Translation, Maureen Freely said at a recent conference in Qatar, is a feminine, or feminized, act. The translator must remain faithful to the author's words; the contemporary translator is largely invisible; she (or he) is the helpmeet of the more powerful, more famous author.

Freely is best known for her work translating the Nobel Prize-winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk. And it is clear, in reading Pamuk's dedication to the English version of his most recent novel, that he took pains to direct the translation. The dedication to The Museum of Innocence acknowledges not Freely, but instead others who helped perfect the English text: Sila Olcur, editor George Andreou, fellow author Kiran Desai.