Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In Fictional Translators, Rosemary Arrojo explores the possibilities of fiction for a reflection on the nature of translation. Drawing on a range of fictional works from Borges to Kafka and Poe to Calvino, Arrojo focuses on the transformative character of the translator's role in the production of translations. In exploring these stories and novels, we see how they can illuminate rarely explored issues such as the psychology that underlies the power relationships often at work in the writing of translations. This book is key reading for students and researchers of Literary Translation, Comparative Literature and Translation Theory.
Synopsis
Through close readings of select stories and novels by well-known writers from different literary traditions, Fictional Translators invites readers to rethink the main cliches associated with translations and shines a light on the transformative character of the translator's role and the relationships that can be established between originals and their reproductions. Arrojo expertly builds her arguments on the basis of texts such as the following:
- Cortazar
's -Letter to a Young Lady in Paris-
- Walsh's -Footnote-
- Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Poe's -The Oval Portrait-
- Borges's -Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, - -Funes, His Memory, - and -Death and the Compass-
- Kafka's -The Burrow- and Kosztolanyi's Kornel Esti
- Saramago's The History of the Siege of Lisbon and Babel's -Guy de Maupassant-
- Scliar's -Footnotes- and Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
- Cervantes's Don Quixote
Fictional Translators provides stimulating material for reflection not only on the processes associated with translation as an activity that inevitably transforms meaning, but, also, on the common prejudices that have underestimated its productive role in the shaping of identities. This book is key reading for students and researchers of Literary Translation, Comparative Literature and Translation Theory.