5 6097939050113531965 PDF

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN TRANSLATING
AND INTERPRETING
SERIES EDITOR: MARGARET ROGERS
SELF-TRANSLATION
AND POWER
NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES IN EUROPEAN

MULTILINGUAL CONTEXTS
EDITED BY OLGA CASTRO,

SERGI MAINER AND SVETLANA PAGE
Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting
Series editor
Margaret Rogers
Department of Languages and Translation
University of Surrey
Guildford, UK
This series examines the crucial role which translation and interpreting in
their myriad forms play at all levels of communication in today's world,
from the local to the global. Whilst this role is being increasingly recog-
nised in some quarters (for example, through European Union legisla-
tion), in others it remains controversial for economic, political and social
reasons. The rapidly changing landscape of translation and interpreting
practice is accompanied by equally challenging developments in their
academic study, often in an interdisciplinary framework and increasingly
reflecting commonalities between what were once considered to be sepa-
rate disciplines. The books in this series address specific issues in both
translation and interpreting with the aim not only of charting but also of
shaping the discipline with respect to contemporary practice and research.
More information about this series at

http://www.springer.com/series/14574
Olga Castro • Sergi Mainer
Svetlana Page
Editors
Self-Translation and
Power
Negotiating Identities in European
Multilingual Contexts
Editors
Olga Castro Sergi Mainer
Aston University University of Edinburgh
Birmingham, UK Edinburgh, UK
Svetlana Page
University of Birmingham
Birmingham, UK
Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting

ISBN 978-1-137-50780-8 ISBN 978-1-137-50781-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50781-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017949910
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans-
mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: Bursting into Crevices by Olga Castro
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom
Foreword
In this pioneering anthology, the editors Olga Castro, Sergi Mainer and
Svetlana Page, among the most promising of a new generation of trans-
lation studies scholars, address the important question of self-transla-
tion especially pertaining to minority languages within Europe.
European translation scholars, in many ways, have held tremendous
advantages within the field of translation studies, for it is there the dis-
cipline as such began. A strong group of scholars, including José
Lambert, Gideon Toury, André Lefevere, Theo Hermans, Itamar Even-
Zohar and Dirk Delabastita, defined a discipline and created research
paradigms, working to identify the role translations imported from
abroad played in the development of national literary systems. The
drawback of such a method, however, is that it neglected research into
non-national languages and minority language communities, which is
exactly the topic this collection addresses. As any immigrant or minor-
ity language speaker knows, living in any European culture involves
living in a constant state of translation.
Secondly, European scholars have had the advantage of European
Union (EU) support for research projects supplemented by one of the
largest troves of translational data, those derived from the body of EU
official translations. Yet, these huge databases, incredibly influential for
deriving patterns of translational behaviour, are only in the official lan-
guages. Admirably, the EU has expanded its number of official languages
v
vi Foreword
from the initial 6 to the current 24. Equally admirably, the EU spends
over €1 billion on translation each year, not an inconsiderable sum.
The problem, however, with such an institutional support of national
languages should be manifest to all. Since its inception in 1958, the EU
makes many claims about their commitment to multilingualism and lin-
guistic diversity. But once one begins considering the neglected languages,
the range of omission becomes increasingly manifest. Some national lan-
guages are not recognised, such as Luxembourgish and, perhaps more
controversial, Turkish. Secondly, some of the minority languages are rel-
egated to dialect status, including Scots, Sardinian, Sicilian, Breton,
Basque, Occitan, Romani, Ukrainian, Galician and Catalan. Further,
Russian maintains a major presence all over Europe, especially in Baltic
regions. Indigenous languages such as Sami only enjoy a limited status.
Finally, the lack of translational status for immigrant languages, such as
Arabic, Berber, Farsi, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, not to mention the sub-
Saharan African languages, is particular glaring, especially in asylum
cases.
This anthology addresses that problem, and it is remarkable with its
range and insight. The focus of the translation problem shifts to minority
languages, or in a productive term coined by the editors, “minorised” lan-
guages, such as Arabic, Basque, Catalan, Ladino, Occitan, Russian, Swiss-
German and Turkish. The word “minorised” is productive, as the focus on
major languages serves to actively oppress the non-official languages,
thereby forcing those speakers to assimilate into the major languages,
especially in matters of state. Thus, power relations play a prominent role
in the discussions that follow. The editors assert that since languages and
cultures are invariably of unequal social status, any translation encounter
between them will be dominated by one of the language pair. While most
official translation programmes, including EU translation policies, claim
neutrality and objectivity, the visibility of the unequal power relations is
well demonstrated in the essays that follow. This book exposes the com-
plex relations among competing national interests, language policies and
cultural environments, and reveals how individual translators are caught
in the web. While most studies recognise how powerful governmental
forces, literary institutions and, yes, university programmes impinge free-
dom of expression, contributors to this book also note the possibility
Foreword
vii
of self-translation as an act of resistance by inserting the minority language

viewpoint into the paradigm of the majority language speakers. The reper-
cussions of such investigations may be far-reaching, not just for transla-
tion studies scholars, but for studies of movement, migration, sociology,
cultural studies, globalisation and world literature.
The editors disagree with traditional definitions of self-translation,
once thought to be an anomaly in the field and only practised by a small
group of talented bilingual writers such as Beckett, Borges or Nabokov.
Instead, they argue that self-translation is not the exception, but a reoc-
curring practice that may in fact be the more prevalent form. In that
contact zone between major and minor language groups, contributors
demonstrate that translation is an always ongoing practice, and a very
fertile one at that. The majority practice, indeed, could very well be that
of the speakers of the minorised language translating themselves, or bet-
ter said, self-translating themselves, into the majority.
The focus on lesser-known languages and on the practice of self-
translation opens the way to new insights, of which there are many. Not
only does the anthology enumerate a variety of self-translation practices,
but it also looks at seldom-examined issues such as censorship and self-
censorship, individual and collaborative translation, as well as visible and
invisible translation. Indeed, a new discipline called “self-translation
studies” (Anselmi 2012) is emerging, which is solidified by this book. The
languages of African slaves, of Jewish refugees, of travelling Romani
groups, of pan-national languages such as Gaelic or Occitan, of Russian
exiles and, especially, of North African and Middle-Eastern refugees get
restored to discussions of translation.
This study is divided into three sections. The first concerns hegemony
and resistance, focusing on strategies of resistance adopted by self-
translators. The second section is on self-minorisation and represents sig-
nificant innovation for the field, as the topic concerns the use of a
self-translated text as a source text when translating into a third language.
Thus, at times the author, and native speaker of the initial minor lan-
guage, is inadvertently morphed into a hegemonic speaker, often with
unintended effects. Translation, of course, plays a major role in putting a
minor language on the world literary map. The third section looks at
issues of collaboration, hybridisation and invisibility. Often minorised
viii Foreword
writers lack proficiency in the target language and turn to others for assis-
tance. The project, thus, evolves into a collaborative effort, the result of
which is more a hybrid text, with editors, other translators and native
speakers further erasing the voice of the self-translator.
The implications of such research for translation studies are profound.
Clearly one needs to reconsider distinctions between national borders or
national languages: borders are often arbitrary and shifting, and lan-
guages travel as peoples move and migrate, which has never been greater
than in today’s world. Notions of source and target text, already fragile
within the field, are exploded by the case studies presented, and more
thought needs to be given to the amount of authorship that goes into
traditional translation and the amount of translation that goes into
authorship. These self-translations are more transcreations than separate
entities, and most of the contributors emphasise how they create possi-
bilities of the form. In this age of transnational texts, rewriting in differ-
ent genres and media, secondary translation, creative transpositions, and
new and innovative hybrid forms, self-translation’s creative side can be
illuminating. Most importantly, the power dynamics are increasingly
exposed and exploited by self-translators; shifts can be easily seen between
the source and self-translation as the translators conform to or resist lin-
guistic and cultural norms.
As both a translator and a rewriter, the self-translator often can take
more liberties with the source text than the typical translator. This in turn
gives rise to individual agency in translation, a topic that systems-based
theorists have found difficult to assess, but one which contemporary
research on issues of translation and identity, especially among minorised
peoples, women and immigrants, has found paramount. This anthology
promises to be a landmark in that evolution, a must read for all scholars
of language, linguistics, translation, literary and cultural studies, sociol-
ogy, politics and postcolonial studies.
University of Massachusetts Amherst Edwin Gentzler,

Amherst, MA, USA
Acknowledgements
We wish to express many thanks to all the people who have accompanied
us in this process and assisted us, in one way or another, at different stages
of this book—namely, Frank Austermühl, Susan Bassnett, Helena
Buffery, Michael Cronin, Emek Ergun, Xoán Estúa, Edwin Gentzler,
Rainier Grutman, María Liñeira, Christina Schäffner and Martín Veiga.
We are particularly indebted to Nathanael Page for his help in proofread-
ing and inputting the economics’ angle on power, as well as to all the
colleagues and reviewers who assisted us in the peer-review process.
Special thanks to our very supportive editors, Chloe Fitzsimmons,
Judith Allan and Rebecca Wyde, and to the series editor Professor
Margaret Rogers, for her careful reading and valuable feedback. And, of
course, we are thankful to all the contributors of this volume for their
dedication and hard work.
Last, we are immensely grateful to our families for their support.
ix
Contents
I ntroduction: Self-Translating, from Minorisation

to Empowerment 1
Olga Castro, Sergi Mainer, and Svetlana Page
Part I Hegemony and Resistance 23
abel in (Spite of ) Belgium: Patterns of Self-Translation

B
in a Bilingual Country 25
Rainier Grutman
he Three Powers of Self-Translating or Not Self-Translating:

T
The Case of Contemporary Occitan Literature
(1950–1980) 51
Christian Lagarde
elf-Translation as Testimony: Halide Edib Rewrites

S
The Turkish Ordeal 71
Mehtap Ozdemir
xi
xii Contents
Part II Self-Minorisation and Self-Censorship 93
he Failure of Self-Translation in Catalan Literature 95

T
Josep Miquel Ramis
he Power and Burden of Self-Translation:

T
Representation of “Turkish Identity” in
Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul119
Arzu Akbatur
elf-Translation and Linguistic Reappropriation:

S
Juan Gelman’s Dibaxu143
Brandon Rigby
elf-Translating Between Minor and Major Languages:

S
A Hospitable Approach in Bernardo Atxaga’s
Obabakoak165
Harriet Hulme
Part III Collaboration, Hybridisation and Invisibility 189
ollaborative Self-Translation in a Minority Language:

C
Power Implications in the Process, the Actors and
the Literary Systems Involved191
Elizabete Manterola Agirrezabalaga
ollaborative Self-Translation as a Catastrophe:

C
The Case of Vadim Kozovoï in French217
Julia Holter
Contents
xiii
eyond Self-Translation: Amara Lakhous and

B
Translingual Writing as Case Study241
Rita Wilson
riting Beyond the Border: Max Frisch, Dialect and

W
Place in Swiss-German Literature265
Marc Cesar Rickenbach
Index289
List of Figures
Chapter 2
Fig. 1 Belgian self-translators active between 1880 and 2015 35
Chapter 10
Fig. 1 Kozovoï’s poem “Себя ли ради?”, original and
English gloss 229
Fig. 2 French translation of Kozovoï’s poem “Себя ли ради?”
and English oral transcription 230
xv
Introduction: Self-Translating,
from Minorisation to Empowerment
Olga Castro, Sergi Mainer, and Svetlana Page
Multilingualism, cultural awareness and ethnic diversity have become

staple terms of both academic and political ideologies across Europe.
Whether these features are promulgated via the European Union (EU)
guidelines for its member states or by globalisation and international
trade deals for non-EU European countries, multilingualism is—and has
been for centuries—one of the trademark features of European geogra-
phies. Be it within Europe or elsewhere, one of the aspects of multilin-
gualism is a power differential between languages. Indeed, since various
O. Castro (*)
Aston University, Birmingham, UK
S. Mainer
University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
S. Page
University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
© The Author(s) 2017 1

O. Castro et al. (eds.), Self-Translation and Power, Palgrave Studies in Translating
and Interpreting, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50781-5_1
2 O. Castro et al.
languages and cultures are rarely, if ever, of equal status in multilingual

contexts, any encounter between them will inevitably contain some sort
of underlining, constituent power. The visibility of power—or, for that
matter, its often deliberate invisibility—is demonstrated in and through
translation, “one of the most representative paradigms of the clash
between two cultures” (Álvarez and Vidal 1996b, 1). Yet, to what extent
is the (in)visibility of power demonstrated through self-translation—
defined here as the translation of one’s own work originally produced in
a source language into a target language—with the specificity that the
author-translator is competent in both? Not surprisingly, the question of
power, and the impact of the power differential, has recently taken centre
stage in the development of translation studies as a discipline, most par-
ticularly in its descriptive branch. It is now time to explore how the issue
of power relates to the specific practice of self-translation, itself an increas-
ingly common activity and also an emerging academic subdiscipline.
Steering the Power Turn

Since the expression cultural turn was coined by Susan Bassnett and
André Lefevere (1990) for the translation of literary works, translation is
no longer understood as an objective and neutral linguistic shift from one
language to another, but rather as a powerful act of mediation and trans-
formation closely linked to existing power structures or counterpower
activism within wider sociopolitical and cultural contexts. The cultural
turn involves the incorporation of the all-encompassing cultural dimen-
sion, making language work as a parallel or interconnected system to
culture instead of as an external referential entity. Translation is now inex-
orably culture bound. Timely collections, such as Translation, Power,
Subversion edited by Román Álvarez and África Vidal (1996a), added the
term power to the axis of debate in translation studies by emphasising the
necessity to scrutinise “the relationship between the production of knowl-
edge in a given culture and its transmission, relocation, and reinterpreta-
tion in the target culture” (1996b, 1). As the two editors argued, this was
obviously involved “with the production and ostentation of power and
with the strategies used by this power in order to represent the other cul-
Self-Translating, from Minorisation to Empowerment 3
ture” (1996b, 1). The collection was therefore crucial in creating a long-
lasting link between power and translation. Two decades later, the
prevalence of Susan Bassnett’s contributing words to that volume con-
firms the centrality of power to translation: “The study and practice of
translation is inevitably an exploration of power relationships within tex-
tual practices that reflect power structures within the wider cultural
context” (Bassnett 1996, 21).
Subsequently, in their influential volume Translation and Power (2002),
Edwin Gentzler and Maria Tymoczko claimed that it was time for a new
turn, as “the cultural turn in Translation Studies has become the power
turn” (Tymoczko and Gentzler 2002, xvi). A number of reasons justified
this new research angle. First, the need for emphasising that all transla-
tions necessarily involve different exertions of power, or in their own
words, “the key topic that has provided the impetus for the new direc-
tions that translation studies have taken since the cultural turn is power”
(2002, xvi). The asymmetrical relations between agents, actors and/or
contexts inescapably permeate all translation projects, underlining the
significance of investigating power. Indeed, the exploration of specific
power relations in which translations are made is a necessary and funda-
mental starting point to get a better understanding of the polysemic
nature and far-reaching effects of translations. As a consequence, the
shifts occurring in our understanding of translation cannot be completely
explained through culture itself, but rather in the power relations govern-
ing any culture, language or, more specifically, literary production, as
demonstrated by André Lefevere’s patronage system (1992).
A second reason was the recognition that, in the cultural turn, power
had been characterised as a monolithic entity, recurrently understood in
absolutist ways as control and repression taking place in dichotomical
situations of “powerful” versus “powerless.” Conversely, the power turn
sought to redefine power as a more diversified entity where cultural repre-
sentations and identities are negotiated in translation in line with the
Foucauldian maxim that “là où il y a pouvoir, il y a de la résistance”
(1976, 123) [where there is power, there is resistance]. Similarly, and also
in line with Michel Foucault (1995, 194), power is a “productive” or
impartial force; thus, it can be deployed either oppressively or liberatingly.
Power merely refers to the extent by which one group is able to limit
4 O. Castro et al.
(through direct control, influence or manipulation) the actions and activ-

ities of another group, and can be multidirectional and simultaneous
within a society, from “top” to “bottom,” “bottom” to “top” or sideways,
from one peer group to another. Equating power with oppression no lon-
ger stands as the only valid interpretation. Either individually or—more
effectively—collectively, power has also been exercised from the bottom
throughout history, from Spartacus’ first-century BC slave uprising to the
Peasants’ Revolt in England (1381) or to the more recent worldwide anti-
globalisation movements and the Kurdish Revolution of current times.
The application of this multilayered understanding of power to transla-
tion studies highlights the agency of the translator in either perpetuating
repression or challenging it. Not only does power encompass the defini-
tion of repression and control, but also the ability to resist and subvert
such actions. Translation is not impartial, and can be used as an instru-
ment for imposing hegemonic values, for legitimating the status quo, for
removal of thoughts or behaviours which are not considered desirable and
for producing knowledge in “favour” of the (repressive) power, often in
subtle and invisible (thus, very effective) ways. Yet, it can also become an
empowering activity through which translators deliberately opt for resis-
tance practices at a specific historical time and in a given socio-historical
situation, for example, by “subverting traditional allegiances of transla-
tion, interjecting their own worldviews and politics into their work”
(Gentzler 2002, 197). This act of resistance against established values and
norms, however, is not to be framed in a dualistic representation of power
(a dichotomy between complete opposition and complete submission),
but rather in shifting power dynamics that situate translators in blurred
positions of hybridisation—power relations in translation are being con-
stantly negotiated. In fact, it is not only translators who are empowered
by this conceptualisation of power, but also any and all actors in the trans-
lation process: editors, publishers and, importantly, the target audience,
creating a complex set of power struggles in the search to create, alter or
condition meaning. This is the reason why the role of translators as agents
of cultural and social change is inevitably inseparable from the multiplic-
ity of tensions at different levels. Hence, studying the possibilities opened
by these dynamic power relations and fluctuating identities becomes pro-
ductive and pivotal to the understanding of translation processes. The
translators’ approach to their activity, the choices made while translating,

will undoubtedly have an impact on the creation of knowledge about dif-
ferent cultures and languages: on the image created of the source text, the
source language, the source culture and the text’s impact on the target
culture. When discussing power in self-translation, all in all, it is therefore
crucial to critically engage with the power turn as a way of delineating
what the particularities of self-translation are when practised by author-
translators in bilingual/multilingual contexts.
ultilingualism and Power Dynamics

