Playing on Words: Challenges in Translating Umberto Eco’s Numero zero

The translation of Umberto Eco’s seventh and final novel involved rather different challenges to those I had previously encountered. I would like to look at four particular problems: firstly, rewriting, where certain passages cannot be translated literally; secondly, explaining, where references will be clear to readers in the original language but not to foreign readers; thirdly, cutting, where the translation would benefit from a little light pruning; and fourth, unusual words of the kind that seem to defy translation. Each are problems to be resolved in agreement with the author, or the editor, but raise questions about just how far a translator can go in making the text readable in the target language.