Self-translation

Call for papers: Arena Romanistica

2012-01-31T02:43:00.000+01:00

Arena Romanistica is an international peer-reviewed journal published by the Department of Foreign Languages, University of Bergen. In its next issue Arena Romanistica wishes to focus on translation. One of the possible topics is self-translation.
Call Deadline: 01-Mar-2012
Please find the complete call for papers here.

Stylesheet and submission procedures are available at the website:
http://arenaromanistica.uib.no/

Round table with Vassilis Alexakis

2011-12-12T09:41:00.001+01:00

Today is Vassilis Alexakis birthday, so all my best wishes to him. Next chance to meet him will be tomorrow in Paris, where he will be one of the participants of a round table on translation and multilingualism.

Round Table: Traduction et multilinguisme
Date: December, 13, 2011 at 10 am
Place: Collège de France, Paris.

The round table is part of a conference on "Diplomatie culturelle" which will take place today and tomorrow. For more information and to follow a live stream of the entire conference, please click here.

New collection of essays on self-translation

2011-12-11T21:18:00.001+01:00

At the conference on self-translation in Perpigan Xosé Manuel Dasilva and Helena Tanqueiro presented a new collection of essays on self-translation, Aproximaciones a la autotraducción, which they both have edited. The book includes contributions among many others by Maria Alice Antunes, Rainier Grutman. Patricia López López-Gay, Valentina Mercuri, Francesc Parcerisas and Julió-César Santoyo. All articles are written in Spanish. To see the list of articles published in the book, please click here.
I especially look forward to read the article on basque self-translation by Elizabete Manterola Agirrezabalaga, who talked about Atxaga's self-translation at the conference in Perpignan. Due to parallel sessions I couldn't attend her talk, so I am looking forward to at least read about her research.

Xosé Manuel Dasilva y Helena Tanqueiro (eds.): Aproximaciones a la autotraducción 2011, 262 pp. / 49,00 € ISBN 978-84-15175-18-6a

Impressions from the Perpignan Conference on self-translation

2011-12-11T20:55:00.001+01:00

If you missed the conference on self-translation in Perpignan in October, you can read about it in a blog entry (written in French) by Jean-Rene Lasalle, poet and self-translator, who participated in the multilingual round table on self-translation with Francesc Paresias, Philippe Gardy and Antoni Marí. Some contributions of the conference will be published in conference proceedings.

Reasons against self-translation

2011-12-11T14:57:00.001+01:00

In an interview with the New York Times the trilingual playwright Jonas Hassen Khemiri’ explains why he opted against self-translating his play from Swedish to English: “It’s almost impossible to translate your own words,” he said. “You need someone who’s a bit rough with the text, who can challenge it and take it for a ride.”

Lecture on Nabokov

2011-12-11T14:50:00.001+01:00

Olga Anokhina will give a lecture on Nabokov's trilingual writing on Friday, March 9, 2012 in Paris.

Title: « Traduction et ré-écriture chez Vladimir Nabokov : genèse d’une œuvre en trois langues »
Place: 59/61 rue POUCHET 75017 Paris, 3ème étage. Salle 311
Date: Friday, March 9, 2012

Source: http://www.item.ens.fr/index.php?id=578079

Lecture on Beckett's Mercier et Camier

2011-12-11T14:45:00.001+01:00

Chiara Montini will give a lecture on Beckett's self-translation in the case of "Mercier et Camier" on Friday, May 11, 2012 in Paris.

Title: « Ecriture en langue étrangère, autotraduction et traduction. Genèse et réception d'un texte bilingue. Le cas de "Mercier et Camier" de Samuel Beckett »
Place: 59/61 rue POUCHET 75017 Paris, 3ème étage. Salle 311
Date: Friday, May 11, 2012

Source: http://www.item.ens.fr/index.php?id=578079

Self-translation in the Caribbean

2011-11-07T21:46:00.000+01:00

For those of you, who are working on self-translation in the Caribbean, the call for papers "Translating the Caribbean" by Small Axe might be interesting:

"We invite contributors working in any of the languages of the Caribbean to participate in a generative conversation surrounding translation and the real and imagined multiculturalism of the Americas in papers that might address (among other topics):

language(s) in/and/of exile – class, travel, and writing from the Caribbean
francophonie in/and Haiti
multilinguality, scholarship, and pedagogy in Caribbean Studies
the viability and legitimacy of a designated lingua franca in the Caribbean
the relevance of translation to issues of (il)literacy
the place of Creole(s) in scholarship of the Caribbean
translation and the literary history of the Caribbean
translation in Caribbean cultural theory
translation and the history of Caribbean journals
the limitations of translation: what is untranslatable in the transcolonial Caribbean?

Abstracts of 250-300 words and short bios should be sent to submissions@smallaxe.net by 15 December 2011. Accepted abstracts will be confirmed by 15 January 2012. Final papers of no more than 6000 words must be submitted 31 May 2012." (source: http://repeatingislands.com/2011/11/03/call-for-papers-translating-the-caribbean-in-small-axe/)

Michael Idov

2011-10-30T23:01:00.001+01:00

Nearly 2 years ago I posted a link to a blogpost by Michael Idov, in which he wrote about his experience of self-translating his novel Ground up. Two years later his self-translation is now announced to be a topic at the 2012 AATSEEL Conference which will take place in January 2012 in Seattle:
January 6, 1:45pm-3:30pm
6C-5 Panel: Slavic Culture and Translation
Panelist: Adrian Wanner, Pennsylvania State U
Title: From Ground Up to Kofemolka: Michael Idov’s Self-Translation

Journée d'étude Alexakis - Un romancier entre deux cultures

2011-10-30T01:49:00.000+02:00

A journée d'étude on Vassilis Alexakis will take place in Amiens, France on Friday 25 November. Now the program has been published. There will be 5 talks during the day, 2 focusing on self-translation:

Ligia Ferreira - Sao Paulo : « Migrations littéraires : auto-traduction et dialogues interculturels entre le sujet auteur et ses langues : le cas de Vassilis Alexakis »
Alain Ausoni - Oxford :: « Une explication avec la langue française : autobiographie et translinguisme chez Vassilis Alexakis»

Vassilis Alexakis will be present at the end of the journée d'étude at 4 pm. The event takes place at the Bibliothèque Louis Aragon, Rue de la République, Amiens, France.

The Black Hat: On Self-Translation and Freedom

2011-10-16T02:20:00.001+02:00

Just the other day I was trying to find self-translations from Inuit languages, but I was not successful. A few minutes ago, I found a blogpost by Olafur Gunnarsson, who apparently self-translates between Icelandic and English. Although Icelandic is not an Inuit language, my list of self-translators now reached the North....
So if you are interested, in what Olafur Gunnarsson has to tell about the black hat and his experience as a self-translator, please visit the wonderful blog WordsWithoutBorders.

Conference "Le choix du vulgaire : france, Italie, Espagne (XIIIe-XVI siècles)"

2011-10-11T02:49:00.000+02:00

Self-translation will be a topic at the Conference "Le choix du vulgaire : france, Italie, Espagne (XIIIe-XVI siècles)" taking place at Paris, France from 17.11.2011 - 18.11.2011.

The whole session on Friday morning is dedicated to self-translation:
Pratiques de l’auto-traduction

9h30-10h00 : Lucia Bertolini, (Université de Florence) : « Latino-volgare e viceversa : le autotraduzioni a Firenze fra XV e XVI ».
10h45-11h15 : Jean-Pierre Jardin, (Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle) : « De la Regum Hispanorum Anacephaleosis (1456) à la Genealogía de los Reyes (1463) : deux projets pour une seule oeuvre ? ».
11h30-12h : Marie-Christine Gomez-Géraud (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre-La Défense) : « Du latin au français, du dialogue au récit de pèlerinage : Jean du Blioul et son entreprise d’auto-traduction à la fin du XVIe siècle »

For more information on the conference, please click here.

Conference "Traduction et partages"

2011-10-11T02:44:00.000+02:00

Self-translation will be a topic at the Conference "Traduction et partages: que pensons-nous devoir transmettre ?" taking place at Bordeaux, France from 27.10.2011 - 29.10.2011.

On Thursday, 27.10.11 at 10.30am:
Robert Kahn (Université de Rouen) « La vieille loi de la vénerie : Walter Benjamin et l’auto-traduction »

On Friday, 28.10.11 at 2.00 pm
- Rainier Grutman (Université d’Ottawa, Canada) « Qui a peur de Nancy Huston? Autotraduction et auctoritas »

For more information on the conference, please click here

"Bilinguisme, double culture, littératures

2011-09-11T14:30:00.000+02:00

- Traversées poétiques des langues et des écritures" is the title of another interesting blog to discover, where you can find information on conferences, interviews and some self-portraits of bilingual authors which mainly include quotes on the topic of language choice and bilingualism taken from their published works.

