Drawing on the work of the very best of them, Hahn dives into the infinitesimally complicated ways the great playwright is reinvented and yet sounds, somehow, like himself—in Chinese, Dutch, Turkish, and more than a