ABSTRACT
Thomas Mann knew exactly why translation mattered. Every language in the world is a minority language because no single language is spoken by the majority of the world’s population. If graduate students happen to be a writer working in one of these minority languages, especially if it is not one of the larger minority languages like English or Chinese but a smaller one like German, their books need to be translated if they are to find a readership beyond the confines of their original tongue. If graduate students’ work is translated, especially if it is translated into several languages or into one of the world’s larger languages, it can reach audiences many times the size of that of the original publication. Thomas Mann showed a keen interest in the translation of his books into English.
