After Babel Revisited: On language and Translation. In Memoriam George Steiner (1929–2020)

Abstract

On February 3, 2020, one of the most interesting scholars in humanities, especially in literary research and translation studies, died: George Steiner. Sometimes labelled as a genius, sometimes as someone who was always outside the mainstream and acting as an inconvenient thinker, he did his part in the humanities in a fresh and in a provocative way. The following article wants to shed some light on his basic writing entitled After Babel, originally published in 1975 and reviewed by himself in 1992. In doing so, this article is about to honour him for his challenging statements, insights and discussion on language and translation to be not forgotten by recent and future generations of researchers.