Based on (your) real life? Telling true stories in translation

Abstract

This paper proposes to envisage the creative transcription of marginal voices in fiction as a form of intralingual and intermodal translation, since this process involves the transfer of linguistic forms from real, spoken contexts to fictional, written contexts. It also examines the shift from the source to the target language, and considers how the distance between the readership and the characters may affect the way in which these texts are seen as representative of the “real life” of the people depicted. In an attempt to participate to paratextual research on the reception of translated fiction, particularly when it comes to works featuring non-standard linguistic forms and the voices of marginalised people, this paper proposes to weave together the experiences of two authors, Faïza Guène and Alex Wheatle. It will illustrate that the way publishing houses and the press emphasise the links between various aspects of the authors’ background and that of their characters tends to encourage readers to conflate novel and narrative. It will also become clear that these editorial choices diverge from the information presented by authors themselves, who prefer to focus on the stylistic aspects of their books. When it comes to interlingual translation, the paratext does not seem to address the participation of a third person in the process, who filters the voice presented in the novels a second time and reproduces it using the words of the target language. All of these decisions result in readers often perceiving these works as anthropology and not as works of fiction that correspond to the ethical and aesthetic aims of the authors.