Advantages and Disadvantages of Author Translation as a Special Type of Translation Process (Based on the Analysis of Author Translations of Lolita and Camera Obscura Novels by V. V. Nabokov)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the author’s translation, which has its own characteristics. Very few writers or poets have also translated their work into another language. The main reason for this is the small number of writers who are bilingual and have the talent as translators. The author-translator must know not only his native language, but also the foreign language he is translating his work to the intricacies, and he must be intimately familiar with the culture of the speakers of that language. Although author translation is considered by experts to be the most reliable type of translation, it also has its shortcomings. The cases of departure from the original, which are often found in the translated texts of the author-translators, often turn the translated work into an imitation of the original and lead to the disappearance of part of the informative load in it. On the other hand, this situation can result in the weakening of the aesthetic impact of the translated work. The activity of the well-known Russian writer V. V. Nabokov in the field of author translation should be specially mentioned. He wrote his works in Russian and English and translated some of them from these two languages. In particular, it is possible to appreciate the translation of the Lolita writer’s novels from English to Russian, and Camera Obscura (Laughter in the Dark) from Russian to English as examples of the author’s translation. In addition to the study of the theoretical problems of the author’s translation, the article attempts to determine the advantages and disadvantages of the author’s translation as a type of translation based on the analysis of the above-mentioned author’s translations by Nabokov.