M
in Europe
This collection chooses to focus its attention on the “European conti-
nent,” defined broadly in terms of its geographies rather than its com-
monly narrow understanding of EU-associated states. Conceptualised in
this way, Europe’s constant geopolitical and historical transformation
from the Middle Ages to the present day offers a prolific intercultural and
intra-cultural context to examine power relations with regards to the
political, social, cultural and economic implications of self-translation.
Indeed, the rhetoric of the mainstream academic and political ideologies
endorses and even celebrates European linguistic diversity. Yet, these ide-
ologies mainly account for the official languages of the nation states;
meaning that in practice other existing non-state official and unofficial
languages in Europe are left in the shadow. This is where this collection
aims to bring some light by discussing the condition of Occitan in France
(see Lagarde), of Basque and Catalan in Spain (see Hulme, Manterola
and Ramis) or of Dutch in Belgium (see Grutman), and also by discuss-
ing often neglected spaces in European narratives, such as Switzerland
(see Rickenbach) and Turkey (see Akbatur and Ozdemir), or migratory
spaces where Italian-Arabic, Russian-French or Spanish-Ladino interac-
tions take place (see Wilson, Holter and Ribgy, respectively).
Based on a selection of case studies, the collection offers a sufficiently
wide canvas to represent a variety of the complex interconnections of
multilingualism, power and self-translation happening in this heteroge-
neous region. As such, it illustrates how negotiations between hegemonic
6 O. Castro et al.
and minorised cultures take place in an increasingly multicultural and

ever-changing space. The complex European milieu offers an ideal ground
for studying liquid identities owing to the current fluidity of travelling
discourses. Due to continuous fluxes of migration and travel from differ-
ent parts of the globe, the linguistic map of the continent has been chang-
ing and the European translation scene can no longer be confined to
investigations of several hegemonic translation-intensive languages. This
adds a new layer of analysis to hybridisation and to the formation of
multifaceted identities.
By reaching past hegemonies and highlighting the unequal relation-
ships between languages involved in self-translation, this collection
wishes to disperse an existing perception of Europe as a monolithic cul-
tural and/or political space still largely pertaining to postcolonial critique.
While Europe has been traditionally regarded as the coloniser, this view
is an essentialist conceptualisation of Europe that ignores the existing
asymmetry and inequality of relations between peoples and languages
within the continent (Cronin 1995, 85). In fact, there is a growing body
of work investigating the similarities in terms of both features and pro-
cesses that the European minorised languages/literatures share with those
of the colonised nations (Cronin 1995, 2003; Díaz Fouces 2005; Yurchuk
2013); a quick look at journals such as mTm: Minor Translating Major—
Major Translating Minor is quite revealing in this regard. Therefore, it is
possible to contend that within Europe, there are practices of intra-
colonisation within multilingual nation states.
The power dynamics within Europe has attracted various, often con-
flicting, terminologies that are in use in translation and world literature
studies. One of the first in that regard is the notion of the “polysystem,”
developed by Itamar Even-Zohar (1978, 1990) through an analysis of
European hegemonic and Russian literary examples. Not only did this
theory introduce the notion of the polysystem in translation studies, but it
also presented controversial terms describing the degrees of remoteness
from the desirable hegemonic centre: “periphery,” “semi-periphery” and
“centre.” While translation studies have had a mixed reaction to the pro-
posed terminology when referred to “weak literatures,” as “crude … evalu-
ative terms” (Bassnett 1998, 127) lacking “clarity regarding the vantage
point from which the comments are made” (Hermans 1999, 109), world
literature studies seem to be less dismissive of the terminology. In the world

systems theory (see Wallerstein 1974, 2004), “semi-peripheral” or “periph-
eral” are not regarded as evaluative terms and thus are in mainstream
usage—a recent publication by the Warwick Research Collective’s (2015)
findings titled Combined and Uneven Development: Towards a New Theory
of World-Literature is an illustrative example in this regard, as well as Pascale
Casanova’s (1999) notable work on the “World Republic of Letters.”
A number of authors, including some in this collection, use the term
“minority” to describe the status of some European languages and litera-
tures. While recognising its validity, as editors we have chosen to build on
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of “minor” literature (1986)
and to favour the term “minorisation” instead, to refer to language and
literatures placed in a less powerful or secondary position in power hier-
archies. As argued by Donna Patrick (2010, 176), at the macro level a
minorised language and literature lack status, prestige, diffusion, stan-
dardisation and a normalised functional use, in favour of another nor-
malised entities; at the micro level, a minorised language and literature
lack recognition by speakers of the sociolinguistically dominant language,
with users of the minorised entities generally conforming and ultimately
adopting those dominant views. Thus, by suggesting the term “mino-
rised” we are questioning precisely the fact that these language and litera-
tures are placed in a secondary position in power hierarchies, but also
highlighting the continual resistance which becomes their daily experi-
ence while co-existing alongside their competing hegemonic language(s).
Seen in this light, European minorised languages emerge as a locus for
a postcolonial analysis of language politics in conflict. By way of example,
the interactions between official state languages and both non-state offi-
cial and unofficial languages within the same territory typically lead to
diglossia, signifying a hierarchical relationship between languages. This
tends to generate a series of cultural and linguistic tensions affecting the
notions of hegemony, resistance, dominance, subversion and (inter-)
dependency between literary polysystems. Indeed, the different bilingual
“interliterary communities” (Ďurišin 1984) developed around the non-
state official languages as well as the unofficial languages are typically
defined by an asymmetrical bilingualism or diglossia in relation to the
official state languages.
8 O. Castro et al.
In Casanova’s terms, the unequal asymmetries between literary poly-

systems means that there are “dominating” and “dominated” literatures
(1999). When exploring the exchanges between them through self-
translation, we identify three scenarios: first, self/translation between two
“dominating” literatures; second, self/translation between two “domi-
nated” literatures; and third, self/translation between the “dominated”
and the “dominating” literatures. In this latter case, using Grutman’s ter-
minology (2013b), diglossia precludes the possibility of creating “hori-
zontal exchanges” between languages of potentially equal status or
prestige; rather, it encourages bilingual writers to self-translate “verti-
cally”—and whenever self-translation happens between languages/litera-
tures of disparate status, author-translators can either self-translate uphill
(into the “dominating” literature and prestigious language of the state to
which they officially belong) or downhill (into the “dominated” literature
and non-prestigious language, which is most often their mother tongue)
(Grutman 2013a, 230). The way diglossia materialises in vertical self-
translation varies. In multilingual Spain, the tendency is for the official
non-state languages to go uphill: that is, those committed writers creating
in Catalan, Galician or Basque—or non-recognised languages such as
Asturian or Aragonese—as part of the struggle against the imposed (neo)
colonial power, do self-translate into Castilian Spanish later. However, in
multilingual Italy (with one official language only and the lack of recog-
nition of the regional languages), the tendency is the opposite, and self-
translators there tend to produce first versions in the dominant national
language before rendering them downhill into a dialect or regional
language.
For native literary self-translators who live and work in a diglossic soci-
ety characterised by a sociolinguistic conflict between the self-translator’s
working languages, individual decisions become laden with political con-
sequences. The process of negotiation within self-translation becomes
complex and dependent upon the conditions of the venture. When oper-
ating within an unequal pair of languages, such as a local minority lan-
guage and a hegemonic language, self-translators are encountering
problems with negotiation of various sides of their “self ” translated
through different linguistic media. Thus, when Kozovoï, a Soviet Russian
writer used to his poetry being appreciated, begins to translate himself
into French, he encounters a strong resistance of the target polysystem

(see Holter). In combating this, he unwillingly adopts a more familiar
lens for his works and gains some recognition as a dissident, if not as a
poet. What we observe here is an expatriated author who finds himself in
another hegemonic language position. In a different situation, when it is
a minorised language which is being self-translated into a hegemonic
one, writers are often faced with self-editing which can stretch from
omitted words or substitute phrases to rewritten passages, as exemplified
in the case of Halide Edib’s rewriting of The Turkish Ordeal, also explored
in this volume (see Ozdemir). We define the cases of self-rewriting moti-
vated by ideological or political reasons as “self-censorship,” introducing
a term we consider vital to self-translation studies to account for the situ-
ations where self-translators face the dilemma of self-editing themselves
before they even begin translating. Depending on the degree of self-
censorship, the self-translator may foresee the problematic metonymies
of the translation process and discuss them with the editors, funders or
censors, thus the negotiation of self-translation issues can occasionally
start even before the commissioning of translation is discussed.
As negotiation in the translation process comes to the forefront in
research and media, it necessarily raises the issue of the function of the
translator’s agency, a subject which has witnessed one of the most signifi-
cant shifts of attention in translation studies. Yet, despite the number of
works published with case studies on individual self-translators, the
agency of the self-translator as a powerful mediator has not been suffi-
ciently examined. This is a gap that this collection is now addressing.
What is Special about Self-Translation?

Although many publications have placed power at the centre of debate in
translation studies yielding fruitful academic outcomes, very few schol-
arly contributions have explicitly examined the crucial connection
between power relations and self-translation. The marginality of self-
translation within the field of translation studies until recently may
explain this research gap. Rainier Grutman’s entry to the first edition of
the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (1998) publicly con-
10 O. Castro et al.
demned that marginality, declaring self-translation to be an invisible

topic in translation studies, probably due to the monolingual agenda of
much critical writing about “national” literatures. Another reason prob-
ably leading to its neglected status, according to Grutman, was the mis-
conception of self-translation as a rarity only practised by bilingual writers
from major literatures, such as Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges,
Vladimir Nabokov or Rabindranath Tagore. In The Bilingual Text: History
and Theory of Literary Self-Translation (2007), the first monograph on
self-translation ever published in English, Jan Hokenson and Marcella
Munson explored the same idea when trying to explain the peripherality
of self-translation due to its perception as a practice favoured by writers
seen as “idiosyncratic anomalies, mostly preening polyglots or maladap-
tive immigrants” (2007, 1). Contrary to this misconception, the revised
and updated version of the “self-translation” entry in the same encyclope-
dia, published by Grutman nine years later (2009), shows how much the
topic has evolved since then, and the same author concludes in a more
recent publication: “Self-translation is neither an exceptional nor a par-
ticularly recent phenomenon. In today’s world, there are probably writers
translating themselves on every inhabited continent, with some areas
buzzing with activity” (Grutman 2013a, 189). However, it is not only in
today’s world, as Hokenson and Munson demonstrate that the practice of
self-translation can be traced back to the Middle Ages and has been con-
tinuous up to the new millennium. True, it has frequently been practised
“on the quiet.” It is only in recent times, due to growing multilingualism
of contemporary societies and the internationalisation of English, that
the frequent and recurrent practice of self-translation has become more
visible through a process of “coming out.” Consequently, more scholarly
attention is being paid to self-translation, as more and more bilingual
authors self-translate, gaining access to other literary fields where they
can acquire monetary, cultural and symbolic capital.
As a result of this growing interest, in the last few years the number of
publications devoted to examining the particularities of self-translation
has experienced a remarkable growth,1 to the extent that the label “self-
translation studies” has been recently coined by Simona Anselmi (2012)
in her monograph On Self-Translation: An Exploration in Self-Translators’
Teloi and Strategies, to underline the distinctiveness of the field. One of
the most remarkable features is, in our view, the innovative perspectives
it offers to the study of power, more specifically in the current multilin-
gual European context. As this current volume will later demonstrate, the
conceptualisation of power in self-translation is intimately connected
with the tensions generated by geopolitical spaces where major and mino-
rised cultures and nations collide, and a constant struggle for hegemony
is met by different forms of resistance.
In close relation to this, a second distinctive feature that emerges when
conceptualising power in self-translation is that of the “in-between” place
of the self-translator. Given that self-translation occurs in multilingual
contexts defined by asymmetrical relations between languages, literatures
and cultures, “the practice of self-translation is never innocent” (Whyte
2002, 64). Whenever bilingual writers decide to self-translate their own
words into another language in which they are competent, they nearly
always play a double role as authors and translators affiliated to two dif-
ferent and often competing literary systems. Self-translators’ double affili-
ation in multilingual contexts places them in a privileged position to
problematise power and to negotiate identities. That is, the centrality of
power in self-translation studies involves acknowledging the author-
translator’s privileged position to negotiate the experiences of the subal-
tern and colonised and to scrutinise conflicting minorised versus
hegemonic cultural identities. Yet, this is not an easy task, for “wherever
hierarchies in languages and literatures are outspoken, multilingual writ-
ers and self-translators risk having a hard life” (Meylaerts 2011). Regardless
of the language/literary system chosen for their texts to be first published,
a series of ideological tensions affecting notions of hegemony and national/
territorial identity are likely to emerge, for “while national identities can
be negotiated in a variety of ways, current research privileges language
and literary policies as increasingly important means of social control
which allow nation-states to define who is in and who is out” (Blackledge
2005, 42). These tensions will not be avoided by having their works
simultaneously published in both languages, as the power differential
between the languages would still manifest, originating as internal fric-
tions and mediations. Indeed, the use of self-translation as a form of resis-
tance may also contribute to situations of unconscious self-minorisation
or the “failure” of self-translation, as expressed in this volume (see Ramis).
12 O. Castro et al.
Invisibility in the practice of self-translation plays a decisive role in this

self-minorisation process, and the degree of (in)visibility may be related
to different factors. Among them, the author-translator’s own decision to
present their second text as an original, possibly to try to get access to a
second literary community, in what Xosé Manuel Dasilva (2011) has
termed as “opaque self-translation.” However, even when minorised lan-
guage writers self-translating into a dominant language want to be trans-
parent, making their first language visible as part of their identity, the
publisher may present their self-translation as a first original if they con-
sider the book is going to sell better. (In)visibility may also be related to
patterns of collaboration between different agents, as exemplified in this
collection with the writer/spouse and writer/editor pairs (see Manterola),
also in a “minority” context. In sum, self-translation as a practice to pro-
mote minorised cultures and nations may come into question.
A third crucial aspect to the extraordinary significance of power in self-
translation is that the negotiations inherent in this type of mediation
undermine some of the traditional translation studies’ axioms and dichot-
omies. By its own very nature, self-translation destabilises the typical
hierarchical relation between the original and the translation, between the
author and the translator, “since the bilingual text exists in two language
systems simultaneously, the monolingual categories of author and origi-
nal can no longer be maintained” (Hokenson and Munson 2007, 2).
These are problematic dichotomies, regardless of any conventional defini-
tions they may have been assigned in “translation proper.” As Anthony
Cordingley aptly states in his introduction to Self-Translation: Brokering
Originality in Hybrid Culture (2013a), the bilingual oeuvre and the expe-
rience of the self-translator pose challenges to them. A self-translation
occurs when a writer (re)creates a work in more than one language, and
therefore it “typically produces another ‘version’ or a new ‘original’ of a
text” (Cordingley 2013b, 2). In fact, in his keynote address given at the
Self-Translation in the Iberian Peninsula conference held in Cork, Ireland,
in 2013, the Basque writer and self-translator Unai Elorriaga (2013) did
not regard his self-translations as such, but as later versions of the same
text even if the language in which they were written was a different one.
As a consequence, the self-translated text is often called a second-original:
“A self-translated text is a second original rendered into a second language
with all the liberty an author always enjoys (but never a translator). An
original that has the benefit of authorial intentionality, according to Brian
T. Fitch (1988, 125), sometimes denied to versions made by other trans-
lators” (Santoyo 2013, 28). From an opposite perspective, at the same
conference the Galician writer and professional translator María
Reimóndez (2013) discussed her self-translation experience rendering
one of her novels into Castilian Spanish. She argued that what she pro-
duced was indeed a different text for a different audience, mediated by
her own ideology and motivations as a translator, and not only as “the”
author. Quite significantly, the self-translation visibly shows Reimóndez
as author of the Galician novel and as translator of the second text in
Castilian Spanish.2 This notion of the self-translation as a new and differ-
ent text allows for a move against invisibility to promote languages or
cultures in precarious (or potentially precarious) situations.
A number of conclusions can be drawn from this discussion. First, the
notion of source text and target text becomes completely blurred, as the
self-translated text cannot be studied in terms of equivalence, loyalty or
adequacy to another text previously written. The self-translated text is a
translation, but a very special one, defined by hybridity. Secondly, the
self-translator is at once author and translator, and her/his “authority”
over both the first text and the second original is never questioned.
Questions such as “who authors translations and who authorises them?”
(Woods 2016, 2), commonly asked in literary translation studies, become
irrelevant. The self-translator, being the author, escapes the precarious
position of Lawrence Venuti’s “invisible” scribe (1995) and her/his pro-
duction receives instant validation of it being an authorised translation.
Thirdly, as rewriter of an existing text, the self-translator is freer to alter
the text beyond the restrictions a professional translator will be limited
by. Self-translation should be approached from a similar but subtly differ-
ent perspective from a non-author’s translation, whereby the author’s
shifting personal affiliations throughout time need to be taken into
account. While navigating between an attitude of attraction towards the
self-translation and an attitude of refusal to be translated, as we have
already argued, there will be cases when author-translators choose to
emphasise power hierarchies (being “author” twice, making translation
absolutely invisible and presenting it as an original), while in other cases
14 O. Castro et al.
they use the “self ” element to subvert that hierarchy. This undoubtedly
problematises the difficult position in which self-translators (especially
those from minorised languages) find themselves.
Power as a category is inherent in self-translation. The shifting dynam-
ics of our (multilingual) times invite us to crucially empower self-
translation: by questioning some of the core facets of translation studies,
self-translation not only offers a powerful tool for their deconstruction
but also provides some productive possibilities into further research into
multilingualism in action, translators’ activism and translation as regular
human activity. It is here where the power of self-translation lies.
Organisation of the Book
The 12 chapters included in this book investigate power relations with
respect to the political, social, cultural and economic implications of self-
translation in different multilingual spaces in Europe—namely, Arabic,
Basque, Catalan, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Ladino, Occitan,
Russian, Spanish, Swiss German and Turkish. Focusing on these European
contexts, and engaging with the power turn in translation studies, the
volume offers innovative perspectives on the role of self-translators as
cultural and ideological mediators situated in a privileged position to
challenge power, to negotiate conflicting minorised versus hegemonic
cultural identities. These articles offer an interdisciplinary and multidis-
ciplinary approach to power, stemming from a variety of methods in dif-
ferent chapters, which provide new perspectives on the author’s
self-representation and on questions of personal, cultural, linguistic and
national identities. By investigating the textual and contextual aspects
conditioning the writing, production and reception of a self-translation,
this interdisciplinary approach also provides a qualitative investigation
into the power/translation/self-identity triad, which has been common in
postcolonial and post-structuralist translation approaches.
The book is divided into three parts:
I. Hegemony and Resistance
II. Self-Minorisation and Self-Censorship
III. Hybridisation, Collaboration and Invisibility
The chapters in Part I explore one of the fundamental aspects linking

self-translation to power, that is, the struggle for recognition of mino-
rised cultures in preference to hegemonic ones in literary texts. The
three chapters comprising the first part examine the power relations and
problems dealing with hegemony, resistance and activism through self-
translation and the strategies developed by self-translators. They eluci-
date the ways self-translators confront situations of diglossia and
linguistic/cultural marginalisation. The case studies gathered here pro-
vide an array of historical and current contexts and translation studies
methodologies in self-translation unified by two main notions of power
and self-translation.
First, Rainier Grutman, in his chapter “Babel in (Spite of ) Belgium:
Patterns of Self-Translation in a Bilingual Country,” explores the way in
which the fluctuating political situations in Belgium since its indepen-
dence in 1831 have either helped to promote or limit self-translation.
From the Second World War until today, both linguistic communities,
the French and the Flemish, have been drawn apart, each of them prefer-
ring to compose literature in their own language. As a result, self-
translation has been mostly left aside. Then, Christian Lagarde analyses
self-translation between Occitan and French, concentrating on four
major authors: René/Renat Nelli, Max Rouquette/Roqueta, Jean Boudou/
Joan Bodon and Robert Lafont. In his chapter “The Three Powers of Self-
Translating or Not Self-Translating: The Case of Contemporary Occitan
Literature (1950–1980),” Lagarde argues that these authors took differ-
ent approaches to translation, self-translation and non-translation. Their
choices were motivated by the influence of three powers. The first, the
diglossic power, is exerted by the French literary field over the Occitan
Arts. The second, the power from within the community of Occitan
authors, is to define a set of rules by which they would agree to work. The
third, the power of the authors, is to decide for themselves their own
individual behaviour. Finally, in her chapter “Self-Translation as
Testimony: Halide Edib Rewrites The Turkish Ordeal,” Mehtap Ozdemir
discusses self-translation from the point of view of textual and lingual
migration. Edib’s self-translation of her memoirs addresses issues of self-
representation and national history as rewritten for different audiences in
English and in Turkish. Her self-translation method is also an excellent
illustration of productive self-censorship.
16 O. Castro et al.
Self-censorship is precisely one of the notions discussed in Part II,

together with what we have termed as “self-minorisation.” Both self-
censorship and self-minorisation are conceptualised as problematic issues
for self-translation. The chapters in this part aim to investigate the chal-
lenges of self-translation whenever they may lead to counterproductive
processes in different geopolitical contexts, in what could be termed as
practices of “unintentional self-minorisation.” Indeed, self-translation
can be regarded as a productive tool to promote minorised cultures in the
wider geopolitical context through the usage of a hegemonic language.
However, this may ultimately have negative implications, as the use of a
hegemonic language in self-translation can (inevitably) lead to a process
of unintentional self-minorisation and further invisibility, undermining
the self-translator’s initial goal of promoting their minorised culture. This
may have even further consequences if we bear in mind that the self-
translated/hegemonic text is generally used as the source text deployed in
a translation into a third language. By examining these power inequalities
from different theoretical approaches, the chapters included here discuss
precisely what the risks of self-translation may be and how these self-
minorising practices are characterised, more often than not closely linked
to practices of self-censorship. For example, processes of self-translation
occurring before the text is published or processes of “invisible” self-
translation may function as productive self-minorising and self-censoring
strategies to conceal the (self-)translated nature of the target text.
One innovative and fruitful approach to the dyad self-minorisation/
self-censorship is offered by Josep Miquel Ramis in his chapter “The
Failure of Self-Translation in Catalan Literature.” Ramis examines the
generally unidirectional status of self-translation in Catalan, where a con-
siderable number of Catalan writers are asked to self-translate into
Spanish, while Catalan authors writing in Spanish hardly ever self-
translate into Catalan. Instead, professional translators undertake this
task. As a consequence, Catalan self-translation unwittingly contributes
to the self-minorisation of Catalan literature. Ramis concludes that whilst
there is still time left to reverse this situation, it is limited and reaching
the point of crisis. The next chapter is Arzu Akbatur’s “The Power and
Burden of Self-Translation: Representation of “Turkish Identity” in Elif
Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul,” in which the author assesses the complex
interconnections within the triad power/national identity/self-translation.