La Francopolyphonie

2011-09-05T00:42:00.002+02:00

I would like to introduce to a great blog called La Francopolyphonie.
La Francopolyphonie is a yearly peer-reviewed journal.
You can find free access to all issues and articles on this blog.

There are many, many interesting articles, some also on self-translation as for instance:
Tamara CEBAN, La problématique de l’autotraduction chez Panaït Istrati
or on self-translators like Alexakis:
Elena-Branduşa STEICIUC, Vassilis Alexakis: le passage d’une langue à l’autre

The articles are written in Romanian or French.

61th Annual Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference

2011-09-01T23:17:00.000+02:00

Self-translation will be a topic at the 61th Annual Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference, taking place from 29 September - 1st October 2011at the Auburn University in Alabama:

30 September 11:30am
Marianne Bessy: Les catégories de littératures 'française' et 'francophone' face aux bilinguisme d'écriture et à l'autotraduction : résistance et déstabilisation.

Conference "Literary Dislocations / Déplacements littéraires"

2011-09-01T22:53:00.001+02:00

Self-translation will be a topic at the 4th International REELC/ENCLS Congress: "Literary Dislocations / Déplacements littéraires" from 01.09.2011 - 03.09.2011.

Saturday, September 3rd
Christine Lombez (France): Soi-même comme un autre : déplacements de l’énonciation au cours du processus d’autotraduction (V. Alexakis, Paris-Athènes)

For more information please click here.

"Self-translation is never innocent..."

2011-09-01T21:47:00.003+02:00

I just came across a very interesting blog entry by Ken MacLeod about a panel discussion on the Gaelic-English self-translator Sorley MacLean at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011.
The main topic according to these notes was the "'doube-edged sword' of translation and the parlous situation of the Gaelic language". Please read his blog entry to learn more about it.

For further information on Gaelic-English self-translation I highly recommend to read the works by Corinna Krause:

Krause, Corinna (2005): Finding the Poem – Modern Gaelic Verse and the Contact Zone. In: Forum 1 ‘Origins and Originality’. Edinburgh University. Online available.
Krause, Corinna (2005): Translating Gaelic Scotland. The culture of translation in the context of modern Scottish Gaelic Literature. Paper presented at the Fourth Mercator International Symposium on Minority Languages, Aberystwyth, 26–28 October.
Krause, Corinna (2008): Voicing the Minority: Self-translation and the Quest for the Voice in a Scottish Gaelic Context. In: Paschalis Nikolaou, Maria-Venetia Kyritsi, und Mona Baker (eds.): Translating Selves. Experience and Identity between languages. London: Continuum, pp. 125–140.

Vassilis Alexakis - Un romancier entre deux cultures

2011-08-31T15:41:00.000+02:00

"Vassilis Alexakis - Un romancier entre deux cultures" is the title of a one-day conference at the public library in Amiens (France) on Friday, 25/11/2011, organized by Bernard Alavoine, MCF, University Picardie Jules Verne. For more information please click here.

Program conference Perpignan

2011-07-30T16:20:00.004+02:00

The preliminary programm of the conference on self-translation in Perpignan has now been published. The program looks very promising and includes speakers like Julio-César Santoyo, Rainier Grutman, Helena Tanqueiro and Christian Lagarde. Topics include self-translators like Nancy Huston, Eileen Chang, Samuel Beckett, Panait Istrati, Anne Weber and many more. On Friday Francesc Parcerisas will chair a discussion round table with the self-translators Carme Riera and Antoni Marí.

Conference "Briding Cultures"

2011-07-02T16:02:00.003+02:00

At the XIX Congress of the International Federation of Translators"Bridging Cultures", taking place from 1.-4. August 2011 in San Francisco, will be at least one presentation on self-translation:

Victoria Lipina: Vladimir Nabokov's Self-Translation: A Drama of Reunion
(Wednesday, 4:00pm-4:30pm; Advanced; Presented in: English)

The presentation will focus on the challenges of dealing with the translation-creation activity of Vladimir Nabokov. When examining the Russian and English versions of Nabokov's Lolita, and the nature of discordancy between the texts, the presenter finds that the Russian version of the novel is not a fairly close translation. In comparison to Nabokov's Mashen'ka and Priglashenie na kazn, Lolita is an independent text.

To see the full programm, please click here.

Conference: Literature & Translation, Australia

2011-07-02T14:41:00.003+02:00

Self-translation will be the topic of a panel at the conference "Literature and Translation" which will take place from 11 to 12 July 2011 in Melbourne, Australia:

The panel (chair: Marc Orlando) consists of the following contributions:

Andrea BANDHAUER:
‘Tawada Yoko does not exist’: Yoko Tawada’s translations

Ian CAMPBELL
Translation of poetry from English to Indonesian: the case study of ‘Leaving Beirut’ / ‘Meninggalkan Beirut’

Jack ROSS
The twenty-year masterclass: Paul Celan’s correspondence with Gisèle Celan-Lestrange

Click here to see the full program.

CFP: Nancy Huston

2011-07-02T14:00:00.002+02:00

Nancy Huston: the Multiple Self
Institut du Monde Anglophone, Université Sorbonne nouvelle - Paris 3, France - 8-9 June 2012
Deadline for proposals: 15 October 2011

The following topics have been suggested:

1. Self-translation
- The process of self-translation and the relationship to the mother tongue
- The status of self-translation
- The question of fidelity and infidelity in translation; fidelity to whom, to what?
- Bilingual "brothers" : Samuel Beckett, Romain Gary
2. Feminism, the body and maternity
3. The question of individual or collective identity and that of multiple identities
4. The language of exile
- The relation to that which is foreign
- The dialectics of sameness and otherness at the heart of translation
- Self-translation as writing between two languages: a position at the edge
5. The role of the writer, of literature and of translation

Click here to find the call for papers.

Writing in French

2011-06-28T16:48:00.004+02:00

Today I would like to present you the book "La langue française vue d'ailleurs" which consists of 100 interviews conducted by Patrice Martin and Christophe Drevet with writers from all over the world who chose to write in French. The book has been published by Tarik Editions in 2001 and is based on the radio emission "La Langue française vue d'ailleurs" (MEDI 1). Each interview is about two to three pages long and focuses on the questions of bilingualism and the choice of their literary language. Each interview is accompanied by a few bio- and bibliographical information on the writer. Amongst the 100 writers are also a few self-translators, namely Vassilis Alexakis, Rachid Boudjedra, Nancy Huston and Anne Weber.

Anne Weber in Düsseldorf

2011-06-10T00:25:00.003+02:00

I am very happy to host a lecture with the German-French self-translator Anne Weber on 18th June at 8pm in the zakk, Düsseldorf, Germany. She will present the German version of her new book "August" and will also read from her translation of Pierre Michon "Das Leben der kleinen Toten". For more information please click here.

Jorge Semprún

2011-06-08T19:01:00.006+02:00

Today is a sad day. The Spanish-French writer and self-translator Jorge Semprún passed away...
Read here the obituary of El País.

In an interview with Patricia López López-Gay he has talked about his self-translation of Federico Sanchez vous salue bien/Federico Sánchez se despide de ustedes: "Bueno, la libertad del autotraductor es total, hay que refrenarla, limitarla. Supongo que para todo autotraductor, la tentación sería el escribir un libro diferente. [...] no sé, en un libro autotraducido me permitiría cambiar el orden de las cosas, con el tiempo pasado; permite corregirse."

LÓPEZ LÓPEZ-GAY, P., “Conversación con Jorge Semprún. Sobre autotraducción: de los recuerdos y sus formas de reescritur a”, Quaderns: revista de traducció, 16, 2009, pp. 157-164.

Franco Biondi

2011-05-28T19:08:00.002+02:00

Franco Biondi, born in 1947 in Italy, immigrated to Germany in 1965 where he still lives. He started writing literature in Italian but now mostly writes in German. In 2005 he has published a self-translated bilingual edition of Italian-German poetry Giri e rigiri. The first part consists of poems originally written in Italian and translated by the author into German, whereas in the second part the poems were originally written in German and self-translated into Italian.

Click here to read an interview with Biondi (in German), in which he talks about his choice to write in German and the difficulties he had to face.
You can find more information on Biondi and also articles about his works (some written in English and Italian) on his homepage.

