The only language I know with any fluency is English. I want to read The Trial by Franz Kafka. The Trial was written in German and if I read an English translation I feel I am not really reading Kafka. Am i the only one who feels this way? Does it even matter?
Translation sets a certain distance between you and the work, that is inevitable. But so does time, for example. Should you not read anything from earlier than the 1950s because language has changed?