Indeed, the controversies of Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul (2007) led its
author to be tried under the Turkish Penal Code. In her self-translation,
Shafak’s “interventionist” and “trans/formative” strategies serve to recon-
textualise the novel to different audiences. This reconstruction of identity
and culture and the writer’s “burden of translation” have a self-minorising
effect. In his contribution entitled “Self-Translation and Linguistic
Reappropriation: Juan Gelman’s dibaxu,” Brandon Rigby deals with
Ladino, a language derived from Spanish and spoken by the Sephardic
Jews who were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. Ladino is employed
as a symbol of resistance in a displaced political and linguistic space dur-
ing the Dirty War in Argentina (1974–1983). Rigby argues the
Argentinian poet Juan Gelman’s use of Ladino in his bilingual edition of
dibaxu functions both as an act of self-minorisation and as a way to
detach himself from the dominant language of the dictatorship, creating
an alternative—and resistant—identity. This part finishes with Harriet
Hulme’s “Self-Translating Between Minor and Major Languages: A
Hospitable Approach in Bernardo Atxaga’s Obabakoak.” Atxaga first
wrote this collection of short stories in Basque. Its self-translation into
Spanish was a rewriting process, which entailed numerous structural and
thematic changes. Engaging with Lawrence Venuti’s ideas, Hulme con-
tends that Obabakoak is placed in the discursive context of the tensions
between the demands of the “domestic” and the “foreign.” Such tensions
in self-translation are solved “hospitably,” generating a locus of cultural
and linguistic transformation.
The final part deals with three of the most problematic challenges of
self-translation: collaboration, hybridisation and invisibility. It discusses
how the process of self-translation, when undertaken prior to the publi-
cation of a text, may transform its ideological and formal nature. This
self-translation may involve some form of collaboration, whenever the
author-translator is rewriting their source text with someone else’s assis-
tance due to their lack of proficiency in the target language, or simply
their willingness to incorporate somebody else in the process so as to add
a new layer of meaning to the resulting text. With or without collabora-
tion, the process of linguistic hybridisation inherent to self-translation
destabilises conceptions of fixed national and individual identities.
18 O. Castro et al.
It opens with Elizabete Manterola Agirrezabalaga’s “Collaborative

Self-Translation in a Minority Language: Power Implications in the Process,
the Actors and the Literary Systems Involved.” Taking Basque literature as
an example, Manterola Agirrezabalaga discusses the phenomenon of col-
laborative self-translation, which has received very little scholarly attention
so far. As well as considering the role played by the different translators
involved in the collaborative process, the author also takes into account the
existing power relations between hegemonic and minorised cultures and
languages. Next, Julia Holter examines another example in which collab-
orative self-translation takes place. In her chapter “Collaborative Self-
Translation as a Catastrophe: The Case of Vadim Kozovoï in French,” she
contemplates the case of the dissident Russian poet and translator Vadim
Kozovoï and the way in which he self-translated his poems into French
aided by distinguished French literary figures. Yet, while the existing politi-
cal situation eased the promotion of a Russian dissident in the French liter-
ary world, the dominant literary poetics of French meant that he did not
receive the acclaim he had hoped for. In the third chapter of the part, Rita
Wilson centres on Amara Lakhous’ translingual writing understood as
self-translation. Her chapter “Beyond Self-Translation: Amara Lakhous
and Translingual Writing as Case Study” investigates Lakhous’ novels, writ-
ten in Italian and Arabic, and how his translingual writing becomes a
redefinition of the self. In this way, self-translation becomes a liberating
and empowering act. Wilson also situates Lakhous’ work in the current
migratory climate and claims that this kind of writing undermines precon-
ceived notions of cultural and national identities. The final chapter of the
part, and of the whole collection, is Marc Cesar Rickenbach’s “Writing
Beyond the Border: Max Frisch, Dialect and Place in Swiss-German
Literature.” Rickenbach analyses the problems of Swiss German literature
and self-translation through the case study of Max Frisch. Self-translation
is regarded both as an act that takes place while writing the text and as a
process of “deterritorialisation” that problematises state and regional
boundaries in literature. The s ociopolitical positioning of the author plays
a key role in different German-speaking areas.
The three themes, discussed from a variety of perspectives and multi-
ple languages, present a wide tapestry of European multilingualisms rep-
resented through the medium of self-translation. Despite its inevitable
omissions, we are confident that this volume crucially contributes to

expanding the epistemological, theoretical, methodological, practical
and geopolitical dimensions of self-translation, also encouraging further
innovations in the field.
Notes
1. A regularly updated online bibliography on self-translation is available on
Eva Gentes’s blog www.self-translation.blogspot.com with the title
“Bibliography: Autotraduzione/Autotradución/Self-Translation.” The
27th edition of this bibliography was published on 1 January 2017, and
includes special issues, edited volumes, book chapters, journal articles,
PhD thesis, MA dissertations, BA dissertations and unpublished confer-
ence presentations (see Gentes 2017).
2. In any case, it seems likely that these “visible” self-translation strategies are
available to her as author of the first text, whereas it would be much more
difficult to put them in practice if she were merely a translator proper.
References
Álvarez, Román, and África Vidal, eds. 1996a. Translation, Power, Subversion.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
———. 1996b. Translating: A Political Act. In Translation, Power, Subversion,
ed. Román Álvarez and África Vidal, 1–9. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Anselmi, Simona. 2012. On Self-Translation: An Exploration in Self-Translators’
Teloi and Strategies. Milan: LED Edizioni Universitarie.
Bassnett, Susan. 1996. The Meek or the Mighty: Reappraising the Role of the
Translator. In Translation, Power, Subversion, ed. Román Álvarez and África
Vidal, 10–24. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
———. 1998. The Translation Turn in Cultural Studies. In Constructing
Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation, ed. Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere,
123–140. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Bassnett, Susan, and André Lefevere, eds. 1990. Translation, History and Culture.
London: Pinter Publishers.
Blackledge, Adrian. 2005. Discourse and Power in a Multilingual World.
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
20 O. Castro et al.
Casanova, Pascale. 1999. La République mondiale des Lettres. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
Cordingley, Anthony, ed. 2013a. Self-Translation: Brokering Originality in
Hybrid Culture. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
———. 2013b. Introduction: Self-translation, Going Global. In Self-Translation:
Brokering Originality in Hybrid Culture, 1–10. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Cronin, Michael. 1995. Altered States: Translation and Minority Languages.
TTR 8 (1): 85–103.
———. 2003. Translation and Globalization. London: Routledge.
Dasilva, Xosé Manuel. 2011. La autotraducción transparente y la autotraduc-
ción opaca. In Aproximaciones a la autotraducción, ed. Xosé Manuel Dasilva
and Helena Tanqueiro, 45–68. Vigo: Editorial Academia del Hispanismo.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guatari. 1986. Kafta. Toward a Minor Literature.
Trans. Dana Polan. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Díaz Fouces, Óscar. 2005. Translation Policy for Minority Languages in the
European Union. Globalisation and Resistance. In Less Translated Languages, ed.
Albert Branchadell and Lovell Margaret West, 95–104. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Ďurišin, Dionyz. 1984. Les communautés interlittéraires spécifiques. Bratislava: Veda.
Elorriaga, Unai. 2013. El singular oficio de la autotraducción. Keynote address at
the “Self-Translation in the Iberian Peninsula” conference, Coláiste na h Ollscoile
Corcaigh/University College Cork, Cork, Ireland, 20–21 September 2013.
Even-Zohar, Itamar. 1978. The Position of Translated Literature within the
Literary Polysystem. In Literature and Translation: New Perspectives in Literary
Studies, ed. James S. Holmes, José Lambert, and Raymond van den Broeck,
117–127. Leuven: Acco.
———. 1990. Polysystem Studies. Poetics Today 11 (1): 45–51.
Fitch, Brian T. 1988. Beckett and Babel: An Investigation into the Status of the
Bilingual. Toronto: Toronto University Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1976. Histoire de la sexualité I: La volonté de savoir. Paris:
Gallimard.
———. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan
Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books.
Gentes, Eva. 2017. Bibliography: Autotraduzione/Autotradución/Self-Translation
(27th Update, 1 January 2017). http://self-translation.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/
update-bibliography-on-self-translation.html. Accessed 3 Jan 2017.
Gentzler, Edwin. 2002. Translation, Poststructuralism and Power. In Translation
and Power, ed. Maria Tymoczko and Edwin Gentzler, 195–218. Boston, MA:
University of Massachusetts Press.
Gentzler, Edwin, and Maria Tymoczko. 2002. Introduction. In Translation and
Power, ed. María Tymockzo and Edwin Gentzler, xi–xxviii. Boston, MA:
University of Massachusetts Press.
Grutman, Rainier. 1998. Auto-Translation. In Encyclopedia of Translation

Studies, ed. Mona Baker, 17–20. London: Routledge.
———. 2009. Self-Translation. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies,
ed. Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha, 2nd ed., 257–260. London: Routledge.
———. 2013a. Beckett and Beyond. Putting Self-Translation in Perspective.
Orbis Litterarum 68 (3): 188–206.
———. 2013b. A Sociological Glance at Self-Translation and Self-Translators.
In Self-Translation: Brokering Originality in Hybrid Culture, ed. Anthony
Cordingley, 63–80. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Hermans, Theo. 1999. Translation in Systems: Descriptive and System-Oriented
Approaches Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
Hokenson, Jan Walsh, and Marcella Munson. 2007. The Bilingual Text: History
and Theory of Literary Self-Translation. Abington: Routledge.
Lefevere, André. 1992. Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary
Fame. London: Routledge.
Meylaerts, Reine. 2011. Multilingual Writers: A Blind Spot in Translation
Studies. http://paratraduccion.com/index.php/web-tv/pildoras.html.
Accessed 7 Dec 2015.
mTm: Minor Translating Major—Major Translating Minor. http://www.mtm-
journal.gr/. Accessed 12 Mar 2015.
Patrick, Donna. 2010. Language Dominance and Minorization. In Society and
Language Use, ed. Jan-Ola Ösma and Jef Verschueren, 166–191. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.
Reimóndez, María. 2013. (Self )Translation and Phagocytising: From Exotic
Flavours to Programmed Indigestion. Paper Presented at the “Self-Translation
in the Iberian Peninsula” Conference, Coláiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh/
University College Cork, Cork, Ireland, 20–21 September 2013.
Santoyo, Julio César. 2013. On Mirrors, Dynamics and Self-Translations. In
Self-Translation. Brokering Originality in Hybrid Culture, ed. Anthony
Cordingley, 27–38. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Tymoczko, Maria, and Edwin Gentzler, eds. 2002. Translation and Power.
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation.
London: Routledge.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World-System I. New York: Academic Press.
———. 2004. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction. Durham, NC: Duke
University Press.
Warwick Research Collective. 2015. Combined and Uneven Development: Towards
a New Theory of World-Literature. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
22 O. Castro et al.
Whyte, Christopher. 2002. Against Self-Translation. Translation and Literature

11 (1): 64–71.
Woods, Michelle. 2016. Introduction. In Authorizing Translation, ed. Michelle
Woods, 1–11. Abingdon: Routledge and IATIS.
Yurchuk, Olena. 2013. Some Comments Concerning Ukrainian Postcolonial
Studies. Slavia Occidentalis 70 (2): 147–155.
Olga Castro is Lecturer in Translation Studies at Aston University, Birmingham,

UK. She holds a PhD in Translation Studies (along with the European Doctorate
award) from the University of Vigo, Spain. Her research primarily explores the
social and political role of translation in the construction of gender and cultural/
national identities in a transnational world, with a particular focus on the non-
hegemonic cultural/linguistic contexts of Spain. She is especially interested in
exploring different feminist approaches to Translation Studies, in the politics of
translation in minorised and non-hegemonic cultures and in self-translation in
multilingual contexts. She co-authored the monograph Feminismos (2013) and
co-edited Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives with
Emek Ergun (2017).
Sergi Mainer currently teaches Hispanic literature, Spanish language, Catalan

culture and translation at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. His
research interests centre on the social and political dimension of translation and
literature, and the construction of class, gender, national and cultural identities.
His writings range from the Middle Ages to present-day society.
Svetlana Page (neé Skomorokhova) teaches Translation Studies and EAP at

the University of Birmingham, UK. She was educated in Belarus (Minsk State
Linguistic University, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus) and in the UK
(Universities of Oxford and Warwick), holding doctorates in the theory of
literature and translation studies from the two countries respectively. Her
research interests include world literature and postcolonial theories, Eastern
European—especially Eastern Slavonic—literatures, minority literatures and
Russian translation studies. She has written sixty articles in literary translation,
Russian, Belarusian and English literatures, as well as comparative literary and
translation studies.
Part I
Hegemony and Resistance
Babel in (Spite of) Belgium: Patterns
of Self-Translation in a Bilingual
Country
Rainier Grutman
In this chapter, written from a sociological standpoint (see Grutman

2013), Belgium will be taken as a case study in order to examine self-
translation patterns and their possible correlation with societal bilingual-
ism, be it in terms of official language policies (de jure) or of actual
linguistic practices (de facto). My approach will be inductive: I will start
from a list of Belgian self-translators (obtained through bibliographical
research) before stepping back to discern patterns in these empirical data.
In order to explain these patterns, I will look at the linguistic evolution
of Belgium since independence and try to identify plausible
correlations.
R. Grutman (*)
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

26 R. Grutman
Official Bilingualism, de facto Diglossia

The Kingdom of Belgium came into being in 1831 as an indirect conse-
quence of the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), which had sought to
re-establish a monarchist order in all of Europe after the Napoleonic
“disruption.” When the country’s first demographic census was carried
out in 1846, it found “the Belgian people” to be “divided in terms of
spoken language”: 57 per cent of the population, a clear majority, reported
that they “most often” spoke “Flemish or Dutch,” while less than half (42
per cent) spoke “French or Walloon” (Rogier 1849, xxxvi–xxxvii). Though
clearly harbouring de facto two distinct speech communities, Belgium
was not to become officially (de jure) bilingual until seven decades after
its inception. Only in 1898, a federal law, known as the Equality Bill
(Gelijkheidswet/Loi d’Égalité), would put French and Dutch on equal
footing. This may seem all the more surprising since as early as 1856 an
official commission had reported to Parliament on Flemish grievances
stemming from the fact that only French was allowed in public affairs, in
spite of the linguistic freedom granted by the 1831 Constitution.
Article 23 of that Constitution1 had declared the use of languages to be
“optional,” very much in accordance with nineteenth-century laissez-faire
liberalism: “L’emploi des langues usitées en Belgique est facultatif; il ne
peut être réglé que par la loi et seulement pour les actes de l’autorité pub-
lique et les affaires judiciaires,” or “The use of languages in Belgium is
open to choice; it may be regulated only by law, and then only with
regard to the actions of public authorities and judicial matters,” as per
Murphy’s (1988, 60) translation. Even while proclaiming freedom of lan-
guage, the paternalistic state did actually make a choice for its citizens.
Bills and decrees were promulgated in French and in French only; a trans-
lation “in the Flemish or German language” was rarely supplied, allegedly
because their vernaculars varied from province to province, and some-
times from district to district, making it impossible to publish an official
text of laws and decrees in Flemish or German, as can be read in an early
(16 November 1830) decree issued by Belgium’s Provisional Government,
quoted in Mabille (2000, 125) and Rillaerts (2010, 9).2
The period of official bilingualism heralded in by the Equality Law
would last until 1970, when Belgium recognised not two but four “language
Babel in (Spite of) Belgium: Patterns of Self-Translation... 27
areas” (taalgebieden/régions linguistiques): Dutch-speaking Flanders, French-

speaking Wallonia, the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region and a small
German-speaking enclave in the Eastern province of Liège, bordering on
Germany. With the addition of German, Belgium thus became officially
trilingual. In spite of this highly symbolical gesture, the language situation
nevertheless remained very much bipartite, simply because of the small size
of the German-speaking community (some 75,000 people, or less than 1
per cent of the total Belgian population of 11 million).
Throughout the nineteenth and even much of the twentieth century,
the relationship between the country’s two main languages, French and
Dutch, was not one of symmetrical bilingualism but of asymmetrical
“diglossia.” This notion is not simply the Greek equivalent of the Latinate
word “bilingualism.” It refers to a specific outcome of sustained language
contact characterised by a form of linguistic segregation known as “func-
tional distribution,” meaning that each language has its appropriate place
and specific purpose. In the words of the scholar who developed the
notion: “One of the most important features of diglossia is the specialisa-
tion of function … The importance of using the right variety in the right
situation can hardly be overestimated” (Ferguson 1959, 328–9). This dis-
tribution, moreover, is hierarchical in nature, with one variety being
widely regarded as somehow “superior,” more “beautiful” and “sophisti-
cated” than the other (Ferguson 1959, 329–30). So strong are these sub-
jective associations that Ferguson himself, though loath to acknowledge
the confrontational nature of diglossia, does so implicitly by labelling the
varieties in contact respectively as H (for high) and L (for low).
During the first century of Belgium’s existence, little more than lip
service was paid to the principle of bilingualism. No real attempts were
made to correct the social gap between a single high variety (French) and
a host of geographically different low varieties. French was the mother
tongue of a very small but affluent ruling minority of bourgeois, if not
aristocratic, Walloons and Flemings. For them, French, the country’s
only “legitimate language” (Bourdieu 1991, 43–65, using Weber’s con-
cept of “legitimacy”), guaranteed the social status quo. For the rapidly
growing middle class, it became the language of upward mobility.
This power differential has far-reaching consequences for linguistic
behaviour, most notably as regards the (im)possibility of language choice.
28 R. Grutman
With self-translation being a way of avoiding—or at least postponing—a

choice between languages, it seems worthwhile to examine self-
translational behaviour in the light of these dynamics. Self-translational
behaviour includes the decision to either self-translate or not, to do so
only once or repeatedly, to translate predominantly or exclusively in a
given direction, to restrict the activity to a certain genre, and so forth. In
diglossic societies, these decisions are neither idiosyncratic nor random
but tend to follow patterns. I am particularly interested in seeing whether
and how these patterns might be related to the overall framework of soci-
etal bilingualism and, if they are, why this should be so.
On the surface, this may seem unreasonable: is self-translation not an
individual endeavour and therefore independent of institutional struc-
tures? True, whereas allographic (i.e. “normal”) translation can be and
often is sponsored by government agencies (through subsidies to publish-
ing houses, grants for translators, cultural diplomacy etc.), autographic
translation appears to be more of a private undertaking. Some self-
translators do obtain financing for rewriting their own work, but this is a
very recent phenomenon: in Belgium, I know of two self-translators who
received subsidies from the newly (1999) established Flemish Literature
Fund: Paul Verhaeghen and Paul Pourveur. Unlike what seems to be the
default scenario for allographic translations, upon which translators are,
as a rule, asked to embark by someone else (a publisher or a government
agency), self-translations are overwhelmingly initiated by the original
writers themselves, for reasons pertaining to their individual careers
(Anselmi 2012; Gentes 2016).
Language politics and linguistic policies do matter, however. Self-
translation does not exist in a social vacuum. It takes place between two
languages that are (not) spoken by certain people in certain circumstances.
This can be due to individual linguistic competence but also, and just as
importantly, to the (positive or negative) views that speakers have of each
language, which in part explain their (lack of ) knowledge. Those views,
while held by individuals, stem from socially acquired attitudes and tend
to be widespread. Official policies regarding the promotion, or conversely
the prohibition, of a given language play no small role in the development
of such attitudes and in the resulting linguistic (in)competence. Those
policies are intricately linked to “the powers that be,” meaning the differ-
ent levels of government, as has been repeatedly shown at least since Max
Weber’s highly influential treatise, Economy and Society (1922).
Power (at) Play