Nancy Huston in Romania

2011-05-28T15:39:00.002+02:00

The centre culturel français de Cluj has invited Nancy Huston to Romania. She will read on 2nd June, 2011 at 10 a.m. at the University and at 5 p.m. at the centre culturel.
For more information click here

Updated version of bibliography online

2011-05-23T12:46:00.001+02:00

An updated version of the bibliography on self-translation is now online.
Everyone is invited to contribute to the bibliography.

Atelier de traduction - special issue on self-translation

2011-05-21T20:23:00.004+02:00

The special issue on self-translation of the Romanian journal Atelier de traduction n°7 (2007) is available online as a pdf-file. The dossier consists of 18 articles on self-translation covering a wide range of self-translators like Beckett, Semprún, Mavrodin, Nabokov, Istrati and Goldini.

De l’autotraducció en poesia

2011-05-21T18:09:00.004+02:00

For those of you who can read Catalan:
On the blog Quaderns de Lavínia, Rosa Delor has written an article on self-translation in the case of Jordi Vintró's bilingual poetry collection Insuficiència mitral (Editorial Lumen, Barcelona, 1997, bilingual edition). Unfortunately I don't understand much of it, but what I found striking was that Jordi Vintró commented on the blog entry!
As far as I know this is the only time Vintró self-translated.
You can read a fragment of Insuficiència mitral in Catalan and Spanish here.

New blog on self-translation in India

2011-05-21T14:52:00.004+02:00

Anil Pinto, who is researching on self-translation in India, recently started a blog on self-translation in India. The URL of his blog is really close to this one: http://selftranslation.blogspot.com/
Those who wish to contribute to the blog are welcome to do so.

Follow this blog by email

2011-05-21T14:43:00.003+02:00

I just added a new gadget which allows you to get an email alert everytime I make a new post.
Just enter your email at the top of the right side of this blog.

Self-translation and migration

2011-05-21T01:36:00.006+02:00

Self-translation and migration is the topic of the new issue (n°5) "L'autotraduzione nelle letterature migranti" of the journal Oltreoceano edited by Alessandra Ferraro (@Alessandra Ferraro: Molte grazie per la copia!!), which has just been presented by Prof. Grutman on Friday, 20 May at Udine, Italy.

The main language of the journal is Italian, but a few articles in English and Spanish are also included. As not much information is (yet) available online, I will give you an overview of the content of the journal:
The first section (6 articles) is on self-translators in Canada, namely Mario Duliani, Dôre Michelut, Gianna Patriarca, Marco Micone, Antonio D'Alfonso and Nancy Huston.
The second part consists of three articles on self-translators in Latin America like Carlo Coccioli, whereas in the third section self-translation in Italy is being discussed in one article.
The last article gives additional biobibliographical information on the self-translators which have been quoted in the previous articles.

Content:
Silvana Serafin: Editorale (p.7)
Alessandra Ferraro: Migrare e riscriversi (p.9)
Canada
Fabiana Fusco: Le 'migrazioni linguistiche' e l'autotraduzione di Mario Duliani (p.15)
Deborah Saidero: Self-Translation as Transcultural Re-Inscription of Identity in Dôre Michelut and Gianna Patriarca (p. 31)
Paola Puccini: Origine e originale. Esperienza di migrazione e di autotraduzione a confronto nell'opera di Marco Micone (p.41)
Alessandra Ferraro: Tradursi: In Italics/ En Italiques di Antonio d'Alfonso (p.55)
Anna Lapetina: L'unicità dissimile. Il carattere musicale dell'autotraduzione in Plainsong / Cantiques des Plaines di Nancy Huston (p.67)
Valeria Sperti: Lo scarto linguistico in Lignes de faille di Nancy Huston (p.81)
America Latina
Sagrario del Río Zamudio: Breve análisis sobre la autotraducción en América Latina (p.91)
Irina Bajini: Messicani per scelta o ispanografi per vocazione? Il caso di Carlo Coccioli, Fabio Morabito, Francesca Gargallo e Marco Perilli (p.103)
Biagio D'Angelo: Confessioni di un italiano. Alcune osservazioni sull'autotraduzione (p.113)
Italia
Rita Wilson: Transplanted Subjects. Self-translation Processes in Translingual Narratives (p.125)

Andrea Schincariol: Cenni biobibliografici sugli autori migranti citati (p.139)

-------------
Journal: Oltreoceano
Issue: n°5
Title: L'autotraduzione nelle letterature migranti
Editor: Alessandra Ferraro
Publication Date: 05/2011
ISSN: 1972-4527
20,00 Euro

First day conference bologna

2011-05-17T10:51:00.003+02:00

Today is the first day of the self-translation conference in Bologna.
I am really looking forward to it as the contributions are given in English today.

Here is the program for today:
14,00 Saluti delle autorità Apertura di Umberto ECO e Susan BASSNETT
15,30 Sessione 1: Approcci teorici all’autotraduzione Chair: Keir ELAM (Università di Bologna) Peeter TOROP (Università di Tartu) Conceptual Field of Self-Translation
Rainier GRUTMAN (Università di Ottawa) Beckett and Beyond: Self-Translation as a Global Phenomenon
16,30-17,00 Pausa
Anthony CORDINGLEY (Università di Paris VIII) The Passion of Self-Translation: a Masocritical Perspective
Laura SALMON (Università di Genova) The Self-Translation Process: an Epistemic Cognitive Approach
Paolo LEONARDI (Università di Bologna) The Indeterminacy of Translation Starts at Home

Conference "Traduction et francophonie"

2011-05-14T00:58:00.003+02:00

Self-translation will be a topic on the conference "Traduction et francophonie" which will take place from 16 -17 May 2011 in Suceava, Romania:

Anca CHETRARIU (Université « Ştefan cel Mare », Suceava):
L’autotraduction – une réécriture ? Le cas d’Irina Mavrodin

To learn more about Irina Mavrodin, I recommend to read an interview she has given Muguras Constantinescu and which has been published in Quaderns, n° 16 (2009) p. 165-16.

Alexakis book presentation in Lyon, France

2011-05-12T20:25:00.000+02:00

Vassilis Alexakis will present his new book Le premier mot on Saturday, 21st May at 4pm at the FNAC in Lyon, France.

lecture "A sociological look at self-translation (in and outside of Canada)"

2011-05-09T12:43:00.003+02:00

Prof Grutman will give a talk on "A sociological look at self-translation (in and outside of Canada)" at the University Graz on Monday, 23 May at 7pm, ITAT, ÜR. 1.102.

For more information click here.

Conference on self-translation in Bologna

2011-05-04T12:50:00.003+02:00

I am really looking forward to the conference on self-translation "Autotraduzione. Testi e Contesti" in Bologna, Italy from 17- 19 May.
For more information visit their homepage! No conference fee!
The conference will be opened by Umberto Eco and Susan Bassnett.
Speakers include R. Grutman, H. Tanqueiro, X. M. Dasilva, P. Puccini and many more.
Topics include the following self-translators: Federman, Nabokov, Dorfman, Klüger, Micone, Huston, D'Alfonso, Gary and many more.
Link to the conference programm.
Link to the conference abstracts.

Lecture: The Denial of Self-translation

2011-04-13T01:26:00.002+02:00

Sara Kippur, Assistant Professor of French at Trinity College, will speak about "The Denial of Self-Translation" at 4:30 p.m. on April 13 in the Alumni House of the Amherst College, Massachusetts.
Here is the official announcement from their website:
"Professor Kippur's talk explores why authors write the same book in two languages. While many authors since Samuel Beckett have embraced the practice of self-translation between French and another language, they nonetheless have found ways to "deny" or undermine their very projects. Professor Kippur considers such authors-- including Raymond Federman, Nancy Huston and Jorge Semprun --and asks what it is about self-translation that makes it difficult for writers and critics to affirm as a literary art form. This event is sponsored by the French Department and the Amherst College Lecture Fund."

Alexakis: Exorciser l'exil

2011-03-20T18:27:00.006+01:00

A shortened version of the dissertation by Marianne Bessy on Vassilis Alexakis will be published by Rodopi next month. On the editor's homepage you can take a look at the content of the book.
It is the first book-length study of Alexakis bilingual work and I can highly recommend reading it.
I presented the dissertation about 2 years ago on another blog post. The free online version of the dissertation to which I refered in my previous post has been removed from the site.

Lecture: Canadian Multiculturalism and Female Writings of the Other

2011-03-20T18:18:00.002+01:00

Dr. Anna Pia De Luca, Università di Udine, will speak about Canadian Multiculturalism and Female Writings of the Other with focus on Italian-Canadian women writers at the University of Bologna:
Bologna – Dip.LLSM (Sala Convegni) – Via Cartoleria, 5, April 6, 2011 10:15 am

Please click here for more information.

