Overview

Walter Benjamin famously warned against translating translations. Yet, literary back-translations are increasingly being published: whether commissioned by publishers to make celebrated translations of literary works accessible to their original audience, or sponsored by nations and feminist groups working for the cultural reappropriation of texts that first appeared in translation, back-translations are becoming more common. This book argues that the malaise they still generate are their very promise: literary back-translation transforms our conception of translation itself, through the recognition that translations are literary works in their own right, and as such also worthy of an afterlife. It thereby responds to the call of Maria Timoczko's call for new approaches enlarging translation, conceptually as well as ideologically. Literary back-translation reveals translation as much less teleological a process than assumed, a process that should no longer be understood as a balance of forces seeking 'restitution' as if it were possible but as a way to enable literary works to travel in both directions, with no preconceived trajectory.

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9781399523042

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Homing in on what may seem a marginal phenomenon, this thought-provoking book theorises literary back-translation, questions the directionality of translation, and offers case studies probing into the ideological underpinnings of all translating, including indirect translation and retranslation--Theo Hermans, University College London This volume on literary back-translation contributes provocatively to our understanding of what translation is and does. From the Chinese classic Dream of Red Chamber to the poetry and translations of Paul Celan, this collection shows readers how back-translation works.--Thomas O. Beebee, Penn State University

Author Information

Veronique Lane is Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Medical Humanities at Lancaster University. She has edited two collections of essays on literary genealogies and translation for L'Esprit Createur (2018) and Translation and Literature (2020), and is the author of Literary Translation and Mental Health (also forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press).

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