The topic of “power” permeates Weber’s work to an astounding degree.
The word itself (Macht, in German) appears more than a thousand times
in the original Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, even though Weber (1922,
122–3) prefers the more sociological term Herrschaft (“domination” or
“authority”). Less linked to individuals, it is better suited for foreground-
ing the structured aspects of superordination and subordination. In order
to illustrate both the pervasiveness and invisibility of “structures of domi-
nancy in society,” Weber (1978, 941) quite tellingly gives the example of
language planning:
Thus … in linguistic communities the elevation by authoritative fiat of a

dialect to the status of an official language [Kanzleisprache, literally “lan-
guage of the chancery”] of a political entity has very often had a decisive
influence on the development of a large community with a common literary
language, as, for instance, Germany. On the other hand, political separation
has determined the final form of a corresponding linguistic differentiation,
as, for instance, in the case of Holland as against Germany. Furthermore, the
domination exercised in the schools stereotypes the form and the predomi-
nance of the official school language most enduringly and decisively.
We will return to this remark about the role of schools. For now, let us
train our gaze on the first two, interconnected, points. By creating a uni-
fied speech community around a language of literary prestige
(Literatursprachgemeinschaft), Weber says, language planning has a force-
ful integrating effect. Thus, the linguistic unification of Germany during
the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance was greatly facilitated by the
formation of a “standard” German in the empire’s offices of chancery, first
in Prague and then in Vienna.
Linguistic policies can also have the opposite effect. The creation of a
separate political entity can lead to “differentiation” [Differenzierung] by
establishing a linguistic boundary in a previously uninterrupted continuum
30 R. Grutman
or chain of dialects. This phenomenon, whereby the existence of a “new”

language is posited for political reasons, is quite common, as e xemplified
by modern Norwegian versus Danish, Bahasa Indonesia versus Malay, or
Afrikaans versus Dutch (Kloss 1967). Weber’s example is again borrowed
from the history of the German countries. He cites the branching off of
Dutch, formerly a cluster of low-German dialects, in the seventeenth
century, “when the United Provinces separated from Germany and the
Dutch dialect became the language of officialdom and of the Bible trans-
lation (Statenbijbel, 1626–1635)” (Weber 1978, 955).
Among the team of translators responsible for this linguistic monu-
ment (comparable in importance to what the King James Version did for
English) were several Flemish Protestants: Willem Baudart, Antoine de
Waele, Herman Faukelius. Another Fleming, the brilliant Philips of
Marnix, Lord of St. Aldegonde, previously commissioned to carry out a
Dutch Bible translation, was prevented by his diplomatic duties from
finishing the job. This involvement highlights the unity of written Dutch
across the Low Countries before the very long and deep rift between the
Northern provinces that converted to Calvinism in the sixteenth century
and the so-called Southern Netherlands (roughly, today’s Belgium),
which remained Roman Catholic. This lengthy isolation notwithstand-
ing, first under Habsburg and then under French rule, the spoken ver-
naculars would continue to form an uninterrupted chain, a continuum.
Indeed, they do so until today, as can be gathered from linguistic atlases
such as the one recently prepared by the Dutch Meertens Institute for
Dialectology (van der Sijs 2011).
No sooner had “Belgium” been severed from the Kingdom of the
Netherlands (itself created in 1815 as a buffer state between France and
England) by a revolution, however, than Weber’s differentiating mecha-
nism was activated. Once again, political separation encouraged linguis-
tic separation: “Flemish” was henceforth deemed altogether different
from the language of the now neighbouring country (and enemy: it
would take nine years for the Dutch King to abandon his claims on the
lost territory). In addition, Belgium’s French-speaking elites, who had
seen their powers curtailed under the brief Dutch rule (1815–1830) after
enjoying many privileges under the Austrian and French overlords, seized
the opportunity to restore the old linguistic order. Consequently, the
Germanic dialects (West- and East-Flemish, Brabantian, Limburgish)

spoken in the new political unit were given the same subordinate status
as the Romance “patois” (Picard, Walloon, Lorrain) spoken in the South.
This marginalisation was signalled by a shift in French usage. Over the
course of the eighteenth century, when the Southern Netherlands were
ruled by the Austrian Habsburgs (and, between Bastille Day and
Waterloo, by the French), its Dutch-speaking inhabitants had grown
accustomed to their language being called “flamand” [Flemish]. Strictly
speaking, this label was both a misnomer and a mistranslation: “Vlaams,”
the Dutch word for “Flemish,” traditionally referred to anything (includ-
ing dialects) pertaining to the medieval county of Flanders/Vlaanderen
(which had Ghent and Bruges as its twin capitals). For centuries, other
low-German/Dutch dialects had been known as “Dietsch” (in the Duchy
of Brabant) or “Duuts” (in Limburg, which fell within the realm of the
Prince-bishop of Liège). This ancient terminology (see Willemyns 2006
for more details) also explains, incidentally, why English speakers call
Dutch “Dutch” (Dietsch/Duuts) and not “Netherlandic” (Nederlands), as
in Dutch.
French being a world language, the misplaced metonymical use of the
term “flamand” soon spread into Spanish, Italian and English. Since I see
no reason to perpetuate this misconception, the standard language of
northern Belgium will henceforth be referred to as Dutch. Like German
and English, Dutch is what Heinz Kloss (1967, 31–3) called a “polycen-
tric language,” meaning that it has more than one standard variety.
According to Dutch political scientist Abram de Swaan, “almost every-
body would agree that Flemish and Dutch are two varieties of the same
language,” adding rather wittily that “their respective speakers would have
no trouble at all explaining to one another, in their own idiom, how insu-
perable the differences between the two are” (2002, 3). These differences
(regarding pronunciation, word usage and order, or the frequency of cer-
tain syntactical patterns) are recognisably equivalent and mutually intelli-
gible, much like what happens between German spoken in Germany and
in Austria or indeed between British and American English (the speakers
of which could also have the surreal argument imagined by de Swaan). In
each of those cases, the name of the language does not extend to literature:
books written in German by Austrians belong to “Austrian literature”;
32 R. Grutman
those written in English by Americans, to “American literature.” Similarly,

literature written by Belgians is called “Flemish” when written in Dutch.
“Belgian literature,” on the other hand, normally refers to work written in
French. As for the term “Walloon,” it is used exclusively for dialect litera-
ture, which explains in part why using the label “Flemish” for the Dutch
spoken in Belgium, in addition to being incorrect from a linguistic point
of view, smacks of condescension. As the American political geographer
Alexander B. Murphy reminds his readers at the outset of his book on The
Regional Dynamics of Language Differentiation in Belgium, using “the term
Flemish for the standard language of northern Belgium” has been associ-
ated “with Francophone attempts to demonstrate that the Flemings use a
language of limited international significance,” regardless of the fact “that
there are only minor differences in written and spoken language between
northern Belgium and the Netherlands” (Murphy 1988, 3).
With the complex and confusing terminology surrounding language
matters in Belgium at least partially disentangled, we can return to
Weber’s study of domination and the central role played by state bureau-
cracies. Occupying an intermediate position between the concrete level
of interacting agents and interlinked networks, on the one hand, and the
much more abstract level of systems, on the other, they are key sites for the
exercise of power. The study of language dynamics reveals similar layers.
Somewhere in between “symbolic interaction” at the local level and the
global “galaxy of languages” described as a “world system” by de Swaan
(2002), we find the “speech community,” which William Labov (1972,
293) defines as “a group of speakers” who share not just a common lan-
guage but also “a set of social attitudes towards [that] language.”
Nation states will attempt to unify the “linguistic market” within their
borders by having it coincide with a single speech community, establishing
clear patterns of domination in the process. In Pierre Bourdieu’s words:
In order for one mode of expression among others (a particular language in

the case of bilingualism, a particular use of language in the case of a society
divided into classes) to impose itself as the only legitimate one, the linguis-
tic market has to be unified and the different dialects (of class, region or
ethnic group) have to be measured practically against the legitimate lan-
guage or usage. (Bourdieu 1991, 45)
Belgium is no exception. In 1830, the architects of independence picked

French as a yardstick by which to measure and rate all other language
varieties spoken within the new national borders. As noted by the
Canadian political scientist Kenneth McRae (1986, 61), they “visualized
a polity in which the various local dialects—Flemish, Walloon, and
German—would continue to be used for regional purposes, but in which
standard French would be the sole vehicle for wider public communica-
tion in administrative and judicial matters.” Independence provided a
new framework for language policy. Before Belgium came into existence
as a nation state, decisions regarding the use and regulation of languages
were made in the distant capital of one of the realms to which the south-
ern low countries successively belonged (Dijon for the Dukes of Burgundy,
Madrid and later Vienna for the Spanish, respectively Austrian Habsburgs,
Paris for the French Revolutionaries and Napoleon, and, finally, The
Hague for King William of the Netherlands). From 1830 on, linguistic
policies were dictated by Brussels.
Self-Translation Made in Belgium

Information about self-translation in Belgium is available in several recent
publications about writers such as Eric de Kuyper (Gunnesson 2005),
Camille Melloy (Meylaerts 2010), Paul Verhaeghen (Vandepitte 2011),
Roger Avermaete and Georges Eekhoud (Meylaerts and Gonne 2014;
Gonne and Vandemeulebroucke 2014). Yet research into the topic is less
developed than in other multilingual countries (most notably Spain).
Therefore, the following list (which updates and expands upon material
presented in Grutman 1991 and 1998) cannot possibly claim to be
exhaustive, even if significant efforts have been made to render it repre-
sentative of self-translations of books (volumes of poetry, novels, plays)
made by Belgians from French into Dutch or from Dutch into French
since 1880.
The choice of this date (less logical than 1830) has a lot to do with
existing gaps in bibliographical tools. It is common in Belgian literary
historiography to have “literature” in French start with the “golden gen-
eration” of La Jeune Belgique and L’Art moderne (two literary reviews that
34 R. Grutman
were both founded in 1881), in Dutch with Van Nu en Straks (1893–1901),

thus consigning previous generations of writers to quasi-oblivion.
Consequently, the first 40 to 50 years of Belgian independence have
received considerably less attention (but are being rediscovered, e.g., by
Lieven D’hulst 2012, 143–9). We know that, during that period, several
Flemish writers (the most famous being Hendrik Conscience) switched
from French to Dutch, so it is not unreasonable to assume that some of
them produced a second, self-translated, version of work originally writ-
ten in French.
Another limitation is imposed on documentation by the tendency of
many bibliographies (like UNESCO’s Index translationum) to list only
titles of volumes. Noticing self-translated books is therefore a lot easier
than locating shorter works (short stories, individual poems) whose origi-
nal and/or self-translation appeared in magazines, journals or even news-
papers. Research on serial publications would conceivably add several
more names to my list (one being the bilingual poet and translator, Jan
H. Mysjkin, born in Brussels in 1955, who translated a few of his Dutch
poems into French for magazines).
Regarding matters of genre, I am quite aware that my list falls prey to
a widespread form of anachronism. In Belgium, like elsewhere, far into
the nineteenth century, men (and sometimes women) were given literary
awards and inducted into literary academies on the basis of historical or
biographical writings that no longer fit into our modern, much narrower,
idea of “literature” (which is commonly restricted to fiction, poetry, and
plays). Most entries in the Dictionnaire des écrivains belges (Koninck et al.
1886–1910), for instance, would nowadays be discarded as not pertain-
ing to “literature.”
A second potential bias of the research presented here is its focus on
French and Dutch. Again, this bias in favour of languages enjoying offi-
cial status is, for better or for worse, shared by the bulk of work carried
out in literary and even translation studies. It is nonetheless my suspicion
that a comparable investigation into Walloon-dialect literature could
yield additional names. To give but one example, the successful regional
writer Arthur Masson is known to have translated one of his French-
language plays into Walloon dialect.
With all these caveats, then, my research has yielded 17 Belgian self-
translators active since 1880. They are, in chronological order of birth,
shown in Fig. 1.
Name (and real name, City, province Native Dominant Period of
if applicable) of birth tongue writing self-
language translation
activity
Cyriel Buysse (1859– Nevele (Ghent), Dutch Dutch 1895–1899;
1932) East Flanders 1921–1922
Jef Toussaint (1867– Brussels, Brabant Dutch 1900–1903;
1934) 1922–1929
Jean Ray/John Flanders, Ghent, East Dutch French throughout
b. Raymond Jean Marie Flanders the 1930s
De Kremer (1887–1964)
Camille Melloy, b. Melle (Ghent), Dutch French 1936
Camille-Joseph De East Flanders
Paepe (1891–1941)
Jean Van Noordhoven, Noorderwijk Dutch 1942–1953
b. Joseph Charles Jean (Herentals),
Vloeberghs (1892–?) province of
Antwerp
Roger Avermaete Antwerp, Dutch French 1923–1924;
(1893–1988) province of 1931
Antwerp
Reinier Ysabie, b. René Gentbrugge Dutch Dutch 1928–1933
Gaston Raymond (Ghent), East
Ysebie (1898–1967) Flanders
Fig. 1 Belgian self-translators active between 1880 and 2015

36 R. Grutman
Marnix Gijsen, b. Jan Antwerp, Dutch Dutch 1947–1950
Albert Goris (1899– province of
1984) Antwerp
Rose Gronon, b. Marthe Antwerp, French Dutch 1949–1956
Bellefroid (1901–1979) province of
Antwerp
Joannes Marijnen, b. Borgerhout (Ant- Dutch Dutch 1963–1968
Joannes Michael werp), province
Matthijsen (1902–1984) of Antwerp

Johan Daisne, b. Ghent, East Dutch Dutch 1943–1948
Herman Thiery (1912– Flanders
1978)
Stefaan van den Bremt Aalst, East Dutch Dutch 2001–2002
(b. 1941) Flanders

Annie Reniers (b. 1941) Brussels, Brabant Bilingual Dutch 2005
Dutch-
French
Eric de Kuyper (b. Brussels, Brabant Bilingual Dutch 1988–1995
1942) Dutch-
French
Paul Pourveur (b. 1952) Antwerp, French Dutch 1998–2013a

province of
Antwerp
Paul Verhaeghen (b. Lokeren, East Dutch Dutch 2004–2007
1965) Flanders
Antwerp
Paul Verhaeghen (b. Lokeren, East Dutch Dutch 2004–2007
1965) Flanders
a
In 2012, Pourveur received a €900 subsidy from the Flemish Literature Fund to self-translate his
Dutch play, Plot Your City (2011) into French, the result of which was Le Groupe Sanguin (2013).
(Fonds voor de Letteren 2014).
Fig. 1 Continued
Impact and Frequency
It should be stressed that many of these writers are not household names,
even for someone familiar with literature in Belgium. Some of them
toiled away in less prestigious genres (children’s literature, detective nov-
els…). Others produced respectable, if derivative, work in well-established
genres like the novel of manners (Jean Van Noordhoven, Robert Van
Passen) or the historical romance (Rose Gronon). Others still wrote texts
whose ideological message trumped aesthetic concerns: patriotic plays in
the case of Jef Toussaint; highly didactic Catholic theatre in that of
Reinier Ysabie (Grutman 1988, 83–5, 128–30).
About half a dozen were writers of greater historical significance. Any
history of Flemish (or even Dutch3) literature will give due credit to
Cyriel Buysse, Johan Daisne and Marnix Gijsen. Camille Melloy and
Roger Avermaete, on the other hand, were recognised by the Belgian
establishment, but as bilingual individuals who wrote in French only. The
fact that they also published in their native Flemish (Dutch) is rarely—if
ever—acknowledged in Belgian-French reference works. Flemish literary
histories likewise fail to mention that Buysse, Daisne or Gijsen also occa-
sionally wrote in French (Grutman 1988, 154–7). In other words,
none—with the exception of Jean Ray/John Flanders—made their mark
qua bilingual writers and none, not even Ray/Flanders, were considered
to fully partake in both traditions. While their bilingualism allowed them
to engage with two languages and their respective (and partially overlap-
ping) cultural spheres, none of the above-mentioned self-translators can
really be said to have been an “agent”4 in both of Belgium’s literary
“fields.” They are best situated within either the Flemish field or the
Francophone Belgian field, rather than in a utopian space “in between,”
much in line with Tymoczko’s (2003) critique of “in-between-ness” as a
cultural mediation concept.
The empirical evidence, then, does not allow us to consider self-
translation as having been “endemic” at any given point of Belgium’s
almost 200 years’ history as an independent country. If recorded at all,
self-translational episodes are little more than blips on the radar of liter-
ary history. Several years of research yielded fewer than 20 names. In half
of those cases, self-translation was to remain an isolated experience, with
38 R. Grutman
little impact on the overall careers of the writers involved. Less than ten
writers would see to it themselves that more than one of their titles
became available in both of their languages: Reinier Ysabie, Roger
Avermaete, Johan Daisne and Paul Pourveur thus self-translated several
plays (with the important caveat that Pourveur prefers co-translating to
solo self-translating), while Rose Gronon, Jean Van Noordhoven and,
more recently, Eric de Kuyper made the same effort for a series of
novels.
The only Belgian who really indulged in self-translation was Raymond
De Kremer (Grutman 1988, 68–78, 108–11). His output was prolific
and bilingual: he is rumoured to have published some 300 titles in each
French and Dutch. The exact number is hard to establish because De
Kremer never published under his own name, using instead a variety of
pseudonyms. In French, he was best known as Jean Ray. In Dutch, he
often went by the Anglo-Saxon name John Flanders. Yet even his bilin-
gualism was asymmetrical. On the one hand, for financial rather than
aesthetic reasons, he produced dozens of adventure stories for youth mag-
azines (jointly published in French and Dutch by the Catholic Belgian
Publisher Averbode-Altoria), regularly rewriting them across languages in
the process. On the other hand, when he tried to make a name for him-
self as a more serious writer of magical realism and fantasy tales in the
tradition of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Jean Ray did so in French and in French
only. While arguably the most likely poster child for self-translation in
Belgium, a Belgian Beckett he is not.
Geographical and Social Distribution

With the exception of three Brussels-born bilinguals (Jef Toussaint, Annie
Reniers, Eric de Kuyper), Belgium’s self-translators all come from the
northern, Dutch-speaking provinces,5 more precisely from Antwerp and
East Flanders (seven writers each). A closer look at their biographies
reveals that those born before the Second World War went to prestigious
bilingual, or even entirely French-language, schools in either Antwerp or
Ghent. This finding, namely that the level of fluency required to become
a bilingual writer was more readily acquired in cities, is consistent with
other analyses. Language censuses show Dutch–French bilingualism to
“have been more widespread in larger, urban communes than in rural
areas and more pronounced among the adult population than among
young people” (McRae 1986, 37). This, in turn, suggests that we are deal-
ing less with early childhood, so-called compound bilingualism, than
with second-language acquisition through immersion leading to coordi-
nated bilingualism.
Antwerp and Ghent were then (as they are now) Flanders’ largest cit-
ies. Each had a small (between 5 and 10 per cent) but powerful French-
speaking minority with its own social, cultural and educational networks.
It should be noted that most secondary and all higher education took
place exclusively in French during the first century of Belgium’s existence,
be it in Brussels, Wallonia or Flanders. In 1923, the University of Ghent
was the first to introduce mixed curricula (one-third Dutch and two-
thirds French); in 1930, instruction in Dutch became compulsory at
Ghent and was no longer offered in French, much to the dismay of
Flanders’ vocal Francophone minority.
With very few exceptions, self-translators did not come from this
minority, whose members were rarely bilingual because they did not have
to be. Up until the Second World War, bilingualism was neither desired
nor needed by the part of Flemish society that possessed the highest con-
centration of “capital” (in the many forms distinguished by Bourdieu:
economic, social, cultural and symbolic). True, some famous Francophone
Flemish writers were able to conduct everyday business in the local ver-
nacular (Georges Eekhoud or Marie Gevers in the Antwerp area; Maurice
Maeterlinck in Ghent). But their knowledge was limited to spoken dia-
lect; they were incapable of writing as much as a letter in anything resem-
bling Dutch. Michel Seuphor (born Fernand Berckelaers in Antwerp in
1901) is therefore an exception: his early Dadaist books featured Dutch
and French poems alongside each other. Another exception would be
Marthe Bellefroid, born in the same year (and also in Antwerp). She self-
translated after switching from writing in her native French to Dutch
(under the still very French-sounding nom de plume Rose Gronon).
As a rule, then, Belgian self-translators, including those born in
Brussels, are of Flemish extraction, regardless of the language in which
they published the bulk of their work. Most chose to do so in Dutch. The
careers of a few others (Camille Melloy, Roger Avermaete, Jean Ray)
unfolded mostly in French, an acquired yet fully mastered language
40 R. Grutman
thanks to an educational system that left little to no room for their native
language. While this was deemed a handicap by some (see, for instance,
Marnix Gijsen’s complaints in Grutman 2002), many others reckoned
French to be the gateway to the literary establishments of Brussels and
Paris. In fact, their ability to write directly in French was a much more
important means of empowerment than self-translation could ever hope
to be. The first reason for this was the international dominance of French,
a world language that had yet to be overshadowed by English. The second
reason pertains to the traditional Belgian context of asymmetrical bilin-
gualism (or rather, diglossia), which did nothing to level the playing field
but actually accentuated the power differential. The more successful a
Flemish writer was in French, the less likely they were to publish original
or self-translated work in Dutch.
Obviously, publishing in French was not without risk. It could prove to
be a double-edged sword: with the promise of international exposure came
fierce competition from the titans of French literature. It was considerably
easier, for instance, to be the Flemish Zola or Maupassant in Dutch than
in French, as Cyriel Buysse found out the hard way. In the 1890s, he wrote
a few short stories and a play in French: they met with little enthusiasm,
so he was more or less compelled to return to writing in Dutch. This
points to another important feature of language choice (and an equally
important impediment to bilingual writing): once they had made a choice,
writers were expected to stick to it. Buysse was chastised by the equally
bilingual, but Dutch-writing, August Vermeylen for having turned his
back on his mother tongue. Even though active bilingualism was consid-
ered an asset in Belgian, especially Flemish, society, shuttling between
Dutch and French writing—as one is bound to do when self-translating—
was not looked upon favourably. A pool of bilinguals does not a bilingual
literature make. This is but one of the ways in which literary systems do
not conform to the norms, or abide by the rules, of society at large.
Self-translation, then, was far from being a natural choice. It was also,
in contradistinction to publishing in French only, a very local option.
Belgian self-translations were (and are) by and large intended for local
consumption; they are homegrown, as it were. Generally speaking,
Belgian self-translators are writers “of old stock,” not immigrants, who
translate a (small) portion of their work for a Belgian audience.
This is even the case for someone as cosmopolitan as Marnix Gijsen