Raymond Federman

2011-02-06T23:24:00.003+01:00

I am thinking much of Raymond Federman these days. How he kept me motivated during my research for my diploma thesis, how he still influences my research today and how much I miss the possibility to just write him an email again.
I recently came across a blog post by Arie Altena - he translated the The Voice in the Closet into Dutch- in which he is sharing his personal memories of Federman and of his translation:
"he specifically urged me to be free with the translation, to feel free to turn it into flowing Dutch".

Call for papers: International Symposium Self-translation

2011-02-03T22:31:00.002+01:00

The international symposium on self-translation: Borders of language and culture will take place in Perpignan, France from October 20, 2011 – October 22, 2011. Submissions should be sent before February, 14 2011 to the following address: autotradperpi@univ-perp.fr , or though the conference website.

For information in English, click here. For information in French, please check the conference website.

New book by Anne Weber

2011-01-25T14:01:00.004+01:00

Anne Weber has written a new book "Auguste" (French) / "August" (German). The French version has already been published in January, the German version is announced for March.

You can find a discussion of the French version by Laure Depretto on fabula.org
Information about the German version can be found on the homepage of her publisher Fischer Verlag.

Lectures by Anne Weber in France and Austria

2011-01-25T13:44:00.004+01:00

The German-French self-translator Anne Weber will present her book „Tous mes voeux“/ „Luft und Liebe“at several occasions in France next month:

Tuesday 8 february 2011, 6:30pm Goethe-Institut Nancy, 39 rue de Ravinelle (free entry)
Monday, 7 february 2011, 6:30pm Librairie Géronimo, 2 rue Ambroise Thomas, Metz (free entry)
Wednesday, 9 february 2011, 6:30pm Médiathèque Jean Falala, 2 rue des Fuseliers, Reims free entry)
For more information, please click here.

and in Vienna, Austria:

Tuesday, 15 february 2011 7:00pm at Alte Schmiede.

Literary self-translation, exile and dialogism: the multilingual works of Vassilis Alexakis

2011-01-21T15:22:00.002+01:00

Eleftheria Tassiopoulos has now published an article on Alexakis based on her lecture presented at the conference “New Research in Translation and Interpreting Studies” held in Tarragona in 2009.
Her article Literary self-translation, exile and dialogism: the multilingual works of Vassilis Alexakis is available online. Referring to Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of dialogism, she discusses two of his works Talgo (fiction) and Les Mots étrangers (autofiction).

How a Poet Translates His Own Poetry

2011-01-21T13:52:00.003+01:00

Yihai Chen writes his poems in English and Chinese. In How a Poet Translates His Own Poetry (you have to scroll down for the English version) he tells about his experience of editing a bilingual edition of his poems and therefore translating a selection of his poems in both directions. As a self-translator he feels privileged because he "knows the author and the text much better than anyone else". Although he rises some important questions: "Which is more faithful, the poet’s own translation or a professional translator’s? Does a poet translator encounter the same problems of cultural transfer as other translators do? Is his or her strategy in solving such problems different from that of other translators?", he unfortunately does not answer them.

Interview with Vassilis Alexakis

2011-01-03T17:41:00.003+01:00

Yesterday Vassilis Alexakis talked about his new book "Le premier mot" at France Inter Cosmopolitaine. If you missed it, you will soon have the possibility to listen to the whole broadcasting on the website from France Inter-Cosmopolitaine. Meanwhile you could listen to an interview about his new new book, which he gave to RFI in september last year.

Nancy Huston: Goldberg Variations adapted

2011-01-03T15:12:00.005+01:00

At Paris you can see an adaptation of the French version of The Goldberg Variations from 6th January till 6th March at La Folie Théâtre.

Lecture Anne Weber in Bielefeld, Germany

2010-12-27T16:53:00.003+01:00

Anne Weber, born in 1964 in Offenbach (Germany) studied in France and currently lives in Paris. She writes each book in German and French. She will present her current book "Luft und Liebe" at the Literaturhaus in Bielefeld (Germany) on Wednesday, 23 february 2011 at 8pm.

Bibliography: Updated version

2010-12-12T18:15:00.002+01:00

A new version of the bibliography (50 pages!) is now available online on http://www.autotraduzione.com/

Everyone is invited to contribute with new entries to the bibliography.

I took too many liberties that's why I stopped ...

2010-12-12T16:34:00.008+01:00

translating my own work, explained the author Waciny Laredj recently in an interview with Katja Ghosn in L'Orient n°54, 12/2010. Laredj was born in Algeria in 1954, he went to exile to Paris in 1994, where he teaches literature at the Sorbonne. He started self-translating one of his book Sayyidat al-maqâm/Les ailes de la reine from Arabic to French, because he could not find a publisher for his book. For that reason he wrote the next novel Hârisat al-dhilâl /La gardienne des ombres directly in French but translated it also to Arabic. So Laredj self-translated in both directions, from Arabic to French and vice versa.
Today he has stopped self-translating his work because he noticed that the two versions did not resemble anymore. For Laredj self-translation became rewriting and unlike other authors he was not satisfied with this development.

To read the full interview (in French) please click here

To learn more about the reasons for his literary language choice, please read his interview with Jeune Afrique.

To learn about how he collaborated with Marcel Bois and Catherine Charruau on some of his translations, please read the interview with Yelles.

Writing Past Each Other? Literary Translation and Community...

2010-12-07T23:34:00.001+01:00

... is the title of a conference which will take place at Wellington, New Zealand, 11-13 December 2010. On Sunday there will be a panel on self-translation including the following topics:

Ruth Diver: Self-translation as Self-reinvention: the Case of Romain Gary
Sally Hill: Renatos Amato’s Antipodean Self-translation
Eduardo Zuccato: Tempting Translation: ‘Minor’ Languages and Global Literature

To see the full programm please click here.

Lecture on self-translation and Shoah Literature

2010-11-20T13:01:00.003+01:00

Fransiska Louwagie (Université de Louvain) will give a lecture on "Témoignage et réécriture: Les écrivains de la Shoah en français et l’autotraduction" on Monday, November 29 at 6:00 p.m. at the Barker Center, Room 133 in Cambridge. For more information see the Anthropology Graduate Program at Harvard University.

Self-translation from indigenous languages

2010-11-18T15:06:00.007+01:00

Last week I attended the first international conference on self-translation in Pescara, Italy. There I had the chance to meet Julio-César Santoyo, who has been researching on self-translation for many years. During our talk, he made me aware of self-translation from indigenous languages, an aspect of self-translation I had completely ignored till that day. He was so kind to give me a copy of a presentation he gave last year in Canada on this topic as a starting point for my own research. Back in Germany I now started researching. It is a really fascinating field.
Today I would like to present you a Mayan writer and self-translator: Humberto Ak'abal. He was born in 1953 in Momostenango, Guatemala. He writes his poetry in Quiché and translates it into Spanisch. His poems are published in bilingual editions. Some of his work has been translated from the Spanish version into English, German and other languages.

For further reading and listening:

Presentation of the author by Mariolein Sabarte Belacortu
Presentation of the author and the book "Drum Stone", a trilingual edition of selected poems. With the possibility to see inside the book.
Podcast from a lecture with his english translators given at the Ullapool Book Festival 2010
Erich Hakl on his German translation "Trommel aus Stein" (in German)
Article in L'Express (15/10/2010): Humberto Ak'abal: hymnes, lamentos et tambours de pierre (in French)

Alexakis book presentation in Tours, France

2010-11-16T01:14:00.002+01:00

Vassilis Alexakis will present his new book Le premier mot this thursday, 18th November, at the Libraire La boîte à Livres in Tours, France.

Lectures by Thiong'o in November

2010-11-14T17:18:00.005+01:00

The African self-translator Ngugi Wa Thiong'o will speak on several occasions in November 2010.

On November 20, 2010 at 3:30pm he will speak at the Chapman Conference Center in Miami about Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir. This lecture is part of the Miami Book Fair international.

He will also give a lecture at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum at Claremont McKenna College on Monday, November 29, 2010 from 6:45 pm till 8:00 pm.
For more information see the newsletter The Fortnightly.

Federman and Beckett...

2010-11-05T20:38:00.004+01:00

both self-translators and friends. In his wonderful memorial essay samuel beckett: the gift of words, written shortly after Beckett's death, Raymond Federman shares his memories and gives us insight into their friendship and Becketts struggle with his self-translations. Please read the essay here..

