Introduction

Untranslatability has never had a higher profile than at present in popular culture, but translators are always willing to rise to the challenge of at least paraphrasing “untranslatable” material, so does “untranslatable” in practice really mean anything more than “difficult to translate”? The term is in vogue in academic translation studies, too, largely thanks to Barbara Cassin and Emily Apter, whose work has highlighted the importance of translation problems to philosophical enquiry and world literature, respectively. This introductory chapter sets out some of the key terms of the untranslatability debate, and summarises the contributions to follow.