James Joyce's astonishing final text, Finnegans Wake (1939), is universally acknowledged to be entirely untranslatable. And yet, no fewer than fifteen complete renderings of the 628-page text exist to date, in twelve different languages altogether – and at least ten further complete renderings have been announced as underway for publication in the early 2020s, in nine different languages.

Finnegans Wakes delineates, for the first time in any language, the international history of these renderings and discusses the multiple issues faced by translators. The book also comments on partial and fragmentary renderings from some thirty languages altogether, including such perhaps unexpected languages as Galician, Guarani, Chinese, Korean, Turkish, and Irish, not to mention Latin and Ancient Egyptian. Excerpts from individual renderings are analysed in detail, together with brief biographical notes on numerous individual translators.

Chronicling renderings spanning multiple decades, Finnegans Wakes illustrates the capacity of Joyce's final text to generate an inexhaustible multiplicity of possible meanings among the ever-increasing number of its impossible translations.

Patrick O’Neill is a professor emeritus in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Queen’s University.

Patrick O'Neill's profile page

"Patrick O’Neill’s Finnegans Wakes: Tales of Translation serves up a rich, welcome translation history of Joyce’s book that not only reveals how far the Wake has come in eighty years but likewise yields tantalizing avenues for further exploration."

<em>James Joyce Literary Supplement</em>

"With a seventeen-page chronology of all the translations of Finnegans Wake (FW), in part and whole, a comprehensive Bibliography, as well as an Appendix specifically only of all known ALP translations, Finnegans Wakes is an invaluable reference work. Finnegans Wakes makes for quite fascinating reading as well, and should especially be of considerable interest to anyone interested in FW and/or in translation."

<em>The Complete Review</em>