New collection of essays on self-translation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)"

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"

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