Free translation

Or the Borges school of international journalism.

“The original is unfaithful to the translation,” the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges wrote. As I share that line—which the magic realist penned in Spanish—in English, it seems that even his droll notion lacks fidelity to its repackaged form.

Another time, we can address whether the sort of faithfulness Borges had in mind is useful. It would be unus…