(Grutman 1988, 90–6, 130–6), who spent several decades in the US as a
diplomat. Though he published essays in three languages (Dutch, English
and French), he consistently kept on using Dutch for his creative work,
which was often set in Flanders and always aimed at Flemish readers, as
if wanting to take refuge in a language from which he had been virtually
cut off. Some of his novels, most notably Het boek van Joachim van
Babylon, were translated into several languages. Exceptionally, Gijsen
himself provided the French version of this book: it was published in
1950 under his real name (Jean [sic] Albert Goris), which is a way of set-
ting it apart from his creative oeuvre, signed “Marnix Gijsen.”
Recently, another Flemish expatriate writer made headlines. Also
based in the US, where he teaches psychology, Paul Verhaeghen pub-
lishes his academic papers in English but writes poetry and fiction in his
native Dutch. His critically acclaimed novel, Alpha Minor (2004), was
successfully self-translated into English (2007) because Verhaeghen
failed to recognise his “voice” in the translation commissioned by the
Flemish Literature Fund (Vandepitte 2011). His target language,
English, is of course extraneous to the Belgian situation. The reasons
why he translated Alpha Minor, moreover, have little to do with Belgium.
Had Verhaeghen moved to the US from the Netherlands instead, his
linguistic trajectory would probably have been similar: we need only
think of the Dutch expat writer-academic Leo Vroman, a biologist by
training, who spent most of his life in the US, yet wrote poetry almost
exclusively in Dutch.
Chronological Distribution
Looking at the distribution of our 17 self-translators over time, we see a
bell curve that peaks between the two world wars. As self-translators,
three writers were active in the 1920s (Buysse, Avermaete and Toussaint),
four in the 1930s (Avermaete, Ysabie, Melloy and Ray/Flanders) and just
as many in the next decade (Van Noordhoven, Van Passen, Daisne,
Gijsen). Self-translational activity tapers off after the Second World
War—I know only of Van Noordhoven and Gronon in the 1950s. Were
42 R. Grutman
it not for Joannes Marijnen, Dutch-French self-translation would have all

but disappeared from the literary landscape after 1956.
When, an entire generation later, De Kuyper and Pourveur entered
into the picture, the press stood up and took notice: Belgian-style bicul-
turalism, once the hallmark of Flemings writing in French, had become
something extraordinary, almost exotic even, so profoundly reshaped had
Flanders’s language-scape been in the meantime. Standard Dutch (ABN),
taught in schools and adopted by spoken and written media alike, had
made significant inroads (McRae 1986, 56–7) at the expense of the dia-
lect spoken at home. Concomitantly, near-native proficiency in French
had started a long downward trend, especially among Flemings born after
1960 (Willems 1997, 269).
This trend is reflected in the increasingly rare instances of Dutch-
French literary bilingualism. Three out of four self-translators currently
active in Belgium, born during the War (in 1941–1942), are in their sev-
enties: Annie Reniers, Eric de Kuyper (both from Brussels) and the East-
Fleming Stefaan van den Bremt. The prolific bilingual playwright Paul
Pourveur is slightly younger, since he was born in 1952 (in Antwerp,
where his Walloon parents had moved to for work, which explains why
Pourveur grew up in French and went to school in Dutch). Viewing them
as the natural heirs of yesterday’s self-translators, while tempting, would
be glossing over the four to five decades that separate them from Gijsen,
Gronon, Marijnen and even Daisne. In fact, they are mediators of a new
kind in a new Belgium: decentralised, uncoupled and doubly unilingual.
The Uncoupling of Belgian Bilingualism

In this transformation, the period between both world wars constitutes a
watershed. Introduced in 1919, the one-man-one-vote principle would
over time give Flemings “the potential to exercise greater control in poli-
tics as a consequence of their numerical superiority. … [T]he suffrage
change was in part responsible for the first post-war legislative success of
the Flemish movement” (Murphy 1988, 109), namely the 1921 law seek-
ing “a division of Belgium into two linguistic sections for administrative
purposes” (Murphy 1988, 110; see Rillaerts 2010, 17–28).
Traditional Belgian bilingualism had meant that a (Flemish) majority

of citizens had to learn the language of (non-Flemish) fellow citizens, who
could thus remain comfortably unilingual. In the 1930s, this situation
gave way to what is best described as double unilingualism. Henceforth,
each of the country’s two main regions recognised only one language:
Dutch in the North (Flanders) and French in the South (Wallonia), with
Brussels in the middle as the only officially bilingual zone.
Several laws (dealing with public administration, education, the courts
and the army) enacted this policy of double unilingualism. Schools being
major tools for regulating public language use in modern nation states,
the law aimed at reforming the educational system, which was passed on
14 July 1932, seems the most directly relevant for this study (Grutman
2003). Which brings us back to Weber’s above-quoted observation about
the “enduring” and “decisive” “predominance of the official school lan-
guage” (1978, 941). It is through “the authority exercised in the schools,”
he writes in Economy and Society, that it is determined which “forms of
speech and of written language … are regarded as orthodox” or “legiti-
mate” (Weber 1978, 215). Pierre Bourdieu (1991, 48), who was very
familiar with Weber’s work, similarly stressed the “decisive role” played by
“the educational system” in “the construction, legitimation and imposi-
tion of an official language” linked to the labour market:
To induce the holders of dominated linguistic competences to collaborate

in the destruction of their instruments of expression, by endeavouring for
example to speak French to their children or requiring them to speak
French at home, with the more or less explicit intention of increasing their
value on the educational market, it was necessary for the school system to
be perceived as the principal (indeed, the only) means of access to admin-
istrative positions. (Bourdieu 1991, 49)
Although Bourdieu was talking about France and its habit of “devaluing
dialects” (1991, 49), he might just as well have been discussing nineteenth-
century Belgium or twentieth-century Brussels (Swing 1982). In Flanders,
this process was reversed by allowing children to “begin learning the sec-
ond national language only after the fifth year of schooling, and then
only four hours a week” (Murphy 1988, 116). After the 1930s,
44 R. Grutman
French was no longer an option, let alone the preferred option, for a
Flemish child’s entire education.
Though they proved difficult to implement,6 these laws were the first
real attempt to level the playing field. They reflected a large consensus in
Flemish society: calls for equal recognition of Dutch and French had
been growing steadily louder since the First World War. Without suc-
ceeding in lifting the glass ceiling that prevented Flemings from making
a career unless—and even if—they knew French, this newly found bal-
ance did, nevertheless, create a window of opportunity. In Val R. Lorwin’s
words:
For the first time it became possible to train a Flemish elite entirely in that
language [Dutch]. Such an elite was, however, to make its mark in politics,
alongside the older generation of bilingually trained Flemish leaders shar-
ing culture with French-speaking Belgians, only after World War Two.
(Lorwin 1970, 12)
In conjunction with renewed efforts to standardise written Dutch, these

interventions aimed at improving the status of Dutch in Belgium made
publishing in both official languages feasible in ways that were simply
unimaginable even a generation earlier. Let me emphasise, however, that I
am not suggesting that these laws automatically prompted different linguistic
behaviour. It would be naïve to overestimate the “direct effectiveness of legal
or quasi-legal constraints”: laws do not change human behaviour without “a
form of complicity which is neither passive submission to external con-
straint nor a free adherence to values” (Bourdieu 1991, 50–1). Rather, I
would argue, they reflected and reacted to ongoing changes in mentality, in
language attitude and use. Writing and, even more so, publishing are very
public ways of using language and as such are not immune to changes in the
rules governing (prohibiting, tolerating, sponsoring) language use.
This is why the chronological distribution of self-translation in Belgium
warrants another look. Is it not telling that, with readily available biblio-
graphical information starting in 1880, self-translations should only
appear forty years later? With the exception of Cyriel Buysse’s French short
stories in the late 1890s, his novel C’était ainsi (1922) is the oldest self-
translated volume I was able to identify. As already mentioned, bilingual
Belgians fell silent for an entire generation after Joannes Marijnen. The five
intermediate decades (between 1922 and 1968) were a period of marked
change: 1921 saw the administrative division of Belgium, while the 1960s
figure very prominently in the country’s restructuring along linguistic
lines. By the end of the latter decade, two events signalled what Murphy
calls “the end of the unitary State” (1988, 138). They are the establishment
of an official “language border,” in 1962–1963 (Rillaerts 2010), and the
highly publicised “splitting” of the originally French, and later bilingual
(since 1924), Catholic University of Louvain, into two separate institu-
tions: a Dutch-language university (which remained in the Flemish town
of Leuven) and a French-language university (whose transfer to a new
campus at Louvain-la-Neuve, in Wallonia, was initiated in 1968).
Concluding Remarks
It is against this national backdrop that self-translation has come and
gone in Belgium. The promotion of different languages at different
moments in history either opened up or, conversely, limited certain ave-
nues for bilingual writers as potential self-translators.
Two trends emerge from this examination. On the one hand, laissez-
faire linguistic policies, which give free reign to market forces, do not
promote literary bilingualism but rather encourage writing (exclusively)
in the dominant language. In the officially language-neutral, but in fact
unilingual French, Kingdom of Belgium (1831–1898), writing in non-
state-sponsored Dutch was far from being a given, even for native speak-
ers. On the other hand, policies aimed at levelling the playing field
between languages encourage individuals from symbolic minorities to no
longer neglect their mother tongues. With the recognition of Dutch
(1898) came the possibility of being schooled (1932) in a standard ver-
sion of the dialect spoken at home. Only then do we see self-translation
becoming a real possibility for writers who refuse to choose between their
two languages.
However, refusing to choose is only possible as long as a choice exists.
Ever since the implementation of territorial unilingualism in 1930s
Belgium, French has gradually become a foreign language in Flanders.
46 R. Grutman
Consequently, the number of people who know it well enough (and who
have maintained a bicultural profile) to make a creative contribution to
writing in French has dwindled. Belgium’s four living self-translators are
in their sixties and seventies. And there is no succession in sight. After an
attempt at intercultural symbiosis in the nineteenth century, Belgium has
seen its twin speech communities and concomitant literary fields drift
apart. Writers from Wallonia and Brussels publish in French, just like
they did before. Their Flemish colleagues, in the meantime, may still
speak French but have largely turned the page on literary bilingualism.
They write their creative work in Dutch, without trying to prepare a
French translation themselves. As a result, it does not seem exaggerated to
say that Belgian self-translation is very much a thing of the past.
Notes
1. For the longest time, this fundamental text only existed in French. In
1925, almost a century later, a Royal Decree was issued calling for its
translation into Dutch (Murphy 1988, 111), yet only in 1967 would that
version of the Belgian Constitution become legally accepted as carrying
the same legal force as the French original; German was granted the same
status in 1994.
2. All translations into English are mine, unless otherwise stated.
3. All three writers appear more than once in the standard work edited by
M. A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen (1993), for instance.
4. By using this word, I follow the usage of English translations of Bourdieu’s
work, even though Max Weber’s concept of Handelnde (the source of
Bourdieu’s term) is usually rendered in English as “actor.”
5. Between 1830 and 1995, there were four such provinces: West-Flanders,
East-Flanders, Antwerp and Limburg. In 1995, the centrally located prov-
ince of Brabant was split into Dutch-speaking Flemish Brabant, French-
speaking Walloon Brabant and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region,
thereby creating a fifth Flemish province (as well as a fifth Walloon prov-
ince, in addition to Hainaut, Namur, Liège and Luxemburg).
6. Well-off French-speaking families in Flanders could avoid the law’s full
effect by sending their offspring to non-subsidised French private
schools—that were therefore not bound by law to the same extent—in
Flanders, or to public schools in Brussels, Wallonia or even France.
References
Anselmi, Simona. 2012. On Self-Translation: An Exploration in Self-Translators’
Teloi and Strategies. Milano: LED Edizioni.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power. Trans. Gino Raymond
and Matthew Adamson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Buysse, Cyriel. 1922. C’était ainsi… Traduit du flamand par l’auteur. Paris:
Rieder.
D’hulst, Lieven. 2012. (Re)locating Translation History: From Assumed
Translation to Assumed Transfer. Translation Studies 5 (2): 139–155.
de Swaan, Abram. 2002. Words of the World: The Global Language System.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ferguson, Charles A. 1959. Diglossia. Word 15: 325–340.
Fonds voor de Letteren [Flemish Literature Fund]. 2014. Realisaties vertalingen
uit het Nederlands 2013. http://www.fondsvoordeletteren.be/nl/con-
tent/598/realisaties-vertalingen-uit-het-nederlands-2013.html. Accessed 21
Aug 2016.
Gentes, Eva. 2016. “… et ainsi j’ai décidé de me traduire”. Les moments
déclencheurs dans la vie littéraire des autotraducteurs. In L’Autotraduction
littéraire: perspectives théoriques, ed. Alessandra Ferraro and Rainier Grutman,
85–101. Paris: Classiques Garnier.
Gonne, Maud, and Karen Vandemeulebroucke. 2014. Deux générations de
médiateurs. Portraits de Charles Potvin (1818–1902) et Georges Eekhoud
(1854–1927). Textyles 45: 29–45.
Grutman, Rainier. 1988. Babel en Belgique: Bilinguisme et diglossie en littérature.
M.Phil. thesis, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.
———. 1991. L’écrivain flamand et ses langues. Revue de l’Institut de Sociologie
de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles 61: 115–128.
———. 1998. Autotranslation. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies,
ed. Mona Baker, 17–20. London: Routledge.
———. 2002. Des ‘francophones involontaires’: petite histoire du choix de la
langue d’écriture en Belgique. In Écrire en langue étrangère: interférences de
langues et de cultures dans le monde francophone, ed. Robert Dion et al.,
109–128. Québec-Saarbrücken: Nota Bene-Verlag für Interkulturelle
Kommunikation.
———. 2003. 1932: La question linguistique en littérature. In Histoire de la
littérature belge (1830–2000), ed. Jean-Pierre Bertrand et al., 357–367. Paris:
Fayard.
48 R. Grutman
———. 2013. A Sociological Glance at Self-Translation (and Self-Translators).

Cordingley, 63–80. London: Bloomsbury.
Gunnesson, Ann-Mari. 2005. Écrire à deux voix. Éric de Kuyper, auto-traducteur.
Bruxelles: PIE-Peter Lang.
Kloss, Heinz. 1967. Abstand Languages and Ausbau Languages. Anthropological
Linguistics 9 (7): 29–41.
Koninck, Auguste, et al. 1886–1910. Bibliographie nationale. Dictionnaire des
écrivains belges et catalogue de leurs publications (1830–1880), 4 vols. Brussels:
Weissenbruch.
Labov, William. 1972. The Study of Language in Its Social Context. In Language
and Social Context, ed. Pier Paolo Giglioli, 283–298. Harmondsworth:
Penguin.
Lorwin, Val R. 1970. Linguistic Pluralism and Political Tension in Modern
Belgium. Canadian Journal of History/Annales Canadiennes d’Histoire 5 (1):
1–23.
Mabille, Xavier. 2000. Histoire politique de la Belgique. Facteurs et acteurs de
changement. Brussels: Centre de recherche et d’information socio-politiques.
McRae, Kenneth D. 1986. Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies,
vol. 2: Belgium. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Meylaerts, Reine. 2010. Habitus and Self-Image of Native Literary Author-
Translators in Diglossic Societies. Translation and Interpreting Studies 5 (1):
1–19.
Meylaerts, Reine, and Maud Gonne. 2014. Transferring the City—Transgressing
Borders. Translation, Bilingual Writing and Self-Translation in Antwerp
(1850–1930). Translation Studies 7 (2): 133–151.
Murphy, Alexander B. 1988. The Regional Dynamics of Language Differentiation
in Belgium: A Study in Cultural-Political Geography. Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago.
Rillaerts, Stéphane. 2010. La frontière linguistique [in Belgium], 1878–1963.
Courrier hebdomadaire du CRISP 24–25: 7–106.
Rogier, Charles, ed. 1849. Statistique de la Belgique. Population. Recensement
général. (15 octobre 1846) Publié par le ministre de l’intérieur. Brussels:
T. Lesigne.
Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, M.A., ed. 1993. Nederlandse literatuur, een geschie-
denis. Groningen: Martinus Nijhoff.
Swing, Elizabeth Sherman. 1982. Education for Separatism: The Belgian
Experience. In Issues in International Bilingual Education. The Role of the
Vernacular, ed. Beverly Hartford et al., 265–290. New York: Plenum Press.
Tymoczko, Maria. 2003. Ideology and the Position of the Translator: In What
Sense Is a Translator ‘in Between’? In Apropos Ideology: Translation Studies on
Ideology—Ideologies in Translation Studies, ed. Maria Calzada Pérez, 181–201.
Manchester: St. Jerome.
van der Sijs, Nicoline, ed. 2011. Dialectatlas van het Nederlands. Amsterdam:
Bert Bakker.
Vandepitte, Sonia. 2011. Paul Verhaeghen’s Own Voice in Omega Minor: A
Comparative Study of Source Text, Trial Translation and Self-Translation.
Journal of Siberian Federal University 10: 1481–1494.
Verhaeghen, Paul. 2007. Omega Minor. London: Dalkey Archive Press.
Weber, Max. 1922. Grundriß der Sozialökonomik III. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft.
Tübingen: Mohr.
———. 1978. In Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed.
Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Trans. Ephraim Fischoff et al. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Willems, Dominique. 1997. Le français en Flandre. In Le français en Belgique.
Une langue, une communauté, ed. Daniel Blampain et al., 259–272. Louvain-
la-Neuve: Duculot.
Willemyns, Roland. 2006. The Low Countries. In Sociolinguistics: An
International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society, ed. Ulrich
Ammon, vol. 3, 1758–1765. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Rainier Grutman is Professor of French and Translation Studies at the

University of Ottawa, Canada. He was trained in romance philology and com-
parative literature at Namur, Leuven, and Complutense universities before
obtaining a PhD in French from the Université de Montréal. His research on
literary translation and, in particular, on self-translation has appeared (in French,
English, Spanish and Italian) in many journals and works of reference, for exam-
ple the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (1998, 2nd ed. 2009), the
IATIS-Yearbook on Self-translation (2013) and the Wiley-Blackwell Companion
to Translation Studies (2014, with T. Van Bolderen). His most recent contribu-
tion to the topic is L’Autotraduction littéraire: Perspectives théoriques (2016), a
volume co-edited with Alessandra Ferraro.
The Three Powers of Self-Translating
or Not Self-Translating: The Case
of Contemporary Occitan Literature
(1950–1980)
Christian Lagarde
Inequality Within Languages and Cultures