The 6th International Postgraduate Conference in Translation and Interpreting

2010-10-29T14:33:00.002+02:00

will take place this weekend at the University in Manchester.
The program is available here.
There is one contribution on self-translation:
"Theory and Practice of Self-Translation in the Case of Rosario Ferré"
Aurora Sambolín (University of Manchester, UK)

The Curious Case of Translating One’s Own Literary Work

2010-10-28T03:38:00.002+02:00

... was the title of a panel on self-translation at the 33rd Annual Conference of the American Literary Translators Association which took place last week (October 20-23) in Philadelphia.
Speakers were:
Willis Barnstone, “Freedoms and Worries in Translating My Book of French Poems into English”
Wei Shao, “Translating My Memoir Homeland from English to Chinese”
Shouhua Qi, “The Curious Case of Literary Self-Translation”

If anyone reading this blog attended the conference, I would love to hear more about it.

Lecture on self-translation

2010-10-23T01:26:00.003+02:00

There will be a series of lectures on translation organized for MA students in literary translation in Utrecht, Netherlands. It is also possible for non-students to come, but you have to register beforehand. One of the lectures will focus on self-translation:

Self translation
- Spreker: Fransiska Louwagie
- Datum & tijd: 12 mei 2011, 15:30-17:30
- Locatie: Lessius, Antwerpen, (STA.2.11)
- Aanmelden: uiterlijk 11 april 2011

For more information, please click here.

An Interactive Festival of Literary Translation

2010-10-23T01:15:00.005+02:00

... will take place under the title "Translated" in Melbourne, Australia next year at the Monash University. From February 7–12, 2011 there will be workshops, talks and panel discussions in French, German and Spanish.

There will also be an afternoon session on self-translation:
"Lia Hills and Ouyang Yu, both writers, translators and poets, will provide an insight into the advantages and pitfalls of self-translation."

For more information, please click here.

Nobel prize for Thiong'o?

2010-10-06T00:50:00.005+02:00

Will it be another Nobel prize for a self-translator?
Soon we will know.
For more information check out the article in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/05/kenyan-nobel-prize-literature

Indication of self-translation

2010-07-06T12:25:00.004+02:00

Rarely one finds a discussion in the press about the habit in the publishing industry to present self-translated books as originals with no reference to the other version. So I found it quite interesting that in her review of the new book by Thiong'o in the Guardian, Maya Jaggi recently drew the readers' attention to the fact that Dreams in a Time of War is in fact a self-translation from the Gikuyu although it is not mentioned in the book. She finds this quite disturbing as in the past Thiong'o "has said that the most beautiful line in Wizard of the Crow, his satire on dictatorship, is: "A translation from Gikuyu by the author." (Jaggi 2010). So what has changed since then?

For further reading:
Maya Jaggi (2010): Dreams in a Time of War by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. In: Guardian, 03.07.2010. Online available here. In the last paragraph she discusses the issue of self-translation.

Bibliography on self-translation

2010-07-05T08:54:00.002+02:00

An updated version of the bibliography is now availabe (43 pages!!)
Please check http://www.autotraduzione.com to download the new version.
Please also make use of the possibility in the comment section on their page to add further literature as the bibliography is a work in progress.

Meet Nancy Huston in Macon (France)

2010-07-04T13:14:00.002+02:00

There are many chances to meet Nancy Huston at the moment as she is presenting her new book "Infrarouge". One being a picknick organised by the library Le Cadran lunaire in Macon on Saturday, 17th July at 7.30pm. For more information click here.

New book by Alexakis

2010-07-02T18:56:00.003+02:00

"Le premier mot" is the title of the new book by Vassilis Alexakis which will be published in French by Editions Stock in August . I have not found yet any information about a Greek version. But as Alexakis is a regular self-translator, I am expecting to hear about a Greek version soon.

For more information on the new book, please click here.

Update: The Greek version will be published also this year!

Meet Thiong'o in Los Angeles

2010-06-29T22:18:00.006+02:00

On Sunday, 25th July, you have the chance to meet the African self-translator Ngugi wa Thiong'o at the Downtown Independent Theater in Los Angeles. He will read from his new book "Dreams in a Time of War". For more information on the event, click here.

André Brink on self-translation

2010-06-22T14:44:00.003+02:00

NB publishers have published an interview with Andre Brink, conducted by Andrés publisher Kerneels Breytenbach in 2009. In the second part he speaks about his self-translations, a process which still fascinates him. The part on self-translation is from minute 01:49 till 03:15. To see the youtube video click here.

Author-Translator conference in Swansea

2010-06-13T16:46:00.002+02:00

From 28th June till 1st July many researchers will discuss European authors as translators at the University of Swansea. Self-translation will be the subject of many presentations, too many to list here. An updated draft of the program has been published earlier this week, to see it click here.
To see the conference homepage, click here.

If anybody attends self-translation panels at the conference, please tell me about it!

Conference "The limits of literary translation"

2010-06-12T19:48:00.006+02:00

The conference will take place from 24th to 25th June 2010 at the University of Oxford. The conference languages are English and Spanish. There will also be at least two presentations on self-translation:

24th June at 3 p.m., room 10 B: “When a Self-translation Becomes Part of a Whole Rewriting Process or When Limits are Over. Notes d’un estudiant que va morir boig, from Sebastià Juan Arbó.” Josep Miquel Ramis (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain)
25th June at 10 a.m., room 10B: “Sobre los límites de la traducción y los avatares de su recepción en la obra de ManuelRivas: ¿traducción autorial o alográfica?” María Obdulia Luis Gamallo (Universidadeda Coruña, Spain)

To see the full program as pdf, please click here.
To go to the conference homepage, please click here.

Conference on self-translation in Italy

2010-06-07T16:03:00.003+02:00

From 10th to 12th november 2010 there will be a conference on self-translation in Italy.
The title of the conference is “Autotraduzione: teoria ed esempi fra Italia e Spagna (e oltre)”.
For full programme and registration, please see http://www.autotraduzione.com/info/
The languages of the conference are Italian and Spanish.
I am very grateful that they also made publically available on their homepage a downloadable version of a comprehensive bibliography on self-translation byJulio César Santoyo: http://www.autotraduzione.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Bibliografia-3-giugno-2010.pdf

Flavia Company about her new self-translation

2010-06-07T15:49:00.002+02:00

Flavia Company, a Catalan writer, talks in her blog about the self-translation of her new book L'illa de l'última veritat and discusses the possibility of changing the title of her book with her blog readers. Click here to enter the discussion.

Nancy Huston at Concordia University

2010-06-06T17:57:00.004+02:00

Nancy Huston spoke at the Congress 2010 at the Concordia University on Sat May 29, 2010 at 12:15 to 13:15. Some impressions of her talk can be seen in a youtube video. The section on Nancy Huston is shown from minute 1:16 till 2:39.

For more information on the conference click here.

Nancy Huston in Montréal and Paris

2010-06-06T17:47:00.014+02:00

Several chances to meet another self-translator:
Nancy Huston will present her new book "Infrarouge" on June 2nd at 6pm at the librarie Olivierie (5219 chemin Côte-des-Neiges) in Montréal and on June 8th at at 7pm at the institut finlandais in Paris and on 10th at 7pm at the library "l’arbre à lettres" (2 rue edouard Quenu) also in Paris.

To get an impression of the book, L'Express has published a few lines.

Sekiguchi in Toronto

2010-05-31T03:01:00.005+02:00

The Japanese-French self-translator Ryoko Sekiguchi will participate in the translation festival "Found in translation" in Toronto on Friday 18th June at 8pm at the Japan Foundation (131 Bloor Street West, Suite 213). An English translation of her Japanese reading will be provided.
To view the entire program of the festival click here.

To know more about her self-translations see my blog entry from last year.

Self-translation: translation or rewriting?

2010-05-30T18:32:00.004+02:00

I just read a very interesting interview with the Catalan writer Ferran Torrent, who insists that he does not translate his novels but that he rewrites them. In fact many authors who write two versions of the same books, don't like to call what they are doing "to translate". Here are some quotations:

The Catalan writer Carmen Riera: "„[D]ado que no creo en la traducción intento hacer una versión, lo cual significa para mí reescribir el texto en la nueva lengua […]“ (Carmen Riera (2002): La autotraducción como ejercicio de recreación. In: Quimera 210, pp. 11-12.)

