TranscUlturAl, vol.4.1 (2011), 1-4.

http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/TC

Authors‒Translators‒Authors

Anne Malena
University of Alberta

Introduction
[F]requently writers translate other people’s works because
those are the works they would have written themselves
had they not already been created by someone else. (Bassnett)

The theme for this issue, “Authors‒Translators‒Authors”, was chosen for the 8th annual St.
Jerome’s Day conference at the University of Alberta on September 30th, 2010, where some of the
articles were originally presented. Those have been revised for this publication while others were
submitted in response to a call for papers on this theme and we are proud to present them in this
volume. We were honoured, therefore, to have in our midst David Homel, an award winning
Montreal writer and translator whose novel Midway had just been published. His keynote address
appears as the leading article and the reader will get a sense of how insightful his talk was as well as
of his incomparable sense of humour that conference participants also had the chance to appreciate
during our customary translation reading event the next day. The topic was chosen before Swansea
University (UK) organized a conference on the same theme, which took place at the end of June
2010.1 The preceding year another conference had been organized in Siena, Tuscany, from which a
collection of essays entitled The Translator as Author was published in 2011, covering topics ranging
from author-translator collaboration to self-translation. Since then many more conference
announcements and calls for papers on this theme have been noticed: to name only two, the
“Translators as Protagonists” conference held in Vienna University in 2011 and the recent call for
papers for a 2013 conference on “Translators and (their) authors” in Israel, posted by the
Translation Studies Federation.2 Not surprisingly then, as the day approached for our own event we
became more and more convinced of the importance of this topic and we looked forward to sharing
insights with North American writers translating international writers past and present and with
translators doing the same or writing about varying topics.
Indeed, our annual celebration of translation always seeks to facilitate the dialogue between
translators and authors and to learn from their own perspective on their practice. After all, as José
Saramago once reminded us: “Todos somos traducidos y todos somos traductores” (2003 np)3.

1
Go to http://www.author-translator.net/ for more information.
More information can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/translationstudiesfederation/.
2
3
The ending of the following quote: “Los escritores hacen las literatures nacionales y los traductores hacen
la literature universal. Sin los traductores los escritores no seríamos nada, estaríamos condenados a vivir
encerrados en nuestra lengua. Todos somos traducidos y todos somos traductores".

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Translators who also write and writers who translate know that translation is writing (Bassnett and
Bush 1). No matter where translators might individually position themselves on the continuum
stretching from the most “faithful” translation to the most creative adaptation, they all accept the
authority and the responsibility to bring the text into its new linguistic, cultural, and even semiotic
setting. That year, the conference’s call for papers urged translators, authors and scholars to send
proposals that would explore any aspect of this dual relationship. Inspired by the volume edited by
Susan Bassnett and Peter Bush, The Translator as Writer (2006), we sought to dismantle “the
hegemonic distinction made between writing and translating” (Bassnett 173), which has been
established for a very long time and perpetuates the perception of translation as a lesser art, a nearly
invisible activity always already subjugated to prestigious and visible writing. The fact is, however,
that translation relies on deeply honed writing skills to be successful and that writing often adopts
strategies that resemble translation as we have had numerous occasions to discover during our
annual gatherings. As Bassnett describes from her own experience, various drafts of writing are
more a matter of a thought process, happening in one’s mind rather than on the computer, while
translating produces several visible drafts on the computer. She mentions the role of a “game
element” in the translating activity that “does not emerge in [her] other writing, where the game (if it
can be termed that) happens internally before the practical writing stage begins” (178). As writers
often mention in interviews or informal conversations, translation, whether it is done by the writer
him- or herself, or to the writer’s works, can also influence writing and sometimes even change it.
Such was Bassnett’s experience in translating the Argentinian poet Alejandra Pizarni: “translating
Pizarni was Bassnett writing” (178). What we learn from this account is that writing and translation
are intricately intertwined and that the relationship between the two shifts and adapts itself to the
varying personalities and styles of the authors and translators involved. The suggestion of a ludic
element at play is very helpful in conveying what is true for many literary translators who love
languages and the infinite possibilities that they offer even, and perhaps particularly, within the
confines of rendering a text into another language. This deep and complex connection between
writing and translating was indeed at the heart of our motivation for the St. Jerome’s conference and
the exchanges initiated by the theme proved that writers, translators and scholars alike are passionate
about reading, writing, translating and interpreting. An interesting analogy can be drawn from music
when brilliant interpreters establish their authority on a composer’s creation and become “authentic
creator[s]”, “recomposer[s]” as Jacques Hétu said of Glenn Gould (quoted in Bazzana 252). In other
words, performers, like many creators, are always looking to surpass their last performance
according to a set of criteria that they alone know and understand because the original work comes
alive thanks to them and is, therefore, subject to the changes and improvements that characterize life
itself. Many of those elements are echoed in these pages.
David Homel in “I Can Do Better Than That!” shares many details about his practice and
explains his unusual process in translation as a way to discover the text as an author would while
writing it. Then Stefano Muneroni writes about “The Cultural Politics of Translation: The Case of
Voltaire’s Mérope and Scipione Maffei’s Merope”, examining how Voltaire’s adaptation of Scipione
Maffei’s Mérope reveals both men engaged in a cultural politics struggle to assert their own authority