The Index Translationum is a highly indicative instrument of the relations
established among different languages on a global scale, filtered by their
cultural dissemination. The hierarchy of languages, whether it is called a
galaxy of languages (De Swaan 1993), a gravitational model (Calvet and
Calvet 1999, 2001), or literary polysystems (Even-Zohar 1990), certainly
varies depending on which language occupies the source or the target
position. However, those languages of wider vehicularity and higher pres-
tige hold, logically and on the whole, the top positions. On the one hand,
the directionality of translation (and self-translation) is indicative of the
reality of the intercultural exchanges and the balance of power that it
represents within an increasingly globalised linguistic (Bourdieu 1982)
and editorial market (Casanova 1999; Sapiro 2003, 2014). On the other
hand, this means that the majority of the about 6000 languages still in
C. Lagarde (*)
Université de Perpignan Via Domitia, Perpignan, France

52 C. Lagarde
use around the world are mainly absent (especially those known as “of
oral tradition”) or more or less firmly marginalised in a similar context as
the indicator of the “weight of languages” suggested by the Calvet broth-
ers shows (Calvet and Calvet 2012).
This case study focuses on Occitan literature (Anatole and Lafont
1970), and more precisely on four of the most emblematic authors of the
second half of the twentieth century. Occitan is also known as “Provençale”
or “limousine,” and was used by the troubadours (Boyer and Gardy
2001). The history of creation in the Occitan language illustrates both
the notion of diglossia and a remarkable continuity as proven by the long
periods of decadence in relation to French and several Renaissances.
Writing and publishing in Occitan since the twentieth century are seen
as showing fidelity to one’s origins and as an extremely active commit-
ment, not only to defend and illustrate this language and culture, but also
to believe in its capacity to be an equal part of the global ensemble. The
four chosen authors are at the same time remarkable writers and engaged
activists, each in their own way.1
This case study analyses the works of René Nelli/Renat Nelli
(1906–1982), Max Rouquette/Max Roqueta (1908–2005), Jean Boudou/
Joan Bodon (1920–1975) and Robert Lafont/Robèrt Lafont (1923–2009).
Their publications offer much variety in quality and quantity, depending
on their linguistic choices and the practice—or lack thereof—of transla-
tion and/or self-translation. These writers’ textual production between
1950 and 1980 will be prioritised in this chapter. These years mark the
beginning of a significant (re)structuring point in the post-war Occitan
movement, the integration of an ideological wave of 1968 and a period of
optimism which began with major political changes in France in 1981 as
the state accepted the demands for inclusiveness of minority languages
cultures—only to be turned into disappointment later. The four authors
adopted in some cases similar positions regarding translation and, in other
cases, deliberately divergent ones. The choices they made were not only
based on their personal skills and/or inclinations, but also on the distinct
ideological positions they held within the framework of the three powers
of translating, self-translating or not translating, which will be considered
here as separate systems. In other words, the submission of the writer to
external pressures because of the balances of diglossic power between
The Three Powers of Self-Translating or Not Self-Translating... 53
l anguages and cultures; the collective will (at a community or national[ist]

level) to confront this type of relationship; and the individual strategy to
move within the interspace where languages and cultures coexist.
Robert Lafont (1976a) and the Catalan Francesc Vallverdú (1970)
established the link between sociolinguistics and the sociology of litera-
ture. Thus, according to sociolinguistics, it follows that, on one hand,
the “mainstream” conceptions of Psichari (1928), Ferguson (1959) and
Fishman (1967) and, on the other, the “peripheral” approach of Aracil
(1965), Ninyoles (1969) and Lafont (1976b; Gardy and Lafont 1981),
the conditions given during the production of a literary text in Occitan
correspond to a situation of diglossia. In other words, a “language A” is
in a lower position and undervalued when compared with a “lan-
guage B.” This production “est définie comme littérature populaire, et ne
peut exister que comme un exercice ‘en creux’ de la littéralité” [is defined
as popular literature and can only exist as a reversed exercise of literality]2
(Lafont 1976b, 14). More precisely and also according to the same
author, “il n’y a pas, il ne peut y avoir d’écrivain occitan, ou breton, ou
corse, qui ne prouve par son écriture corse, bretonne, occitane elle-
même, qu’il est passé par l’école en français et l’initiation à la littérature
française” [there is not, there will not be any Occitan, Breton or Corsican
writer whose Corsican, Breton or Occitan writing does not reveal their
French schooling and their study of French literature] (Lafont 1996,
57). This statement leads Jean-Claude Forêt to claim that: “L’auteur
occitan est un être paradoxal: en général, quoi qu’il en dise, il maîtrise
mieux le français que l’occitan. Or il passe outre et choisit l’occitan, la
langue de son désir” [Occitan authors are paradoxical beings: in general,
despite what they may say, they master French better than Occitan.
However, they override this fact and choose Occitan, the language of
their desire] (Forêt 2015, 137).
The individual careers of these four authors lie perfectly within this
training framework: Boudou, most modestly, as a teacher in public insti-
tutions and then an agricultural tutor; Rouquette3 as a doctor and founder
of the PEN Club of Occitan language (PEN Club 2016); Nelli as a uni-
versity tutor and researcher of international recognition in the fields of
troubadour poetry and Catharism; Lafont developed a distinguished
career in literature and linguistics. Each inherited Occitan spoken
54 C. Lagarde
language, more or less directly from their family background, during a

period (first half of the past century) when it was socially widespread.
They discovered a high Occitan culture hidden by centuries of diglossic
deterioration either simultaneously or after the completion of French
degrees, and subsequently contributed to its divulgation, possibly, in the
shadow of French, “l’ombre du français” (Gardy 1996, 9–21, 267–88;
2009). From the point of view of their written production, Nelli and
Lafont have in common a clear caesura between the primary use of French
for their scientific texts and a primary use of Occitan for their creative
works. Max Rouquette and Boudou are leading authors in Occitan.
However, the use of translation and self-translation varies significantly
between the four: Nelli and Rouquette practised them throughout this
period, but adopted different, and variable, approaches; Boudou only
resorted to them in the early years and was translated posthumously;
Lafont used it solely in his poems and plays, a quantitatively minor part
of his work.
Beyond this outline, the key element for this publication is to discuss
the position that these authors adopted regarding Occitan language and
culture and to consider the strategic choices they made to participate, not
only in their defence and visibility but also in a project that challenged
the existing diglossia. All four of them developed their careers during the
pre-eminence of “Félibrige,” an institution founded in 1854 in the
Provence of the Rhône, whose main figure was and still is Frédéric Mistral,
Noble Prize in Literature laureate of 1904. Mistral personifies the revered
model; both his themes and his graphic transcription were constantly
imitated by the “Félibres,” a trend questioned by some even inside the
organisation, but primarily outside of it. In 1954, on the occasion of the
centenary of the creation of the institution, Lafont caused a bit of a furore
when he published, in French, the strongly iconoclastic Mistral ou
l’illusion [Mistral or the Illusion] (Lafont 1954, 1980). In this he main-
tained that despite enthusiastic recognition in Parisian literary circles, the
French adaptation of Mirèio was based upon a dull self-translation of the
original, vastly more inspiring Provençal poetry.
As a result, self-translation—or translation-“consecration,” in the
words of Pascale Casanova (2002)—into the “dominating” language
should not be taken lightly, since this translation dispossesses the literary
field (Bourdieu 1992) of the masterpiece the author intends to establish

and may be based on a qualitative misunderstanding at a strictly literary
level. All the renaissance movements derived from the “nationalist awak-
ening” have been confronted with the impact of the empowering of a
subfield constituted, among others, by literary production in a “regional
language” in France. This matter certainly was a source of debate among
the four authors and members of the Institut d’Etudes Occitanes [Institute
of Occitan Studies] (IEO), the main contemporary Occitanist associa-
tion founded in 1945 in opposition to Félibrige (Abrate 2001). It is sig-
nificant that the four authors belonged to two different generations: the
1930 (Nelli and Rouquette, founding members of the IEO) and the
1945 (Boudou and Lafont). As a historian Abrate notes the commitment
of these two generations changed from 1950, becoming a controversial
matter. From that moment on, the IEO claimed to be an instrument of
counterpower against the “Jacobin” hegemony of France, increasingly
nourished by the theoretical and political position of its president Lafont.
However, Nelli and Rouquette wished to follow a more conciliatory and
“culturalist” line (Abrate 2001, 423–556).
In fact, this disagreement within the Institut, and, more generally
speaking, within the Occitanists, was to become stronger with the passing
years. Recognising this, Rouquette saluted, a posteriori, the plan—
unknown to him—revealed by Lafont in 1950 “d’établir un corps de doc-
trine dont nous pourrions tirer ensuite la formulation d’une politique” [to
establish a body of doctrine that could later constitute the foundations for
developing policies] (quoted by Abrate 2001, 426). However, it was pri-
marily during the 1960s when the Occitan demands acquired (with the
creation of the Comité Occitan d’Etudes et d’Action [Occitan Committee
of Studies and Action] (COEA)4 and the journal Viure) an economic and
political dimension that Rouquette and Nelli were marginalised, growing
more distant from activism and dedicating themselves to writing: Nelli,
in particular, to his studies in literature, medieval philosophy and ethnog-
raphy. It is important to highlight that this change in trajectory perfectly
corresponds to the attitude of Roquette, Nelli and Lafont (Boudou just
experienced the consequences of this change) and to their practice of
translation and self-translation. Where the authors “of 1930,” Nelli and
Rouquette, were and would remain translators and self-translators,
56 C. Lagarde
Lafont, as a rule, would adopt a position of “non self-translating,” and,

given his dominant situation within the movement, was able to ensure its
implementation. In this way, like the rest of their fellow writers, despite
the pressure of the diglossic power exerted by the French literary field over
the Occitan Arts (“power number one”), a counterpower erupted chal-
lenging its legitimacy (“power number two”) and enacting rules (Lafont)
with which some would comply (Boudou), but others (Nelli and
Rouquette) claimed the power (“power number three”) to decide for
themselves their own individual behaviour. This statement will be consid-
ered at greater length below, but prior to this it would be useful to contex-
tualise the individual careers of these four authors.
On the Side of the (Self) Translators

Nelli and Rouquette clearly belong to the universe of translators and
self-translators, in accordance with a diglossic tendency, comfortable
with adopting two languages and cultures which complement, rather
than compete with, each other. Nevertheless, they took an active part in
cultural activism, challenging entrenched social inequality. These
authors, as with the other Occitanists who followed them, tried to ele-
vate the Occitan literary production and language to a level comparable
with the enveloping French and to meet the requirements leading to
international recognition. Both authors strongly valued the multicul-
tural heritage and showed a thorough knowledge of the literary language.
Nelli researched the writers of the Occitan Golden Age—the trouba-
dours—and attempted to make their texts public and accessible (by
transcribing them and translating them into contemporary language). In
addition, Rouquette used translation to engage with the “great universal
texts,” including the Ancient Greek and the Arab tradition, Dante and
Lorca. Nelli and Rouquette, among others, were thereafter strongly criti-
cised for resolutely adopting an “as if ” attitude (i.e., as if Occitan lan-
guage were not dominated by French), believing in the supremacy of
poetry within their Occitan language production. Thus, they were
blinded to the decline of social customs that Nelli’s ethnographic research
might otherwise have identified, instead indirectly contributing to its
perpetuation. Instead, the IEO leaders prioritised the contemporary

social and political struggle.
A recent study by Gardy (2011) devoted to the poetic production of
the latter, René Nelli, à la recherche du poème parfait [René Nelli, Searching
for the Perfect Poem], is a useful tool to understand the writing process
itself, and the state of mind of the Carcassonne author who was poet in
French, but switched to Occitan and ultimately worked consistently in
both languages. Gardy claims that “lire la bibliographie poétique de René
Nelli, au premier degré, c’est passer sans relâche de l’occitan au français,
du français à l’occitan, avec une facilité qui, au premier abord, peut
déconcerter” [in his bibliography, René Nelli constantly changes from
Occitan to French, and from French to Occitan in such an easy way that,
at first, it may seem disconcerting] (2011, 12). Jean-Claude Forêt, reader
of both authors, stated that the practice of translation seems to be a con-
stant activity for Nelli driven by his concerns over equality: “On se
présente comme auteur occitan et français à part égale. On accepte les
interactions entre les deux langues, on les fait jouer l’une avec l’autre.
L’occitan nourrit le français autant qu’il s’en nourrit, retrouvant ainsi, de
façon détournée et paradoxale, un statut d’égalité.” [He presents himself
equally as an Occitan and French author. He accepts interactions between
both languages, and he makes them play with each other. Occitan nour-
ishes French in the same way that it is nourished by French. Thus they
indirectly and paradoxically recover an equal status.] (Forêt 2015, 141).
Who could judge this better than Nelli, assessing himself in the third
person, as noted by Forêt: “Il [Nelli] souhaite qu’on considère ce qu’il a
publié comme la traduction d’une traduction” [He [Nelli] wishes that
what he published were considered as the translation of a translation]
(Forêt 2015, 142) like an endless game of mirrors, incessantly striving for
perfection, even if perfection can never be achieved. The assessment that
Gardy presents is one which openly vindicates Nelli’s poetic approach:
Je suis enclin à penser que ce qui pourrait être vu comme un “double jeu”
était plutôt, en réalité, la constatation par le poète d’un état de fait originel:
il était l’un et l’autre, et donc, aussi, l’un ou l’autre. Quelle que soit la
langue dans laquelle il s’exprime, quelle que soit la langue dans laquelle il
était reçu, reconnu. Et que c’était donc dans ce passage perpétuellement
58 C. Lagarde
remis sur le métier qu’il était authentiquement “lui-même”. Cette situa-

tion, qui plus est, me paraît avoir été, pour l’essentiel, le résultat d’un choix
délibéré. (Gardy 2011, 12–3)
[I am inclined to think that what could be considered as a “double game”
was indeed the poet’s realisation of a peculiar situation: he was one and the
other; therefore, also one or the other. Regardless of the language he uses,
regardless of the language in which he was received or recognised. And it is
this perpetual passage that made him truly “himself.” I consider this situa-
tion more essentially as the result of a deliberate choice.]
Nevertheless, the aforementioned “double game” is a synonym for a soci-

olinguistic and even ideological duplicity. As has already been mentioned,
any alternative movement that proposes an alternative to France and to
the French language and literature can only be seen as a dissenting prac-
tice. The proposed alternative concerns regionalist literature, never con-
sidered as nationalist by the IEO. This happens to an extent that Nelli is
trapped within a dilemma that Gardy sums up as follows:
D’un côté, le côté “occitan”, on a souvent été enclin à considérer Nelli

sinon comme un “traître”, en tout cas comme un poète versatile, qui aurait
été capable de dissimuler son œuvre occitane, si besoin, derrière son œuvre
française. Tandis que du côté “français”, d’une autre façon, René Nelli
poète d’oc est souvent demeuré à l’arrière-plan, voire totalement inconnu.
(Gardy 2011, 12–3)
[From the “Occitan” perspective, Nelli has often been considered as
either a versatile poet, or even as a “traitor,” able to hide his Occitan work,
when required, behind his French work. However, from the “French” per-
spective, René Nelli, as an Occitan poet, often remained in the background,
even totally unknown.]
Max Rouquette acted as secretary general of the IEO from 1947 to 1952
and then as its president until 1955. He found himself similarly caught
between these two positions, having begun a work of translation (of
Dante) at 18, shortly after his first Occitan texts. For him, translation was
a lifelong passion, a captivating game of textual transfiguration of one
language and culture into another, as evidenced in a short manuscript
document shown at an exhibition dedicated to him in Montpellier, which
took place between December 2014 and March 2015. While working on
his adaptation (1934–1935) of Omar Khayyam’s Rubayats, Rouquette
notes in the margin of his text, not without some humour and relish,
“exercice sans valeur traduit du français traduit de l’anglais traduit, lui, du
persan” [exercise without value, translated from French, translated from
English, translated from Persian] (Gudin 2015, 68). His taste for new
horizons and for cultural and linguistic otherness led him to the creation
of a PEN Club for Occitan Language in 1962. However, at times this
proved incompatible with the “centralised” closed tendency—since this
may have intended to renovate Occitan Arts.
The transition from translation into self-translation came later, and
Rouquette resorted to this whenever one of his Occitan texts could not
be edited, or when a French version was more likely to be edited, and/or
(eventually) find an audience. Furthermore, as an experienced allographic
translator and promoter of foreignising/literal translation whenever pos-
sible, he acquired a keen sense of the task, resulting in his being highly
critical of translations of his own texts. It was the disappointment that he
experienced upon reading Alem Surre-Garcia’s faithful (but overly embel-
lished) translation (1981) of his masterpiece (the prose poem Verd paradís
I et II [Green Paradise I and II] written between 1931 and 1935, pub-
lished by the IEO in 1955 and 1961) and the success that this edition
encountered, which led him to reproduce it in self-translation, alongside
other texts. Jean-Claude Forêt illustrates his key motivations:
L’élargissement de son lectorat lui procure, selon sa propre expression, une

bouffée d’air, qui le guérit de son sentiment de claustrophobie occitane,
consécutif à une période qu’il ressent comme une traversée du désert.
Même les cinq dernières pièces de théâtre, injouables en l’état et restées
inédites, sont fidèlement traduites. Il semble que Max Rouquette, qui écrit
au même moment des livres en français, se réalise enfin comme auteur
francophone, y compris au moyen de la traduction. La traduction lui
donne sans doute l’impression de laisser une trace plus durable et plus
reconnue, tout en restant un auteur occitan, quoi qu’il arrive. Elle lui pro-
cure la notoriété sans le reniement. (Forêt 2015, 144)
[In his own words, reaching a larger audience provides some fresh air,
easing his Occitan claustrophobic feeling, after a period that he considers
as the crossing of the desert. Even his last five plays, unperformed and
60 C. Lagarde
unpublished, were faithfully translated. It seems that Max Rouquette, who,

at the same time, wrote books in French, established himself as an author
in the French language, including by means of translation. Translation cer-
tainly gives him the impression of leaving a more durable and recognisable
mark, but remaining an Occitan author, whatever else may happen. He
achieves renown without denying his origins]
This “Occitan claustrophobia,” which resulted from a “crossing of the

desert,” is not simply a stylistic turn of phrase. While Nelli found success
in divulging the eroticism of the troubadours and Cathar philosophy, on
both the national and international stages, Max Rouquette, who was also
blacklisted by his fellows for his refusal to take a hard line and his bilin-
gual practices, did not have this way out; systematic and retrospective
self-translation became his salvation. In his later years, he became com-
mitted to leaving behind a legacy beyond that of his Occitan-language
work, which had a loyal group readers, famously known as the “500 read-
ers,” all of whom were literary critics. Even Lafont himself, his denigrator,
was not ignorant of the detrimental impact, as is often the case with
minority languages, that adopting an insular position can have to the
continuing quality of texts. Observing the rationale that “L’écriture en
petite langue est en fait d’autant moins gênée qu’elle est moins gratifi-
ante” [writing in a small language is as little obstructed as satisfying]
(Lafont 1993, 108), one may be willing, because of its rarity and/or by
turning a blind eye on the conflicts of interest within a given coterie, to
praise mediocrity.
On the Side of the “Front (?) of Refusal”