The African writer André Brink: „However, I do not ‚translate‘ my books. I rewrite them in English or Afrikaans, sometimes alternating chapters and in the process reworking the original in the light of the changes made in the other language. This cross-pollination continues until I say ‚that is enough‘, otherwise I'd never finish a book.“ (André Brink: ‚We can only manage the world once it has been storified‘ – Interview with André Brink. In: Unisa Latin American Report 15:1, p. 43, PDF-page 45)

The Chicano writer Rolando Hinojosa: „He refers to the English and Spanish versions of his books not as translations, but as ‚renditions.‘ ‚I think I like to keep the flavor rather than just a word-by-word definition or translation. Because what won't fit in English -- or Spanish, since I've done both English and Spanish -- I try to give the nearest equivalent to it, say, a word-play or something like that,‘ he says.“ (Barbara Strickland (2007): Crossing Literary Borders. Rolando Hinojosa-Smith. In: The Austin Chronicle, 28.08.1997

Traduction, auto-traduction et réécriture : Endgame, Lolita et Le Maître et Marguerite

2010-03-09T02:09:00.006+01:00

Conference at the University in Paris 8 with Prof. Michaël Oustinoff, who wrote one of the few books on self-translation: "Bilingualisme d'écriture et auto-traduction: Julien Green, Samuel Beckett, Vladimir Nabokov"

18th March at 10 a.m.

Bibliothèque Universitaire : Salle des doctorants
Université de Paris 8
2, rue de la Liberté
93526 Saint-Denis

For more information: http://te-doctorants.blogspot.com/2010/03/conference-michael-oustinoff-18-mars.html

Conference on self-translation in Belgium

2010-02-15T00:11:00.002+01:00

From 16th to 19th february Prof. Grutman will discuss multilingualism in literature and self-translation with graduate students. The conference language is French. It will take place in Ghent and Leuven.

Here is the schedule:

Mardi 16 février 2010 - Gand

10h-13h: “Le plurilinguisme et la traduction dans la galaxie des langues
14h-17h: présentations par les doctorants

Mercredi 17 février 2010 - Gand

10h-13h: “Traduire le plurilinguisme: défis, solutions, compromis”

Jeudi 18 février 2010 - Louvain

10h-13h: “L'autotraduction, une arme à double tranchant”
14h-17h: tutorat
Conférence de clôture

Vendredi 19 février 2010 - Louvain

10h-12h: “Writing and Reading Diglossia”
For more information: http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/events/Documents/20100216-19_Plurilinguisme,%20traduction%20et%20autotraduction.pdf

Michael Idov about his self-translation

2009-12-27T19:13:00.002+01:00

And interesting insight in how an author feels about self-translation gives a blog entry by the writer Michael Idov. He has self-translated his novel Ground Up which was also his first self-translation: http://jewishbooks.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/the-act-of-self-translation/

Remembering Raymond Federman

2009-10-08T12:20:00.006+02:00

Truly sad news: Raymond Federman died yesterday after a long fight against cancer.
I was blessed to get in touch with him during my research for my diploma thesis. He was so kind to answer several questions concerning his self-translations. I also had the chance to meet him in person at a lecture in Berlin last year. He was so vivid and engaging and generous. That's how I will remember him. The world has lost another great writer. He will truly be missed. My deepest sympathy to his family.

"Language vanishes into death, and death vanishes into silence. Or is it, death that vanishes into language, and language into silence?" (Reflections on ways to improve death)
Read the whole text on:
http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/ezines/deluxe/five/reflections.html

Get to know him:
http://raymondfederman.blogspot.com/

People who had the chance to get to know him share their memories:
http://rougelarsenrose.blogspot.com/2009/10/raymond-federman.html
http://samizdatblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/raymond-federman-rip.html
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein/blog/#10-07-09
http://mrvicedhonest.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/raymond-federman-1928-2009/
http://rhystranter.blogspot.com/2009/10/raymond-federman-1928-2009.html
http://cameliaelias.blogspot.com/2009/10/federman-dies.html

Journals on Federman passing away:
Buffalo News
Público

New issue of Quaderns focuses on self-translation

2009-09-06T13:27:00.004+02:00

The new issue of the Spanish translation journal Quaderns.Revista de traducció (number 16) focuses on self-translation. Here is an overview about the articles relating to our subject:

Dossier. L’autotraducció

p. 107-122 Helena Tanqueiro, Patricia López L.-Gay, Francesc Parcerisas
(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Facultat de Traducció i d’Interpretació): Translating, self-translating, being translated. A lecture series on literary translation at NYU in Paris.

p. 123-134 Rainier Grutman (Universitat d’Ottawa. Facultat d’Art. Escola de Traducció i d’Interpretació) : La autotraducción en la galaxia de las lenguas.

p. 135-142 Valentina Mercuri (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Facultat de Traducció i d’Interpretació): Autotraducción, libertad de autor y mediación cultural: El caso del italiano Carlo Coccioli.

p. 143-156 Xosé Manuel Dasilva (Universidade de Vigo. Facultade de Filoloxía e Traducción) Autotraducirse en Galicia: ¿bilingüismo o diglosia?

p. 157-164 Patricia López López-Gay (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Facultat de Traducció i d’Interpretació - New York University) Conversación con Jorge Semprún. Sobre autotraducción. De los recuerdos y sus formas de reescritura.

p. 165-168 Muguras Constantinescu (Universitatea «Stefan cel Mare» Suceava. Facultatea de Litere si Stiinte ale Comunicarii) Irina Mavrodin sur l’autotraduction.

The issue is not yet available online, but I hope this will change soon:
http://ddd.uab.es/record/40

New research on Nancy Huston

2009-09-05T21:47:00.003+02:00

The recent grown interest in self-translation is also reflected by the publication of several articles and book contributions this year which discuss self-translation issues by Nancy Huston:

Brownlie, Siobhan (2009): Translation and the Fantastic: Nancy Huston's Instruments des ténèbres French Forum 34:1, Winter 2009, pp. 67-83

Chatzidimitriou, Ioanna (2009): Self-Translation as Minorization Process: Nancy Huston's Limbes/Limbo. In: SubStance 38:2 , pp. 22-42.

Shread, Carolyn (2009): Redefining Translation through Self-Translation: The Case of Nancy Huston. In: French Literature Series 36, pp. 51–61.

Sigrist, Ilona (2009): The Stakes of Self-Translation as Authorship in Nancy Huston’s Dolce Agonia and Instruments des ténèbres. In: A. Fidecaro, H. Partzsch, S. van Dijk et V. Cossy (éds.): Femmes écrivains à la croisée des langues, 1700-2000, pp.199-212.

Francesca Duranti

2009-09-03T11:48:00.003+02:00

In a recently published article on the Italian writer Francesca Duranti, Rita Wilson analyzes how self-translation becomes an integral part of the creation process of her work. In the short presentation of previous works by Duranti, it becomes clear that literary translation is a main concern for the writer as it is also one of the main themes of her literary oeuvre.
The translation of Sogni mancini (1996) into his English version Left-handed Dreams (2000) was the first time Duranti chose to self-translate one of her works: "Duranti, the writer as translator, draws on her own experience as a migrant from one culture (Italian) to another (North American) to reflect on what it means to be ‘translated’ both geographically and textually." (p.191). Wilson considers Duranti to be a "semi-expatriate" (Wilson, p. 187), because she lives only part of the year in New York. "Living and writing between two different cultures" (p.188) such became an important stimulus for her literary work. Because of various elements of hypertextuality in her work, "each version of a novel enters into secret dialogue with the others." (p. 190) This is of course also the case with the two versions of Sogni mancini: "both versions function simultaneously as hypotext and hypertext. Neither can be pointed to as the original one, or they both can" (p. 190).

For further reading:
Wilson, Rita (2009): The Writer's Double. Translation, Writing, and Autobiography. In: Romance Studies 27:3, p. 186–198.

Daniel Gagnon

2009-08-16T14:37:00.004+02:00

Daniel Gagnon is a Canadian writer, who self-translated two of his books and wrote a few articles about this experience. His first language is French, his two literary languages are French and English. His two self-translations are The Marriageable Daughter/La Fille à marier and My Husband the Doctor/Mon Mari le docteur, both originally written in English, and then translated by the author into French. How the publication orders influences the perception of the original/translation is well illustrated by these two books, as Gagnon states:

Since French is my mother tonge, and publication of the French text preceded that of the English original, both translations, La Fille à marier and Mon Mari le docteur, were received in Quebec as original texts [...] (Gagnon 2006b, p. 46)

This perception was even intended by the publisher despite the wishes of the author:

In the case of The Marriageable Daughter, the French translation appeared first, as if it were the original. The English original was published four years later in Coach House's Translation series, under the banner, "Translated by the author", despite my efforts to have it recognized as the original text. (Gagnon 2006a, p. 125)

This example illustrates why research on self-translation can not just rely on the publication indications. In most cases self-translations are not even indicated, and if they are indicated this might be a wrong track as seen above. Another problem occurs if one version is not even published as it is the case with the English original My Husband the Doctor.

