Literary narrative prose and translation studies

Abstract

Literary fiction and non-fiction have long been central to studies of translation. Literary translation refers to the translation of an original text of cultural and aesthetic import, distinguishing it, for instance, from technical and commercial translation. Literary translation is nonetheless a porous category, as tricky to define as literature itself. It is perhaps best understood as the product of a translator who takes seriously the literary nature of the original and translates with the goal of producing a text that will have literary merit of its own, a work that is ‘designed to be read as literature’ (France 2000: xxi). Until quite recently, the majority of written texts on translation from antiquity onwardsdealt with questions raised by literary and Biblical translation (see Long, this volume). The study of translations of literary narrative prose is thus informed by over two millennia of reflections. However, only recently have literary histories devoted significant attention to the part played by translation in the evolution of a literature and in canon formation. This chapter will provide an overview of relevant theoretical approaches to the study oftranslated literary fiction and narrative prose before considering specific translations and wider trends in the twentieth-century translation into English of canonical texts, fiction, and non-fiction prose.