Reading (Like) a Translator: The Sensory Life and Travel Writing of Danish Literary Translator Anne Marie Bjerg

Abstract

ABSTRACT The hermeneutic similarities between translation and travelling have been widely debated in translation studies and travel writing, with scholars such as Cronin, Polezzi, Italiano, Simon and Bassnett arguing that they are linked by way of both physical and metaphorical notions of movement and transportation. A neglected take on this idea is to pursue the sentiment that ‘reading like a translator’ is an embodied process, conditioned by sensorimotor possibilities and a shared physical space akin to geographical travel, as expressed by Searls. However, the memoirs of Danish literary translator Anne Marie Bjerg fills this gap as she regards such reading as a process of sensory being, knowing and doing, and her particularly (in)tense immigrant experiences in Sweden and with the Swedish language invite us to visualise a life of translation as a narrative of both delightful wanderlust and a disturbing sentimental journey. Moreover, throughout her odyssey, her ‘reading’ of texts, people, language and culture is infused with rich sensory and bodily sense-making. In my study, I will draw on relevant ideas in the above theoretical works in order to explore these themes in depth and thus reveal the previously unexplored connections between reading and travelling as a translator.