L’original bilingue, ou la traduction impossible : autour de « L’homme invisible / The Invisible Man » de Patrice Desbiens

Abstract

Le récit/the story entitled Lʼhomme invisible / The Invisible Man (1981) by Patrice Desbiens, a bilingual Franco-Ontarian writer and poet, encourages us to reflect on a bilingual original and to rethink the relationship between the centre and the periphery in the translational context. Bilingualism is an integral part of the book: Patrice Desbiens builds his identities on “two mother tongues” by juxtaposing the two versions of his text. A detailed analysis of the story in French and English shows important differences between them. What is more, only a simultaneous reading of the two versions makes it possible to fully understand the idea of the story and the complicated relations between the two cultures. The article is a reflection on the impossibility of translating an original built on the presence of two languages, an inherent and specific feature of Desbiens’ text.