The volume Creación, traducción, autotraducción, edited by Olga Anokhina y Aurelia Arcocha has recently been published. It focuses on self-translation in Spain.
Access to the content overview: https://www.iberoamericana-vervuert.es/indices/indice_R213584.pdf
Read the introduction: https://www.iberoamericana-vervuert.es/introducciones/introduccion_R213584.pdf
More information: https://www.iberoamericana-vervuert.es/FichaLibro.aspx?P1=213584
I have wonderful memories of the first conference on self-translation in Bologna, so I am especially sad to miss the second one.
Please note: Registration closes 1st September.
Highlights from the program
Wednesday, 20 September 2023
9:30 Keynote address
Rainier Grutman: Post-Vernacular Self-Translation: Bringing Languages Back from the Brink
10:45 Session I Self-Translation as an Inclusive Act: The Case of Vladimir Nabokov
- Irina Marchesini: Why the Space of Self-Translation Matters: Nabokov, Identity and Arizona
- Gabriella Elina Imposti: Collaborative Self-Translation: VV, DV Nabokov and Italian Language
- Julie Lesnoff: Can we Speak of Self-Translation in the Context of Nabokov’s Own Writing of the Screenplay for Lolita?
- Chiara Montini: Re-Translating in Collaboration: the Other Side of Self-Translation: Vittorio Alfieri and Vladimir Nabokov
14:20 Session II Self-Translation in the Slavic Area
- Nadzieja Bąkowska: Il caso di Maria Kuncewiczowa: autotraduzione e narrazione autobiografica
- Magdalena Kampert: From the Monolingual Ideals of Nationhood to a Multilingual Paradigm and Sustainability: Self-Translation as a Means of Recognition of Diversity and Cultural Inclusion
- Kristina Landa: I limiti della Self-Translation ne I limiti dell’arte: il caso di Vjačeslav Ivanov
- Katja Radoš-Perković and Sanja Roić: Autore-(auto)traduttore-traditore? Analisi dell’autotraduzione in inglese e della traduzione in italiano del romanzo Uhvati zeca (2018) di Lana Bastašić
16:15 Session III Self.ie: Literary Self-Translation and Ireland
- Hannah Rice: Féin-aistriú Teanga: Language Shift and Self-Translation in Ireland
- Ellen Corbett: Spectrums within Spectrums: Self-Translation as Aspect of Broader Translation Practicesin Irish to English Translation in Ireland
- Trish Van Bolderen: A (G)host of Other Selves: How Self-Translation Inhabits Allograph Translation in Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s A Ghost in the Throat (2020)
Day 2 – Thursday, 21 September 2023
9:00 Keynote address
Anthony Cordingley: When is Self-Translation Global Literature?
9:55 Session IV Self-Translation outside Europe I
- Dunya K. Ismael: Self-Translation, Migration, and Colonial Relations in Sinan Antoon’s Novel The Corpse Washer
- Paola Puccini e Ines Peta: Dalla Biografia (Sīra) ai Tormenti (Tourments) di un asino: l’autotraduzione dall’arabo al francese del romanzo Sīrat ḥimār di Ḥasan Aurīd
- Imsuk Jung: La possibilità e il limite dell’autotraduzione nelle opere letterarie coreane: Silver Stallion di Ahn Junghyo in un processo di riscrittura continua
11:30 Session V Self-Translation outside Europe II
- Maria Antonietta Rossi: Educare alla diversità attraverso la letteratura per l’infanzia: il bilinguismo letterario di Roberto Parmeggiani fra italiano e portoghese brasiliano
- Maria Alice Goncalves Antunes: Migration and Self-Translation: the Case of a Brazilian Linguist in Universities in the USA
- Marcos Eymar: Self-Translating In-betweenness: from Life on the hyphen (1994) to Vidas en vilo (2000) de Gustavo Pérez-Firmat
- Arianna Dagnino: Seeking Inclusion through “Perceived” Self-Amputation: an Italian-Canadian Case Study
14:45 Session VI Self-Translation in the European Context I
- Simona Anselmi: Self-Translating into and from Italian
- Gian Mario Anselmi and Monica Turci: Translating Oneself, Resisting Self-Translation and Bilingualism. The Strange Case of In altre parole / In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri
- Adrian Wanner: From Dove mi trovo to Whereabouts: Linguistic Destabilization in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Self-Translated Novel
- Margherita Dore: Standing Up Against Ableism. The Cathartic and Persuasive Power of Self-Translated Humour
16:40 Session VII Self-Translation in the European Context II
- Fabio Regattin: La duplice Italia? I polars di Gilda Piersanti tra francese e italiano
- Catia Nannoni: L’autotraduzione nella produzione poetica di Francis Tessa/Francesco Tessarolo
- Sabina Ciminari and Elisa Segnini: Traiettorie dell’autotraduzione in Alba de Céspedes, tra intraducibilità e incomparabilità
- Elizabete Manterola Agirrezabalaga: The Self-Translation of Short Stories Collections in an Asymmetric Language Combination
More information, registration and complete program on: https://eventi.unibo.it/selftranslation2023
Dr Aoife Cantrill (Manchester) will give a talk on self-translator Li Kotomi with the title "Self-Translation and Language-Making in Li Kotomi/Li Qinfeng's The Island Where the Spider Lily Blooms" on Monday, 15 May 2023, 12:45.
