Self-Translation and Power: Negotiating Identities in European Multilingual Contexts

Description

This book investigates the political, social, cultural and economic implications of self-translation in multilingual spaces in Europe. Engaging with the ‘power turn’ in translation studies contexts, it offers innovative perspectives on the role of self-translators as cultural and ideological mediators. The authors explore the unequal power relations and centre-periphery dichotomies of Europe’s minorised languages, literatures and cultures. They recognise that the self-translator’s double affiliation as author and translator places them in a privileged position to challenge power, to negotiate the experiences of the subaltern and colonised, and to scrutinise conflicting minorised vs. hegemonic cultural identities. Three main themes are explored in relation to self-translation: hegemony and resistance; self-minorisation and self-censorship; and collaboration, hybridisation and invisibility. This edited collection will appeal to scholars and students working on translation, transnational and postcolonial studies, and multilingual and multicultural identities. Front Matter ....Pages i-xv Introduction: Self-Translating, from Minorisation to Empowerment (Olga Castro, Sergi Mainer, Svetlana Page)....Pages 1-22 Front Matter ....Pages 23-23 Babel in (Spite of) Belgium: Patterns of Self-Translation in a Bilingual Country (Rainier Grutman)....Pages 25-49 The Three Powers of Self-Translating or Not Self-Translating: The Case of Contemporary Occitan Literature (1950–1980) (Christian Lagarde)....Pages 51-70 Self-Translation as Testimony: Halide Edib Rewrites The Turkish Ordeal (Mehtap Ozdemir)....Pages 71-92 Front Matter ....Pages 93-93 The Failure of Self-Translation in Catalan Literature (Josep Miquel Ramis)....Pages 95-117 The Power and Burden of Self-Translation: Representation of “Turkish Identity” in Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul (Arzu Akbatur)....Pages 119-141 Self-Translation and Linguistic Reappropriation: Juan Gelman’s Dibaxu (Brandon Rigby)....Pages 143-164 Self-Translating Between Minor and Major Languages: A Hospitable Approach in Bernardo Atxaga’s Obabakoak (Harriet Hulme)....Pages 165-188 Front Matter ....Pages 189-189 Collaborative Self-Translation in a Minority Language: Power Implications in the Process, the Actors and the Literary Systems Involved (Elizabete Manterola Agirrezabalaga)....Pages 191-215 Collaborative Self-Translation as a Catastrophe: The Case of Vadim Kozovoï in French (Julia Holter)....Pages 217-240 Beyond Self-Translation: Amara Lakhous and Translingual Writing as Case Study (Rita Wilson)....Pages 241-264 Writing Beyond the Border: Max Frisch, Dialect and Place in Swiss-German Literature (Marc Cesar Rickenbach)....Pages 265-287 Back Matter ....Pages 289-302