For further reading:

Gagnon, Daniel (2006a): Bilingual translation/writing as intercultural communication. In: A. Pym u.a. (ED.): Sociocultural Aspects of Translating and Interpreting. Amsterdam, S. 117–127.

Gagnon, Daniel (2006b): Cross-writing and Self-translating. One Canadian/Québec Experience. In: Madelena Gonzalez et Francine Tolron (eds.): L'identité de la traduction et la traduction de l'identité. Cambridge Scholars Press, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, p. 46–59.

Gagnon, Daniel (2007): Les mots du Doctor Hat. In: Louis Jolicoeur (ed.): Traduction et enjeux identitaires dans le contexte des Amériques. Culture française d'Amérique. Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, p. 165 –176

Tschingis Aitmatov

2009-08-12T21:00:00.005+02:00

Tschingis Aitmatov (1928-2008) had - like Beckett and Brink - two literary languages. He has written his books in his first language Kirghiz and in Russian. First he wrote in Khirgiz and translated his works into Russian. Later he decided to write them first in Russian so they could get translated faster in other languages, but he still tried to continue self-translation now in the other direction (Russian > Kirghiz):

Unfortunately, the language in which I write is not always my own decision, but is often a matter of circumstance. I often write in Russian now, because it is in my interests to do so; books get published and disseminated faster, and are also translated more quickly into other languages. Time is short, so I take the quickest way. I make a point, though, of at least trying to translate my own work into Kirghiz-though it is not always possible to do so. (Aitmatov, 1990:197)

For further reading:
Aitmatov, Chingiz (1990): Voice from the Republics. An Interview. In: Third World Quarterly 12: 1, p. 194–200.

Basque Self-translators

2009-07-27T10:13:00.003+02:00

The most known Basque self-translator is Bernardo Atxaga. But if you take a look at the translation database published at the Basque Literature Portal, you can see that self-translation is quite common amongst Basque writers, as often the name of the author and the name of the translator are identical. Interesting is for example the case of Arantxa Urretabizkaia, who went from self-translation (Zergatik panbox) to collaboration translation (Saturno) and was not involved in the next translation (Koaderno gorria) at all - at least she is no longer mentioned as translator.

Milan Kundera

2009-07-24T22:31:00.004+02:00

I just started reading Translating Milan Kundera by Michelle Woods and would like to share a passage: "Also in the mid 1980s, Kundera revised all the French translations of the novels written in Czech and declared these, rather than the Czech versions, to be the definitive and authentic versions of the novels. The translations in other words became the originals. Later, to produce new Czech versions, he would use three ‘originals’: the Czech manuscript, the first published Czech versions (in Toronto, Canada) and the French definitive translations." (Woods 2006:ix)

So if the translations became the new originals, can one then speak of the new Czech versions as translations? Is Kundera becoming a self-translator when re-writing the Czech original?

For further reading:
Woods, Michelle (2006): Translating Milan Kundera. Topics in Translation: 30.

Note: After writing this post, I read a good summary of this book at another blog.

Author-translator collaboration

2009-07-24T16:29:00.004+02:00

Some consider Milan Kundera or Isaac Bashevis Singer as self-translators because they were actively involved in the translation process done by professional translators. The case of Milan Kundera is of particular interest because he revised every single translation of his work before it was published and "added a note to all revised French translations granting the 'same level of authority as the original'." (Vanderschelden 1998:25)
In her article "Authority in literary translation. Collaborating with the author" Vanderschelden discusses different forms of collaborations - they mainly differ in the form of intensity, the degree of influence of the author on the translated text: "The notion of 'authority' conveys the power and legitimacy of the author in relation with the text. In this context, translation collaboration can sometimes shift the decision process from translator to author". (Vanderschelden 1998:26) Despite the proclaimed "death of the author" by Roland Barthes, the translation practice shows that the author is still seen as the ultimative decision instance regarding the meaning of the original. This leads to "an element of subordination on the part of the translator" (Vanderschelden 1998:25).
Other collaborations she discusses include:
- Umberto Eco with William Weaver
- Jorge Luis Borges with Norman Thomas di Giovanni
- Cortázar with Laure Bataillon
- Cabrera Infante with Suzanne Jill Levine

For further reading:
Vanderschelden, Isabelle (1998): Authority in literary translation. Collaborating with the author. In: Translation Review 56, pp. 22-31.

Woods, Michelle (2006): Translating Milan Kundera. Topics in Translation: 30.

Yoko Tawada

2009-07-22T20:20:00.003+02:00

Yoko Tawada was born in Tokyo in 1960 and has been living in Hamburg (Germany) since 1982. She writes in Japanese and German but usually does not self-translate. She has established quite an interesting writing system how to choose the language for a certain text as she explains in an interview: If the sound is important she writes the text in German, if it is more important how the text looks like, she writes it in Japanese. When writing her book "Das nackte Auge" she decided to write it in Japanese and German simultaneously, writing one passage in one language and then translating it into the other. For her it was a quite disturbing experiment and she is not convinced that she is a good translator:

"Ich habe in meinem neuen Buch „Das nackte Auge“ auf Japanisch geschrieben und es dann ins Deutsche übersetzt, dann auf Deutsch weiter geschrieben, das wieder ins Japanische übersetzt und so weiter – ich bin immer hin und her gesprungen. Das war das erste Mal, dass ich so etwas gemacht habe. Das bringt alles durcheinander - genau das wollte ich aber. Das kann man nur als Experiment betreiben. Die Übersetzung als Tätigkeit ist aber sehr faszinierend. Man erfährt dabei sehr viel über die Sprachen. Das ist sehr wertvoll. Das Ergebnis ist aber schwierig. Ich bin keine gute Übersetzerin." (Interview on www.foreigner.de)

Self-translation as a regular practice is not an option for her.

For further reading:

Interview (in German): http://www.foreigner.de/interviews/interview_yoko_tawada.html

Brand, Bettina (2006): Ein Wort, ein Ort, or how words create places. Interview with Yoko Tawada. In: Helga W. Kraft (ed.): Women in German Yearbook: Feminist Studies in German Literature and Culture. University of Nebraska Press, pp. 1-15.

Conference: Les écrivains du sud-est européen en quête d'identité

2009-07-16T15:03:00.004+02:00

Self-translation will be a subject on the conference: "Les écrivains du sud-est européen en quête d'identité" which will take place at Bucharest, University Spiru Haret, from 6 - 7 november 2009.

Abstracts of the contributions are already available online. The conference language is French.

Interesting concerning self-translation is especially the contribution by Najib Redouane:
"Crise identitaire et bilinguisme littéraire chez Vassilis Alexakis". But there are also contributions about Ciroan, Tsepeng, Panait Istrati and Luca.

If anybody attends this conference I would be grateful for more information. The contributions will be published after the conference.

Samar Attar

2009-07-08T23:37:00.004+02:00

Samar Attar was born in Damascus (Syria). She has studied Comparative Literature in Syria, Canada and the United States, worked in Algeria, West Germany and Australia and is married to a German. Samar explains that being surrounded by so many different languages, makes it hard to tell which is your mother tongue (see Attar 2005, p. 132).
Attar started to self-translate because she had a hard time to get her novel Lina: A Portrait Of A Damascene Girl - written in Arabic - published. (see Attar 2005, p. 133). She sees the act of self-translation as a "response to continuous attempts to stifle and silence my voice as a novelist.The act of self-translation has made me visible and has given me a voice which I was denied as a writer in Arabic". (Attar 2005, p. 134) Self-translation also helps her to keep her Arabic language alive but overall "censorship was and still is the reason that forced me to use translation as a strategy to assert my voice as a writer". (Attar 2005, p. 141).
Concerning the discussion of the terms orginal/translation she states:
"Self translators cannot reproduce in one language what they have created in another. Ultimately, what they produce through self translation is a complementary literary text which does not simply echo the original, but has its own echo and effect in the target language and culture. Unlike conventional translation contexts, self translators do not usually engage in the two-stage process of reading-writing activity (their reading activity is of a different nature), but rather in a double writing process. Thus, their translated text becomes a version or a variant of the original text, indeed an original work in its own right." (Attar 2005, p. 139)

For further reading:
Attar, Samar (2005): Translating the exiled self. Reflections on translation and censorship. In: Intercultural Communication Studies XIV:4, p. 131–147. >> A longer version of this article appeared in Translation Review (special issue on Arabic), 65 (2003), p. 35-46.