Robert Lafont expresses his view on self-translation in two articles writ-
ten late in his career; the first of which, eponymously titled, dates from a
conference held in Toulouse in 1990 (published in 1993), the second,
L’auto-traduction: opinion d’un théoricien-praticien [Self-Translation: The
Theorist-Practitioner’s Opinion], was published as part of a journal in
Vienna in 1996. In these, Lafont speaks loudly and clearly. He supports
the theory of the inscription of the speaking subject, and thus the prem-
ise that “l’écrivain est en quelque sorte condamné à la nostalgie de [la]

première expérience identifiante” [somehow writers are condemned to
the nostalgia of their first identifying experience] (Lafont 1993, 34), in
their first language. He shares the opinion of Georges Mounin, who
regards translation as impossible. Thus, for Lafont, translation is merely
“un leurre,” an illusion (Lafont 1996, 55). In the case of self-translation,
this illusion is multiplied as he states, “se double […] de distorsions, de
malaises, d’illusions, qui engagent à s’en méfier, qu’on s’y livre soi-même
ou qu’on en reçoive les résultats” [[this illusion] implies […] distortions,
unease, illusions that should be distrusted, whether we perform them
ourselves or we receive their results] (Lafont 1996, 56). He even goes so
far as to suggest that self-translation is equal to “auto-trahison” [self-
betrayal] (Lafont 1996, 65). When translating or self-translating because
of a diglossic imbalance—as is the case for Occitan, in relation to
French—one is no longer, strictly speaking, in the realm of creation, but
that of literature, according to the Barthes’ dichotomy. The creative act of
writing has been reduced to a mere economic transaction, an incursion of
the publishing market into literature (Lafont 1993, 34).
Beyond these general considerations, Lafont also strove to analyse his
own career. First, he drew generic distinctions: “je n’ai jamais voulu
traduire mes œuvres narratives, seulement mes poèmes et quelques textes
pour la scène” [I never wanted to translate my narrative work, only my
poems and some texts for the stage] (Lafont 1993, 34). With regards to
drama, Lafont declared his profound dissatisfaction with the reception of
some self-translated works, before happily discovering, around 1965,
what he described as “bilinguisme de scène, qui est exactement le con-
traire de l’auto-traduction: l’affrontement polémique de deux langages en
conflit” [stage bilingualism, the exact opposite of self-translation: a
polemical confrontation between two languages in conflict] (Lafont
1996, 65). In poetry, he believed that
l’auto-traduction … revient à travailler sans de trop grands risques et

quelques avantages véritablement en deux langues … le vis-à-vis du texte et
de sa traduction permet … un va-et-vient du regard du lecteur où peuvent
prendre place des vérifications, des apprentissages, des épreuves du goût.
(Lafont 1996, 64)
62 C. Lagarde
[self-translation … means working in two languages without taking

many risks and with some advantages [as far as] a comparison of the text
and its translation enables … the reader to go backwards and forwards
regarding those points where verifications can be made, something can be
learned or taste can be challenged.]
However, this was not the case for prose, for which he perceived, using as
an example his first novel, La vida de Joan Larsinhac [The Life of Joan
Larsinhac] (1951), two areas of high risk: that of semantics (specifically,
the risk of a shift in meaning, from one language to another) and that of
syntax (the writer being confronted with divergent structures). With this
text, he intended to break from the Occitan narrative tradition of rural
inspiration. This required two processes, in his words: “l’arracher … par
le sujet même … aux conditions sociologiques de vie de la langue …
installer une prose définitivement défaite de distorsions” [to pull it out …
using the subject itself … from the sociological conditions of the lan-
guage and to establish a prose completely free from distortions] (Lafont
1996, 59). Translation is incompatible with a work in which the author
is claiming autonomy for Occitan by seeking to free it from subjection by
the dominant canons and forces:
il était [donc] hors de question de traduire ce livre en français. Ç’aurait été

[poser ce roman] à l’intérieur de la littérature française, où la critique
parisienne, dans le climat du temps et eu égard à sa thématique, commen-
çait à l’insérer. (Lafont 1996, 59–60)
[[therefore] translating this book into French was out of the question.
It would have meant [to place this novel] within the French literary tradi-
tion, where Parisian critics were beginning to insert it according to the sign
of the times and considering its subject.]
His contemporary prose authors who did not follow this example
attracted Lafont’s wrath—Boudou, for example, with La grava sul camin
[The Gravel on the Road]. His experiences in 1951 had a lasting impact, as
this quotation proves: “J’avais, avec Larsinhac, décidé de faire une carrière
de narrateur, conteur et romancier, sur un seul registre linguistique … il
faut une vie pour se faire écrivain en une seule langue … quelques milliers
de pages imprimées” [With Larsinhac, I had decided to develop a career

as a narrator, a storyteller and a novelist only in one linguistic register. He
argued that a whole life is necessary to become a writer just in one lan-
guage, with the retrospective validation of his few thousand printed
pages] (Lafont 1996, 63). As an equally personal and similarly revealing
counterexample, he cites his work Chronique de l’éternité [Chronicle of
Eternity], written in French and published 14 years later, in 1991. As he
states, despite “l’intention déclarée de me démentir moi-même, au moins
de me mettre à l’épreuve” [my declared intention to contradict myself, or
at least to challenge myself ] (Lafont 1996, 63), and despite the renown
that his essays and scientific texts had earned him in the Parisian editorial
world, to his great disappointment, this novel did not find a publisher
among them.
The case of Jean Boudou is more straightforward as the author who
undeniably “stands for the people” to a much greater degree than oth-
ers. His first two works—the collections of fairy tales, Contes del meu
ostal [Tales from Home] and Contes dels Balssàs [Tales from the Balssà
Family]—were published by Subervie, in Villefranche de Rouergue, in
1951 and 1953 respectively, under the clear influence of the Felibre,
Henri Mouly, who wrote a highly encouraging preface for the first col-
lection. These two volumes, written in Occitan, are accompanied by
“a French adaptation,” whose author, although not specifically named,
is almost certainly Boudou himself. When he published his third text in
the same format—this time a novel, La grava sul camin, in 1956—
Boudou came up against Lafont (1996, 60), for whom “il n’était pas
écrivain français … jamais eu à sa main” [he was not a French writer
because he had never had the subject matter in this language] (Lafont
1993, 36). Due to institutional pressure, his inclinations towards activ-
ism, his opinion that there was no future for Occitan speakers and his
lack of interest in commercial gain, the rights for Boudou’s works came
to belong to the IEO, which never translated works under its
ownership.
It was only when Yves Rouquette took charge of the Institute’s publica-
tions, with the pocket-format collection A tots [For Everyone], that cen-
sorship was relaxed and that, from 1975, the year of Jean Boudou’s death,
64 C. Lagarde
an unabridged, bilingual edition of his prose was gradually published in

Les Editions du Rouergue.5 Thus, the three periods of Boudou’s work cor-
respond to major ideological changes, in either the allegiance of the
author, or as a result of a shift in editorial and cultural politics brought
about by the numerous quarrels, both on a personal and a group level,
which punctuated the history of the IEO. The subjugation of the
Félibrean disposition for bilingualism, initially maligned to expedite the
urgent creation of an alternative field, was no longer considered a threat
requiring a ban since the opponent Félibrige was fading by the end of the
1970s and in the course of the 1980s.
Possible Retrospective Critic of

A
the Years 1950–1980
One may wonder what motivates writers to translate either into Occitan
or into French, considering that the Occitan author always acts “in the
shadow of French” (Gardy 2009). In the first case, translation results in
an appropriation or, in the words of Casanova (2002), a “capitalisation”
of the major universal productions by the Occitan culture. In the second
case, it shows the effort to earn “consecration” within the dominant
field. However, in both cases, translating (or self-translating) reveals that
the author favours the circulation of texts from one language and cul-
ture into another: this confrontation may produce a qualitative improve-
ment in the work and eliminate the imbalances of diglossic power. Thus,
what may motivate an author not to translate or self-translate? It is at
the same time the lack of this balance of power, the time to write and the
effort to reverse it, according to the statements on linguistic substitution
made by Joshua Fishman in “Graded Intergenerational Disruption
Scale” (1991). There may also be the issues of the competence of the
author, of the ability of the target literature to receive the text as part of
its wider system, as well as a plethora of reasons of a personal, economic
and sociopolitical nature. The ideological conviction of those choosing
the second option is judiciously analysed by Jean-Claude Forêt with
regard to Lafont:
En l’absence délibérée d’autotraduction, l’écriture littéraire de Robert

Lafont nous apparaît rétrospectivement à la fois comme un acte de pure
jubilation intellectuelle, jubilation qu’il lui suffisait de partager avec une
poignée de lecteurs fidèles, et comme un acte de foi désespéré dans
la langue, sous la forme d’un sacrifice, celui de sa notoriété d’écrivain.
Mais c’était le prix à payer pour écrire dans “la langue du désir”. (Forêt
2015, 143)
[In the intentional absence of self-translation, Robert Lafont’s literary
writing retrospectively appears both as an act of intellectual jubilation that
he only needed to share with a handful of faithful readers, and as a desper-
ate act of faith in this language, implying the sacrifice of his renown as a
writer. However, this was the price to pay when writing in “the language of
desire.”]
As a consequence, choosing to write in Occitan would be based on the

paradoxical coexistence of pleasure and frustration. Nevertheless, trans-
lating or self-translating would also be a paradoxical act: the qualitative
benefit (resulting from the confrontation with the alterity or with one’s
own bilingual alterity) and the dependence on those languages and cul-
tures which are in a stronger position, strengthening their dominance
and, therefore, the subordination and the submissive role of the minor
language and literature, like Occitan. Translation and particularly self-
translation are possible but inexcusable: it is an irreparable “flight of capi-
tal” sacrificed in the name of consecration.6
These considerations will be taken into account when analysing the
three powers and the relation that the four authors had with them. Power
number one, which establishes the hierarchical nature of a diglossic situ-
ation, is omnipresent, regardless of whether it is “served” by translation,
self-translation-“consecration” or, even, in a less evident manner by the
“accumulation of (literary) capital.” Even Lafont, emblematic member of
this “divided” Occitanist generation of 1945 (that precedes the ideologi-
cal changes of 1968), admits that any reversion of the balance of power
in and contributed (but not exclusively) by the literary text “is just con-
jectural”—in other words, is dependent on the symbolic order that inte-
grates the ideological/“ideologised” text acting “as if.” For Nelli and
Rouquette, both the act of writing in Occitan and the act of translating
66 C. Lagarde
and self-translating reveal a determination to abolish, by achieving a

quality of equal writing, the patent inequality within society.
Power number two, which enacts a behaviour rule addressed to those
authors and editors that use the minority language, certainly tests the
limits of the coterie or the market. However, this power may represent a
psychosocial constraint on authors due to its capability, within the lim-
its of its influence, to favour those that comply with the rules (Boudou)
or to marginalise those who ignore them (Nelli and Rouquette). The
only option left to these writers is the third power, inalienable from the
individual—a fortiori from the artists as writers and literary transla-
tors—is to follow their own preferences, and to trust that in time their
writing will grow in significance, and gain recognition, once these
restrictions are over or their influence reduced. Thus, after his imposed
“crossing of the desert,” the productions of Max Rouquette and René
Nelli did obtain the deserved recognition, proven by the number of edi-
tions of their texts and the organisation of cultural events in their hon-
our; consequently, their names were to return to the forefront, after
having been hidden or minimised, thanks to Lafont and his laudatory
words. Certainly, Nelli’s secret weapon was his well-established recogni-
tion in other fields; and Rouquette’s, an exceptional longevity combined
with a dazzling lucidity.
However, one may wonder if the position—or “sacrifice” in the words
of Forêt—taken by an opinion leader and activist such as Lafont was in
vain. His tentative attempts to forge an alternative field to the dominant
one might be judged as insufficient and/or outdated, since neither the
autonomy nor the reversion of the domination were achieved. Yet it is no
longer possible, due to the multipolarity and the postcolonial interpene-
tration of languages and cultures within the postmodern globalisation, to
theorise using the binary or dialectical confrontations of Marxism.
Nevertheless, nobody should deceive themselves or consider the current
situation solely as one of progress: the balances of power are still active, if
not more ferocious, as a result of their dilution into the multiplicity and
the sophistication of the discourse. If power number two, represented by
the IEO and more widely the Occitanism, is partially eroded, self-
translation, because of the lack of a “superior” alternative, “est une a ctivité
essentielle à la littérature occitane dans l’état où elle se trouve de nos jours

… un moyen peut-être illusoire … d’échapper à la strangulation sociolin-
guistiquement programmée de l’écrivain en situation diglossique” [is an
essential activity for Occitan literature in its current estate … perhaps an
illusory way … to escape the socio-linguistically programmed strangula-
tion of writers in diglossic situations] (Forêt 2015, 148–9). The battle for
survival, the recognition of a certain empowering of the minority litera-
tures (resistance to power number one) beyond the individual dimension
(power number three is nearly irreducible), remains and will remain a
major concern, which requires our attention, as well as our respect and
support towards those committed to this cause, of course, with regard to
the means they use:
Ultimately, the shifts in the power struggle here are largely between
“two” and “three.” The dominance of French is ever present. Whether the
survival of the language depends more on a consistent set of rules, or a
more fluid individualistic approach may depend upon two consider-
ations: the skills of the writers in the language, and whether there is a
greater need to consolidate the current readership of the language or to
“recruit” new users.
Power number three is appropriate when a degree of flair, of beauty, is
needed to persuade new users of the advantages of the language and
adopt it. However, this requires highly skilled writers—those who are
able to balance between adopting individual preferences with remaining
true to a recognisable definition of “Occitan.” If the writers are less
skilled, and less able to maintain this balance, then there is more of a
need for power number two—to provide a set of rules that acts as a ral-
lying flag—that “this” is what is meant by Occitan, to prevent dilution,
and hence prevent the loss of the existing readers to the hegemonic
language.
So perhaps the struggle between “two” and “three” is not so much a
struggle over which is objectively better in serving the language, but
rather one that is in flux, and dependent upon the skills of the current
practising authors. Can “three” be seen as progressive, and “two” as con-
solidation? Perhaps all four authors were correct in their ideological posi-
tions, but merely disagreed on timing?
68 C. Lagarde
Notes
1. Relatively speaking and paraphrasing Rainier Grutman (2015, 14–30),
these authors are approached as constituent elements of “une galerie de
portraits” [a gallery of portraits] (certainly incomplete and very syntheti-
cally presented) differently attached to the same anchor point within the
“galaxy of languages.”
2. Unless otherwise stated, all translations are my own.
3. In this chapter, both denominations “Rouquette” and “Max Rouquette”
are used to avoid any confusion with other Rouquettes, also part of the
Occitan movement (Pierre, Yves, Jean and Max’s son, Jean-Guilhem).
4. Comité occitan d’études et d’action, founded in 1962 after the miners’
strikes in Decazeville (Aveyron). The journal Viure, created in 1965, adds
a socio-economic and sociopolitical dimension to the study of the mean-
ing and future of Occitanism. See Lagarde (2012) for a full account of the
links between sociolinguistics, socio-literary analysis and the commitment
of Occitanist writers and intellectuals.
5. Alem Surre-Garcia started the translation of Boudou in 1982, and Roland
Pécout finished the series with his poetic work in 2010. Between 1987
and 1996, Éditions du Rouergue published seven bilingual or translated
volumes.
6. At the same time, this approach controls the manoeuvres favouring accu-
mulation: the translation of Lettres de mon moulin [Letters from My
Windmill] by Alphonse Daudet (1970) and Contes [Tales] by Paul Arène
(1973) that André Lagarde made into Occitan did not receive a warm
welcoming from the “censure occitaniste,” Occitanist censorship, because
this productions, classics of the French literature, represented the alien-
ation of the Occitan literature and of the Occitan writer towards it.
References
Abrate, Laurent. 2001. 1900–1968. Occitanie: Des idées et des hommes. Toulouse:
Institut d’Études Occitanes.
Anatole, Christian, and Robert Lafont. 1970. Histoire de la littérature occitane.
Paris: PUF.
Aracil, Lluís V. 1965. Conflicte lingüístic i normalització lingüística a l’Europa
nova. In Papers de sociolingüística, ed. Lluís V. Aracil, 23–38. Barcelona: La
Magrana.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1982. Ce que parler veut dire. Économie des échanges linguis-
tiques. Paris: Fayard.
———. 1992. Les règles de l’art. Genèse et structure du champ littéraire. Paris: Seuil.
Boyer, Henri, and Philippe Gardy, eds. 2001. Dix siècles d’usages et d’images de
l’occitan. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Calvet, Alain, and Louis-Jean Calvet. 1999. Pour une écologie des langues du
monde. Paris: Plon.
———. 2001. Le marché aux langues. Paris: Plon.
———. 2012. Baromètre Calvet des langues du monde. http://wikilf.culture.fr/
barometre2012/. Accessed 1 Oct 2016.
Casanova, Pascale. 1999. La République mondiale des Lettres. Paris: Seuil.
———. 2002. Consécration et accumulation de capital littéraire. La traduction
comme échange inégal. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 144 (2): 7–20.
http://www.persee.fr/doc/arss_0335-5322_2002_num_144_1_2804.
Accessed 20 Dec 2016.
Even-Zohar, Itamar. 1990. Polysystem Theory. Poetics Today 11 (1): 9–26.
Ferguson, Charles A. 1959. Diglossia. Word 15: 325–340.
Fishman, Joshua A. 1967. Bilingualism with or Without Diglossia; Diglossia
with or Without Bilingualism. Journal of Social Issues 23 (2): 29–38.
———. 1991. Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations
of Assistance to Threatened Language. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Forêt, Joan-Claudi. 2015. L’auteur occitan et son double. L’autotraduction: Une
perspective sociolinguistique. Glottopol 25: 136–150. Special Issue.
Gardy, Philippe. 1996. L’écriture occitane. Une quête de mots. Paris: L’Harmattan.
———. 2009. L’ombre de l’occitan. Rennes: PUR.
———. 2011. René Nelli, la recherche du poème parfait. Carcassonne: GARAE
Hésiode.
Gardy, Philippe, and Robert Lafont. 1981. La diglossie comme conflit: L’exemple
occitan. Langages 61: 75–91.
Grutman, Rainer. 2015. De la galerie de portraits à la galaxie des langues.
L’autotraduction: Une perspective sociolinguistique. Glottopol 25: 14–30. Special
Issue.
Gudin de Vallerin, Gilles. 2015. Max Rouquette, la liberté de l’imaginaire.
Montpellier: Agglomération.
Lafont, Robert. 1951. La vida de Joan Larsinhac. Toulouse: Institut d’Estudis
Occitans/Rodez: Subervie.
———. 1954. Mistral ou l’Illusion. Paris: Plon.
———. 1976a. Peuple et nature: sur la textualisation idéologique de la diglossie.
In Diglossie et Littérature, ed. Henri Giordan and Alain Ricard, 161–172.
Bordeaux: MSHA.
70 C. Lagarde
———. 1976b. Le texte littéraire en situation diglossique. Cahiers du Groupe de

Recherche sur la Diglossie 4: 12–20.
———. 1980. Mistral ou l’illusion. Enèrgas: Vent Terral.
———. 1993. L’autotraduction. In Flor enversa, ed. Alem Surre-Garcia, 34–39.
Toulouse: Conservatoire Occitan.
———. 1996. L’autotraduction: Opinion d’un théoricien-praticien. Quo vadis
Romania? 7: 55–66.
Lagarde, Christian. 2012. Le “colonialisme intérieur”: D’une manière de dire la
domination à l’émergence d’une “sociolinguistique périphérique” occitane.
Glottopol 20: 38–54.
Ninyoles, Rafael Lluís. 1969. El conflicte lingüístic valencià. València: Tres i
Quatre.
PEN Club de Langue d’Oc. http://www.jfbrun.eu/penclub/. Accessed 30 Dec
2016.
Psichari, Jean. 1928. Un pays qui ne veut pas de sa langue. Mercure de France
208: 63–121.
Sapiro, Gisèle. 2003. The Literary Field Between the State and the Market.
Poetics 31 (5–6): 441–461.
———. 2014. La littérature française sur le marché mondial des traductions. In
French Global, ed. Christie McDonald and Susan Rubin Suleiman, 447–483.
Paris: Classiques Garnier.
Swaan, Abram de. 1993. The Emergent World Language System. International
Political Science Review 14 (3): 219–226.
Vallverdú, Francesc. 1970. Dues llengües, dues funcions? Barcelona: Edicions 62.
Christian Lagarde is Professor of Spanish Linguistics at the Université de

