Vassilis Alexakis - Un romancier entre deux cultures

"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

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"

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

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

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

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

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".

Jorge Semprún

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 reescritura”, Quaderns: revista de traducció, 16, 2009, pp. 157-164.

Franco Biondi

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

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

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

UPDATE: The website autotraduzione.com is currently down. It will be back online with an updated version of the bibliography in September 2012.