Ryoko Sekiguchi

2009-07-07T12:24:00.008+02:00

I just read in another blog about the lecture "Ryoko Sekiguchi: Ecrire entre deux langues : en français, en japonais" that will take place 13th July at the University of Osaka (Japan). Sekiguchi will be present. I quote an interesting note:

"Chacun de ses livres existe en version française et japonaise, mais avec de subtiles différences : le titre est parfois identique, parfois non ; il ne s’agit pas simplement d’ une auto-traduction, mais plutôt d’un rapport de transfert, de transposition, puisque la transparence totale entre les deux langues est impossible. Il n’y a ainsi ni original, ni copie, mais une « écriture double », un « entre-deux langues » mouvant qui se nourrit de leur décalage, mais aussi de leur continuel frottement."

This quote underlines the difficulty to find an adequate term for the process of self-translation. Is it more translation or more writing? The suggested term "écriture double" prefers to accentuate the writing aspect. The quote also stresses that established terms like "original" don't seem to be applicable when talking about self-translation.

During my research on Sekiguchi I found a summary of another discussion with her, which took place in 2006: Blurring Boundaries: A Conversation on the Art of Translation with Rosa Alcalá, Ryoko Sekiguchi, and Cole Swensen (Poets House, 11/17/06). I hope somebody will also be so kind to sum up the lecture in Japan.

For further reading:
Sekiguchi, Ryōko (2002): L'auto-traduction ou l'artifice de la contrainte. In: Poésie 100, p. 260-261, Berlin.

New study of Molloy

2009-07-07T11:43:00.003+02:00

As already stated, self-translation is an issue researchers on Beckett are more and more aware of. In her new study of Molloy: Modalités po(ï)étiques de configuration textuelle: le cas de Molloy de Samuel Beckett, Carla Taban dedicates the fourth chapter to the issue of self-translation:
Chapitre 4. Molloy/Molloy : (auto-)traduction et po(ï)éticité intra-inter-textuelle

For more information on the book, visit the presentation by Rodopi.

For furter reading:
Taban, Carla (2009): Modalités po(ï)étiques de configuration textuelle: le cas de Molloy de Samuel Beckett. Amsterdam/New York, 360 pp. Pb: 978-90-420-2587-5

André Brink

2009-07-01T21:24:00.006+02:00

André Brink is one of the most consistent self-translators. He writes his books both in Afrikaans and English. He does not refer to one version as translation, so one can't tell which one is the translation and which one is the original. Because both versions influence each other he prefers to call the process "rewriting" instead of "translating: "However, I do not ‚translate‘ my books. I rewrite them in English or Afrikaans, sometimes alternating chapters and in the process reworking the original in the light of the changes made in the other language. This cross-pollination continues until I say ‚that is enough‘, otherwise I'd never finish a book.“ (Maree 1999, S. 43) André Brink started self-translation because his book Kennis van die Aand was banned in South Africa: „With my work banned, I suddenly found that I had lost my audience, because I only wrote in Afrikaans. So I decided to push things further by translating the novel into English, so it could reach a public outside South Africa.“ (UNESCO 1993).
Research on self-translations by André Brink is rare as far as I know. There is one article by Alet Kruger (2008) and a very interesting master thesis by Ehrlich Shlomit (2007) on André Brink and Dalene Mathee.

For further reading:
Eder, Richard (1980): An Interview with André Brink. In: New York Times, 23.03.1980.

Kruger, Alex (2008): Translation, self-translation and apartheid-imposed conflict. To be published in Language and Politics 2008. Available online.

Maree, Cathy (1999): ‚We can only manage the world once it has been storified‘ – Interview with André Brink. In: Unisa Latin American Report 15:1, S. 43.

Ehrlich, Shlomit "(2007): The Status and Production of Self-Translated Texts: Afrikaans-English as a Case in Point. Master thesis Bar-Ilan University. Available online.

UNESCO (1993): André Brinks talks to Bahgat Elnadi and Adel Rifaat. In: UNESCO Courrier, Sept. 1993, FindArticles.com, 20. Dec. 2007.

Wheatcroft, Geoffrey (1982): A talk with André Brink. In: New York Times, 13.06.1982.

Ariel Dorfman

2009-06-29T17:37:00.003+02:00

Ariel Dorfman, born in 1942, is a Chilean bilingual writer (English/Spanish). He explains that the decision in which to write a novel is always hard, but becomes even more difficult when chosing the language for your autobiography: "I couldn’t for the life or death decide in which of my two languages to write the story of my life. […] Whenever I wrote anything about my life, in either language it simply sounded … false, falso, fraudulent, fraudulento.“ (Dorfman 2004, p. 206)
Ariel Dorfman started with self-translation because his play "La muerte y la doncella" was not successful in Chile, so he decided to translate the Spanish original into English. "Death and the maiden" became a worldwide success despite of or even due to the former rejection by the Chilean public: "I translated it immediately into English, and worked with it in English from that moment on. I probably never would have gone through that experience if it hadn’t been that what I wrote in Spanish was rejected by my own audience in Chile." (Dorfman 2002, p. 56)
Ariel Dorfman continues to self-translate his work also for economic reasons: „[Y]ou get paid once in Spanish and once in English and between both payments, sabes, you manage to get one whole meal for one family of four.“ (Dorfman 2004, p. 206)

For further reading:
Dorfman, Ariel (2002): Resisting Hybridity. In: Daniel Balderstone/Marcy E. Schwarz (ed.): Voice-Overs. Translation and Latin American Literature. Albany: State University of New York Press, p. 55-57.

Dorfman, Ariel (2004): Footnotes to a double life. In: Wendy Lesser (ed.): The Genius of Language. Fifteen Writers Reflect on Their Mother Tongues. New York: Pantheon Books, p. 206-217.

History of self-translation

2009-06-27T09:56:00.007+02:00

As self-translation has become a more and more common practice in our globalized world, more and more research is be done in this area. Jan Walsh Hokenson and Marcella Munson have given an excellent overview of the history and long tradition of self-translation, explaining the historical and political circumstances in the different centuries which led authors to self-translation.
If you don't have the time to read a whole book or just want to get an impression of how widespread self-translation has always been, you can also start with an article by Julio César Santoyo (written in Spanish). Santoyo aims to refute that only few authors translated their own works by listing numerous self-translators since the 14th century and claims that more research has to be done on this subject. His short overview gives you several starting points for your own research as sometimes you don't really get more information as just the fact that the author translated his own work. No languages are mentioned, neither how often the author used self-translation or if he did translate his work on his own or with the aid of a professional translator.

For further reading:
Jan Walsh Hokenson and Marcella Munson (2007): The Bilingual Text. History and Theory of Literary Self-translation. St. Jerome Publishing. 246 pages.

Julio César Santoyo (2005): Autotraducciones. In: META v50 , n3, p. 858-867.

Author-Translator Conference -Call for papers

2009-06-26T18:36:00.003+02:00

Today I read an interesting call for papers. It is a conference about authors as translators, also focusing on the subject of self-translation. It will take place at Swansea University, 28 June – 1 July 2010. Confirmed keynote speakers include: Susan Bassnett, David Constantine, Lawrence Venuti.
Deadline for abstracts: 30.09.2009.
Click here for more information.

Reasons for self-translation

2009-06-23T18:50:00.009+02:00

There are many different reasons why authors decide to self-translate their works. One can distinguish at least political, literary, economic and personal reasons.
André Brink started with self-translation because one of his work was banned in South Africa, so he decided to translate the original - written in Africaans - into English to get it published. Reaching a wider audience is also the main motiviation of authors writing in a minority language especially in Spain for Catalan and Galician writers but also for Gaelic authors. Some writers started to self-translate because they felt misunderstood and deceived by the translations done by professional translators. So they prefered to do it on their own or others like Kundera claimed to review the translations before they were published. Some bilingual writers explain that they feel the work is only completed if it exists in both languages. Several authors started to write the two works simultanously and translating helped them to find the weak points and so while translating they improved the other version and so the two versions were finished at the same time - before even one was published. Thats why often it is hard to tell which version was the first one or it doesn't really exist an "original" version. But this another issue I will soon adress in another posting. There are also personal reasons for self-translation, as some authors state that by chosing one language over the other, they feel kind of guilty. So self-translation helps them to restore a kind balance and harmony between their two languages. For others it is a way to stay in touch with both languages, especially if they live in exile, it is a way for them to keep their first language alive.