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on the Greek play. Next, we travel to Ukraine and the novel Depeche Mode by Serhii Zhadan. Roman
Ivashkiv applies the concept of transmesis—translation and mimesis into one—to the fictional
representation of the figure of the translator in order to elucidate the complex nature of translation.
Transmetic texts turn out to be quite untranslatable unless translation itself is conceived as an
essentially playful and creative act. The next article, “Is the World Enough? Culture, Translation, and
Impassable Differences in the Life of Victoria Ocampo” by Marta Wilkinson offers a reading of
Testimonios, the Argentinian translator’s journal and the sort of document that critics are lucky to be
able to consult because it shows another aspect of the translator as writer. Tracing the life journey of
Victoria Ocampo through translation reveals how she learned about difference and otherness to
finally reach “intercultural maturity”. In the final article on the theme, “Translation and Response
between Maurice Blanchot and Lydia Davis”, Jonathan Evans analyzes the narratological elements in
Blanchot’s La Folie du jour and a story by his translator Lydia Davis entitled simply “Story”. This
fascinating case of a close relationship between a translator and her author is one more example of
what Bassnett describes in the epigraph chosen for this introduction, which Evans also quotes late in
his essay. Whereas Blanchot’s narrative explored “the institutional need for narrative” and his
narrator’s inability to formulate one, Davis focuses on “personal aspects of narrative” (58),
demonstrating that her translation constituted one level of response to Blanchot and her writing a
second level.
The thematic part of this issue ends with the presentation and an English translation by Tom
Priestly of a poem by the Slovenian writer Janko Messner, which the translator, a faithful participant
in the annual St. Jerome’s event, has graciously contributed. A book review by C(h)ris Reyns-
Chikuma closes the issue and presents a recent bilingual edition and scholarly analysis of Paul
Valéry’s long poem Le cimetière marin. The author wonders whether such a publication is still
marketable today and concludes that it adds considerably to our understanding of the poem.
TranscUlturAl would not exist without the volunteer work and cheerful help of many people, so
acknowledgments are necessary. This issue has been a long time in coming due to unfortunate
personal and professional circumstances that are now under control. I’m happy to welcome Dr.
Elisabeth Herrmann to the team as my co-editor and to thank her for “jumping in” with such
enthusiasm and efficiency. I’m also very grateful to Angela Sacher for carefully editing some of the
articles and to Nataliya Sharlay for helping with the final editing. This wonderful team is already hard
at work on the next issue (5.1, 2012) on the theme of “Translating Peripheries”, which will be
available shortly. The first volume of the current year will be devoted to the theme “The Old and
the New” and we are still accepting submissions. We welcome your comments on any aspect of
TranscUlturAl, dear readers, and encourage you to send in your contributions. All you need to do is
register on the site as an author and post your article. If you are interested in reviewing submissions,
please let us know as we are always looking for more experts in a variety of areas both in translation
studies and cultural studies. Book reviews are also very welcome. Finally, I wish to thank the authors
for their immense patience in waiting to see this issue come to light.

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REFERENCES

Bassnett, Susan. “Writing and Translating.” The Translator as Writer. Eds. Susan Bassnett and Peter
Bush. London: Continuum, 2006. 173-83.
Bazzana, Kevin. Wondrous and Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould. Toronto: McClelland &
Stewart Ltd., 2003.
Buffagni, Claudia, Beatrice Garzelli and Serenella Zanotti. The Translator as Author: Perspectives on
Literary Translation. Proceedings of the International Conference, Universita per Stranieri of Siena,
28-29 May 2009. Berlin and London: Lit Verlag, 2011.
Bush, Peter and Susan Bassnett. “Introduction”. The Translator as Writer. Eds. Susan Bassnett and Peter
Bush. London: Continuum, 2006. 1-8.
Saramago, José. “Inaugural Speech”. Buenos Aires Translation Conference, 2003.
Swansea Author-Translator Conference 2010, Monday 28 June – July 1. http://www.author-
translator.net/. February 19, 2013.
Translators and (Their) Authors. May 7-8, 2013. CFP. Tel Aviv University, Israel.
https://sites.google.com/site/translationstudiesfederation/posts/cfptranslatorsandtheirauthors.
February 20, 2013.

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