Daniel Hahn

Daniel's new book, If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation, is part love letter, part close reading, and part globe-trotting investigation — one that took him from Budapest theatre seats to Zoom calls with translators working in everything from Swahili to Bangla. It's a book that asks: when you change everything, can you still keep everything?

published in April 2026 - If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation by Daniel Hahn is a non-fiction book exploring how Shakespeare's plays are translated, adapted, and re-imagined for global audiences. It investigates the challenges of translating Shakespearean language, wordplay, and poetry across different cultures and languages.

Today, Award-winning Translator and editor Daniel Hahn is talking about his approach to translations, Evaluating a work of translation and his translation of the Portuguese novel 'Resistance' by Julian Fuks.


Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor, and translator with around a hundred books to his credit. His work includes translations from Europe, Africa, and the Americas (encompassing fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, and plays) and many nonfiction books, including The Oxford Companion to Chil...