Description
Book SynopsisIn choosing to render dialect and vernacular speech into Scots, Bill Findlay, to whose memory this volume is dedicated, made a pioneering contribution in safeguarding the authenticity of voices in translation. The scene of the book is set by an overview of approaches to rendering foreign voices in English translation including those of the people to whom Findlay introduced us in his Scots dialect versions of European plays. Martin Bowman, his frequent co-translator follows with a discussion of their co-translation of playwright Jeanne-Mance Delisle. Different ways of bridging the cultural divide in the translation between English and a number of plays written in a number of European languages are then illustrated including the custom of creating English versions, an approach rejected by contributions that argue in favour of minimal intervention on the part of the translator. But transferring the social and cultural milieu that the speakers of other languages inhabit may also cause problems in translation, as discussed by some translators of fiction. In addition attention is drawn to the translators’ own attitude and the influence of the time in which they live. In conclusion, stronger forces in the form of political events are highlighted that may also, adversely or positively, have a bearing on the translation process.
Trade ReviewThis book an insight into various cultural issues in relation to different aspects of literary translation. It devotes a large part to the discussion of play translation from various angles. It raises some very interesting points about this special area of translation, which are very much worth reading and considering. It is a book that is worth reading for anyone who would like to explore or further explore some special aspects of literary translation.
* Leong Ko, The University of Queensland in Babel 57:3, 2011 *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. Voices in Translation
2. From Rouyn to Lerwick: The Vernacular Journey of Jeanne-Mance Delisle’s ‘The Reel of the Hanged Man’ - Martin Bowman
3. Speaking the World: Drama in Scots Translation - John Corbett
4. Staging Italian Theatre. A Resistant Approach - Stefania Taviano
5. The Style of Translation: Dialogue with the Author - Joseph Farrell
6. Chekhov in the Theatre: The Role of the Translator in New Versions - Helen Rappaport
7. The Cultural Engagements of Stage Translation: Federico García Lorca in Performance - David Johnston
8. To Be or Not To Be (Untranslatable): Strindberg in Swedish and English - Gunilla Anderman
9. Mind the Gap: Translating the ‘Untranslatable’ - Margaret Jull Costa
10. Alice in Denmark - Viggo Hjørnager Pedersen and Kirsten Nauja Andersen
11. Little Snowdrop and The Magic Mirror: Two Approaches to Creating a ‘Suitable’ Translation in Nineteenth-Century England - Niamh Chapelle and Jenny Williams
12. From Dissidents to Bestsellers. Polish Literature in English Translation After the End of the Cold War - Piotr Kuhiwczak
