Réécritures, variations, imitations et traductions sans original dans les œuvres de Joseba Sarrionandia

Abstract

The study presented in this article analyses the influence that translation has exerted on the work of Basque writer and translator Joseba Sarrionandia. This analysis shows that the interaction between his original works and his translations is bidirectional, and that the distinction between creation and recreation is much more confused that it can seem in the beginning. By means of intertextual references, rewriting of poems, variations or imitations of texts written by his predecessors, or even by composing translations without originals, Sarrionandia throws into question some of the notions of the modern discourse of translation, and suggests a new way of understanding literature and translation. His strategies aim to demonstrate that it is impossible to create from scratch, that each poet writes over the traces left by the poets he has read, and that each of his texts will necessarily be a conversion or a translation of the literary tradition he has inherited. Therefore, there is no original text, and each text is no more than a translation of a translation. However, the links and relations that each writer/translator suggests with regard to this literary tradition will be new and original, and it is in these new relations that the creating power of translation lies.