More information: https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/a9cea786-6665-4b0d-8be5-40e4f5ca9c5c/
Only accessible of members of Oxford university, unfortunaley.
Abstract;
Li Kotomi/Li Qinfeng is a Taiwanese-born author living and writing in Japan, whose novels explore migrant experiences, queer perspectives, and linguistic politics. In this talk, Dr Aoife Cantrill will discuss Li’s 2021 Japanophone novel The Island Where the Spider Lily Blooms, which uses the plot device of a young girl washed up on an island with no memory of her previous life to comment on competing ideas of language purity and identity. The linguistic hierarchies established within the novel depend on the different Japanese scripts (kanji, hiragana, katakana), which Li uses to develop themes relating to territory and exclusion. The book was a critical success, winning the prestigious Akutagawa literary award in 2021, making Li the first Taiwanese-born Akutagawa recipient.
The linguistic complexities of the novel are reiterated in its Mandarin Chinese translation, undertaken by Li in 2022. This version of the novel reproduces the linguistic hierarchies of the first, but relies on patterns of script variation devised by Li herself. Taking both versions together provides an opportunity to think about self-translation: what is the influence of script in the translation of contemporary Sinophone and Japanophone literatures? How does Li reproduce structures of linguistic logic between the two versions? And how does a novel in an author’s second language translated back into their first shape ideas of a text being ‘born translated’?
In his essay "Within (and Without) Languages: A Jewish Writer’s Translingual Adventures", recently published by the Davis Center, Maxim D. Shrayer explores his own literary translingualism in comparison to other translingual writers. Self-translation has always played a role in his literary journey in one way or another:
"Self-translation has evolved from attempts to give previous Russian texts another life in English (a life they may or may not have deserved)—through creatively revising my English-language fiction and nonfiction—to parallel compositions of texts in both English and Russian, a mode that I presently find most stimulating."
To read the full essay, please follow this link: https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/insights/within-and-without-languages-jewish-writers-translingual-adventures
In a recently published episode of the Modern Poetry in Translation podcast, Jhumpa Lahiri discusses self-translation with Khairani Barokka. Topics include her relationship to translation, language and poetry; differences between the process of self translating poetry versus prose.
You can listen to the podcast or read the transcript here: https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/jhumpa-lahiri-speaks-to-khairani-barokka-on-self-translation-and-turning-to-poetry/
The bibliography on self-translation has been updated (42th update, February 2023). To download the pdf-file please click here. If you have any suggestions for further entries, please leave a comment.
In his essay "Self-translation and bilingual writing as a transnational writer in the age of machine translation", recently published in Overland, poet Ouyang Yu talks about his bilingual Chinese-English poems. He explains that publishers were sceptical about his self-translations:
"I had difficulties in getting them accepted because I gave away the secret of self-translation until I presented them as if they were originally written in the English language, a strategy well worth adopting in those days of insensitivity to the genre."
The focus of his essay, however, is on the role that machine translation, e.g. DeepL, plays in his bilingual writing.
The full essay can be found here: https://overland.org.au/2023/02/self-translation-and-bilingual-writing-as-a-transnational-writer-in-the-age-of-machine-translation/
Check out the essay by Russian-American poet Andrey Gritsman on bilingual poetry and self-translation published on EastWest Literary Forum. Reflecting on its experience of creating "parallel poems", he concludes:
"In summary, writing poetry in two poetic languages shows that a successful poem appears when it is written in two languages on the same emotional wave, yet created as two original poems in different languages."
Read the full essay here: https://eastwestliteraryforum.com/essays/andrey-gritsman-on-bilingual-poetry-and-self-translation