Perpignan Via Domitia, France. His investigations focus on unequal and diglos-
sic relationship of languages and cultures, mainly in French, Occitan, Catalan
and Castilian/Spanish areas. His principal works are in sociolinguistics (lan-
guage and status of immigration, language policies, identities and nationalisms),
but also in sociology of literature and self-translation. Therein, he co-directed
with Helena Tanqueiro L’Autotraduction, aux frontières de la langue et de la cul-
ture (2013) and directed Glottopol journal “L’Autotraduction: une perspective
sociolinguistique” (2015).
Self-Translation as Testimony: Halide
Edib Rewrites The Turkish Ordeal
Mehtap Ozdemir
Self-Translation as Rewriting
With author-translators writing at the intersection of at least two lan-
guages and cultures, self-translation is commonly defined as a bilingual
text “authored by a writer who can compose in different languages and
who translates his or her texts from one language into another” (Hokenson
and Munson 2007, 1). However, understanding “self-translation” is
complicated due to the loaded meanings of the constitutive concepts in
the term. In “The Self-Translator as Rewriter,” Susan Bassnett (2013)
stresses the complexities the term proposes for scholars, for it underlines
the prior existence of an original that is already implied in the definition
of translation. She argues that the study of self-translation would demand
an answer for the question of whether there is an “original.” It
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Maria Tymoczko, who generously
helped me during the multiple revisions of this chapter.
M. Ozdemir (*)
University of Massachusetts–Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA

72 M. Ozdemir
would also logically compel us to rank the languages of a self-translator

in terms of preference, or at least to assign temporal pre-existence to one
of two versions of their writing in these languages. However, after offer-
ing a selection of self-translators who switch between two (or more than
two) languages without strictly privileging one as the original, Bassnett
concludes:
Self-translation involves far more than working from a source text and ren-
dering it into another language; rather, it involves rewriting across and
between languages, with the notion of an original as a fluid rather than a
fixed concept … Therefore, “translating one’s own writing seems to involve
more than interlingual transfer, it involves reconstructing. (Bassnett 2013,
19–20)
As such, self-translation does not only draw attention to its function as an

intermediary of and for a source text. It could also refer to the process of
constructing the “self ” both in the composition of the source text and in
the translational act. As the concept of self is relative to time and place,
the self and the representation of the self of the rewriter become cultur-
ally and linguistically bound. Here self may refer to the morphing subjec-
tivity of the rewriter, who is exposed to a translation process into a
language other than her chosen primary language as a result of personal
and/or historical drives. The same self may also refer to the process
whereby the morphed subject rewrites their own text into another lan-
guage, which may be their first language or a foreign one.
In short, self-translation could be understood both as a textual migra-
tion of thoughts and works between cultures and as a lingual migration of
an author-translator. In both cases, it carries the aesthetic and ideological
implications of rewriting. It is my contention that studying self-translation
as a mode of rewriting opens substantial ground to demarcate the politics
of translation and allows greater understanding of the agency of self-trans-
lators. This, in turn, exposes the power dynamics embedded in the trans-
lational process. Power, as Maria Tymoczko and Edwin Gentzler argue,
functions “as a motivating factor in cultural domains” (2002, xii). They
see translation as both a metonymic and a metaphoric process involved in
the exercise of power, in terms of manipulating texts to achieve a desired
representation, be it of individual writers or of cultures and societies.
Self-Translation as Testimony: Halide Edib Rewrites The Turkish Ordeal 73
When translating for different audiences, translators might emphasise,

conceal or transform elements to suit the demands of a particular audi-
ence. Tymoczko and Gentzler argue that in this partiality where “meaning
in a text is always overdetermined” (2002, xviii), the act of translation
negotiates power dynamics. Taking partiality not as a lack, but as a condi-
tion driven by ideological forces that exposes the shifts occurring in or
between translations, these scholars maintain that the partiality of transla-
tion allows texts “to participate in the dialectic of power, the ongoing
process of political discourse and strategies for social change” (2002, xviii).
The accommodation of any text (changes, omissions and additions) to
the conventions of the receiving system raises questions about the modes
and drives of self-censorship. In the case of self-translation, due to the
double-semantic interplay invested in the concept, we need to consider
two forms of self-censorship at once: limitation or censure imposed both
on one’s own text and on one’s own self. Denis Merkle notes that “the
translator may assume the role of censor as a result of pressures or con-
straints, real or imagined; enforced by authority figures or self-imposed”
(2004, 1). In her framework, censorship refers to “the suppression of
information in the form of self-censorship, boycotting or official state
censorship before the utterance occurs (preventive or prior censorship) or
to punishment for having disseminated a message to the public (post-
censorship, negative or repressive censorship)” (2004, 3). Merkle claims
that “all forms of censorship, except self-censorship, result from external
pressures, i.e., from a source other than the translator” (2004, 5), while
self-censorship is mostly driven by internal pressures (2004, 2).
In a similar, yet more complicated, manner, Tymoczko (2009) dis-
misses the simple view that translators are victims of censorship. While it
is true that translators have been subject to physical and official censor-
ship and even paid the penalty with their lives, there may be translators
who consciously opt to resort to censorship in order to elude or challenge
oppressive literary or social constraints. In any case, it is still possible to
talk of the impact of external (formal) and internal (informal) constraints
on translation behaviour and product, the boundary is difficult to draw
between the two forms of censorship when rewriting, as Tymoczko (2009,
39) rightly observes. Moreover, whether of prior (preventive) or post
(punitive) censorship, most formal forms of censorship benefit from
74 M. Ozdemir
the blurriness of boundaries. Tymoczko suggests that the collusion of the

two forms of censorship parallels another collusion, that is, the collusion
of compliance and resistance on the translator’s part: “Many translators
who are actively engaged in resisting formal or informal censorship none-
theless remain inscribed within or collusive with larger oppressive ideo-
logical frameworks of a culture” (ibid.). Therefore, Tymoczko offers the
term “strategic self-censorship” to explain the self-censoring methods of
translators who may comply with certain aspects of cultural dominance
so as to ensure the perpetuation of other forms of opposition (2009, 36).
Similarly self-translators can continue their double agency in censoring
their texts as well: they can seem compliant with certain aspects of domi-
nant power structures and remain resistant in others.
The Turkish writer Halide Edib’s (1882–1964) self-translation of her
memoirs is an interesting case to discuss the entanglement of self-
translation with power. It is also highly productive to examine the impli-
cations of self-censorship in writing personal and national histories
against hegemonic ideology. In this chapter, I shall focus on Edib’s second
memoir, The Turkish Ordeal, published in English in 1928, and its self-
translation, Türk’ün Ateşle İmtihanı [The Turk’s Ordeal With Fire], rewrit-
ten and published with the help of Vedat Günyol in Turkish in 1962, just
two years before Edib died in 1964. The memoir is the autobiographical
account of her experience as a public figure, writer and soldier in the
Independence Struggle of Turkey (1918–1922). The following analysis of
the two versions of the memoir investigates the motivations of a Turkish
woman writer to (re)write the national history and her self-narrative
when addressing two different audiences. This chapter will argue that
even in censorship, self-translation can introduce a political and ethical
dimension into the task of rethinking translation.
Halide Edib Writes The Turkish Ordeal

Edib was born in 1882 in Istanbul. Her formative years were inflected by the
changing social and political atmosphere of the last decades of the Ottoman
Empire. It is not a surprise that most of her works reflect a critical engage-
ment with the cultural and social implications of these turbulent years.
Her father Edib Bey was a secretary to the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid
II. Being learned in Ottoman and European literature, philosophy, sociol-
ogy as well as being fluent in Arabic, English and French, Halide Edib was
exposed to the intellectual life of the time, which allowed her to remain
attuned in later years to the interaction between sociopolitical conditions
and literary activity. For instance, in the aftermath of the Young Turk
Revolution of 1908, Edib participated more actively in the emerging dis-
course on Turkish nationalism through her involvement with Türk Ocağı
[The Turkish Hearth] in 1911. Known as “the Mother of the Turk” among
the Pan-Turanistic organisations because of her embrace of Turanism, Edib
explicitly articulated her Pan-Turanist ideology (which, if briefly explained,
espouses uniting all the Turks of Asia into one state) most notably in Yeni
Turan [New Turan] (1912). Her other early works1 touched upon the sensi-
tive issues of womanhood such as polygamy, arranged marriages and free-
dom to choose partners in the Ottoman society. In contrast to the idealist
protagonists of these early works, Edib’s later novels, mostly written after
the declaration of the Republic in 1923,2 depict more realistic characters
whose dilemmas can be taken as fictional reflections on the attempts of the
newly modernising (read Westernising) society to find a balance between
Eastern values and Western civilization, all this, in the secularising atmo-
sphere of the Republic.
Edib became a leading political figure after the occupation of Istanbul
by the Allies (namely Greece, France, Britain and Italy) in 1918, when
she and her second husband Adnan Adıvar decided to take part in the
armed resistance against the Allies. They secretly escaped from Istanbul
to Anatolia to join the nationalist army in March 1920 (Çalışlar 2010,
196–211). During the Turkish Independence Struggle, Edib worked as
a public speaker, journalist, translator, novelist, nurse and soldier. She
was even promoted to sergeant major in the Nationalist Army for her
efforts. During this time, Edib published two nationalist romances in
1922 and 1923,3 which narrate the struggles of the Nationalist Army
against the Allies. Finally, after the war, when the Progressive Republican
Party was suppressed in 1925 on the grounds of an alleged connection
between the religious–reactionary nature of the Kurdish revolt (1924)
and the politics of the party (Zürcher 1998, 184), Edib and her hus-
band Adıvar (one of the founding members of the party) left Turkey.
76 M. Ozdemir
They would not return until 1939, a year after the death of Mustafa
Kemal Atatürk. On her return, Edib became the chair of the English
Language and Literature Department at Istanbul University and later
joined the Parliament between 1950 and 1954.
In her exile, Edib published in 1926 the first of her memoirs, entitled
Memoirs of Halide Edib (1926), later retitled as House with Wisteria:
(2009). The second of her memoirs, The Turkish Ordeal: Being the further
memoirs of Halide Edib, appeared in 1928 (Edib 1928).4 Narrated from
an insider’s perspective, the latter memoir reveals Edib’s constant effort
during the war to stay true to the nationalist cause. Her war narrative is
interwoven with the critique that she directs against the possible fallacies
of the new state. Ironically, Edib contributed to the events that resulted
in the formation of the Turkish Republic, which eventually excluded her.
By choosing to write her war experience in English and translating her
external persona and internal self, Edib joins exiled or expatriated authors
who are compelled to self-translate when political events exclude them
from their own cultures. Her memoirs in English reflect the combined
experience of effective displacement preceded by a period of traumatic
events and the narration of these events in a language that is not native to
the author-translator.
Divided into three parts, The Turkish Ordeal (hereafter Ordeal, 1928)
reflects the author’s experiences in occupied Istanbul (Part I), then in
Ankara as the centre of the resistance (Part II) and last at the front with
the Nationalist Army (Part III). The memoir ends at Edib’s entry into
Izmir (Smyrna) and her return to Istanbul, which was freed from the
occupying forces after the victory of the Turkish Nationalist Army over
the Greek army. The Nationalist Army was formed under the leadership
of Kemal, the commander-in-chief of the Turkish Independence Struggle
and the first president of the Republic. In order to gain national auton-
omy and reclaim the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, particularly Asia
Minor and Istanbul, the Nationalist Army had to fight against both the
Allies and the government in Istanbul. This five-year period (1918–1922)
reveals the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic,
punctuated by military, social and political crises. When the struggle was
over with the victory of the Turkish army in 1923, Mustafa Kemal
embarked on a rapid process of Westernization and modernization
through political, social, cultural and economic reforms.
On 15 November 1927, Kemal delivered his historical speech entitled

Nutuk [The Speech] to the congress of Republican People’s Party. The
speech lasted for 36.5 hours, and one year later it was turned into a book
entitled Nutuk-Söylev (Kemal 1928). It narrates the heroic account of the
Turkish Independence Struggle against the Allies, highlighting the mili-
tary and political leadership of Kemal as the omnipotent saviour of the
Turkish nation. In her article “National Myths and Self-Na(rra)tions”
(2003), Hülya Adak astutely argues that the mythic status of Nutuk was
accepted for decades as the only historical account of the birth of the
nation. Since 1928, Nutuk has been “received as the ‘sacred text’ of the
Turkish Republic” (Adak 2003, 512). It can therefore be claimed that
Nutuk has monopolised the writing of the history of the struggle and of
Turkish history more generally. Due to a letter Edib sent to Kemal in
1919, suggesting the American mandate as a solution for national inde-
pendence, Nutuk dismisses Edib’s role in the struggle and even character-
ises her as “traitor” of the Turkish Independence Struggle. As such, Adak
reads Edib’s memoir as “a text of self-defense written as a response to
Nutuk” (2003, 511). It is for this reason that investigating self-translation
in Edib’s case will allow us to examine the ways in which Edib, on the one
hand, becomes empowered by using English when writing an alternative
account of the war against the nationally endorsed one, while, on the
other, she still limits her agency in self-translation when she feels com-
pelled to compromise her empowered position by eliminating in the
Turkish the techniques that enabled her critical stance as a nationalist
author-translator.
The Turkish Ordeal as National History

Throughout the English memoir, Edib narrates the ordeal of men and
women who participated in the struggle to create a mosaic of collective
resistance. Her method of delineating characters in relation to each other
emphasises the mutual dependence of leaders and people in the struggle.
Hers is an attempt to draw
78 M. Ozdemir
[t]he picture of a people’s ordeal, their struggle for existence, [which] glared
in my mind: the trail of blood, of sweat, from Erzurum to Smyrna; the
peasants, women, men and little boys, the entire nameless mass toiling in a
thousand ways with their distorted muscles never relaxed, their torn and
weary feet never at rest. (1928, 350)
Thus, the English memoir exposes Edib’s desire to give existence to other
selves to reinscribe them into the official history. She does so by focusing
the narrative light on a person and presenting a picture of the person’s
physical appearance, character and his/her role in the war. Pointedly, the
portraits given in this memoir are men and women from different ages,
classes and ethnicities, along with the major figures of the struggle. While
recounting the political and the historical events of the struggle, Edib
gives vivid pictures of nationalists. Among these depictions, her attentive
and detailed observations on Mustafa Kemal seize the reader’s attention.
Yet, her representation of Mustafa Kemal in the Ordeal has many points
that clash with the established image of the infallible Atatürk.
From their first encounter, Edib notices the complexity of Kemal’s per-
sonality, which does not allow her to “judge him hastily, either favourably
or otherwise” (1928, 133). She therefore compares him to a lighthouse
lantern: “Sometimes it flashes and shows you what it wants you to see
with almost blinding clearness; sometimes it wanders and gets itself lost
in the dark” (1928, 128–9). This complexity partly stems from the dual-
ity of Kemal’s personality, which becomes especially discernible during
his long talks at the dinners in Ankara, where he reveals his varying and
contradictory moods. Edib finds ample opportunities to state that he did
not have a standard for morality; he was not immoral, but amoral (1928,
169). Edib’s portrayal of Kemal reveals a leader engrossed in himself and
in his desires. What distinguishes Kemal from other figures of the strug-
gle is the sheer degree of force and vigour in him. His endless and unyield-
ing vitality made him the leader of the movement, despite his shortcomings:
“[T]hough he excelled them in neither refinement nor originality, not
one of them could possibly cope with his vitality” (1928, 185). Edib
detects the same degree of vitality in his ruthlessness and destructiveness
against his enemies or opponents. His unflinching determination to erase
the opposition becomes more visible after the victory against the Allies.
It is also revealed in his strategic attempts to muzzle the domestic opposi-

tion. Edib draws a psychologically deep and detailed picture of Kemal
with all of his faults and achievements without avoiding the importance
of his role in the struggle. Nonetheless, this does not stop her from char-
acterising Kemal’s political government as a “dictatorship” more than
once throughout the memoir (1928, 281, 390, 407). Therefore, I agree
with Adak when she asserts that from many perspectives, the English
memoir is “an attempt to inscribe Edib’s involvement [along with that of
many others] in the Independence Struggle into Turkish history and lit-
erature while expounding on Kemal’s involvement and position in the
Struggle” (2003, 519). In this sense, Edib implicitly attempts to defend
those who are “wronged” by Kemal by exposing the importance of their
roles in the struggle.
In contrast to the complex and contradictory personality of Kemal
drawn in the English memoir, the version of Edib’s memoir in Turkish,
Türk’ün Ateşle İmtihanı (hereafter İmtihanı) (1962), depicts a more uni-
fied character for Kemal. The portrait in Turkish privileges some aspects
of Mustafa Kemal’s personality, as the rewriting only reflects Edib’s obser-
vations and judgements that endorse the established image of Kemal as
the creator of the nation. The two excerpts below illustrate how the image
of Kemal is “amended” in the Turkish version. The original in English
reads as follows:
He was by turns cynical, suspicious, unscrupulous and satanically shrewd.

He bullied, he indulged in cheap street-corner heroics. Possessing consider-
able though quite undistinguished histrionic ability, one moment he could
pass as the perfect demagogue—a second George Washington—and the
next moment fall into some Napoleonic attitude. Sometimes he would
appear weak and an abject coward, sometimes exhibit strength and daring
of the highest order. (1928, 185)
However, in her Turkish self-translation İmtihanı, Edib writes:
Mustafa Kemal Paşa, fikrini yürütmek için her nevi sistemi kullanıyor,
zaman zaman, bir George Washington tavrı alıyor, bazan da Napoléon
havası yaratıyordu. Fakat, ilim sahasında çok yüksek olanlar bile onun
80 M. Ozdemir
kudretine yaklaşamazlardı. İnsan tabiatının en zeki bir mümessili olan

Mustafa Kemal Paşa daima mevkiini muhafaza edebildi. (1962/2013, 171)
[Mustafa Kemal Pasha used all kinds of systems to apply his ideas, some-
times he assumed a pose of George Washington and sometimes he created
a Napoleonic atmosphere. But, even those who are very high in scholarly
fields cannot reach to the level of his might. The most intelligent represen-
tative of human kind, Mustafa Kemal Pasha was always able to keep his
position.]5
The English version refers to a Kemal who embodies apparently very con-
tradictory moods and extreme attitudes described in negative terminol-
ogy. Edib therefore notices that in Kemal, the vital, courageous and
omnipotent coexists with his weak, impotent and timid side. Conversely,
the Turkish version elevates Kemal to a status inaccessible by those sur-
rounding him. Edib’s foregrounding of Kemal as the hero of the struggle
by highlighting his positive features happens at the expense of neutralis-
ing the distinctive aspects of the other prominent figures. The self-
translated memoir minimises the striking qualities of other figures in
order to emphasise those of Kemal.
The second passage, in which Edib compares Kemal and İsmet Paşa, a
Turkish general and statesman who served as the second president of
Turkey from 1938 to 1950, is also illustrative of her self-censoring strate-
gies. Thus, in 1928 she wrote in her English Ordeal:
Throughout his anecdotes and reminiscences of past life ran a dominant

vein of bitter irony at the expense of many well-known personalities. He
spared no name. And, as the evenings passed, I began to wonder vaguely
whether there was any well-known man of whom Mustafa Kemal Pasha
had something good to say. In contrast to the strong satire of Mustafa
Kemal Pasha, Colonel Ismet had a subtle humour that never became bitter
and the gentle innuendoes of his very able appreciations of character made
his conversation a delight…. And the homeliness and kindly humanity of
the attractive little colonel seemed bound to counterbalance whatever hid-
den danger there was in Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who everywhere aroused so
much distrust. (1928, 136–8)
The self-translation İmtihanı reads as follows:
Bilhassa, Mustafa Kemal Paşa geçmiş günlerden uzun uzun bahseder,

hemen herkesi acı, fakat parlak bir surette tenkit ederdi. Onu dinlerken,
memlekete yarayacak hiçbir şahsiyet olup olmadığı hakkında insanda
şüphe uyanırdı. Buna karşılık, Miralay İsmet Bey, ince bir görüşle onları
müdafa ederdi. (1962/2013, 143)
[Mustafa Kemal Pasha talked about the past days at length, criticizing
almost everyone bitterly, but brilliantly. While listening to him, one would
doubt if there was any person who could be useful to the country. On the
contrary Colonel Ismet thoughtfully defended them [the names criticised
by Mustafa Kemal].]
Clearly, the reduced self-translated version minimises the striking quali-

ties of the other figures in order to emphasise those of Kemal. While
Kemal’s personal tendency to devalue others turns into brilliant criticism,
Colonel Ismet’s influential traits are subdued into a very brief acknowl-
edgement of his kindness. In fact, Edib’s constant attempt to elevate the
major figures of the struggle who fall out of favour after the victory
(Kazım Karabekir, Rauf Bey, Colonel Refet, Ali Fuat Pasha, Colonel
M. Arif, Mustafa Kara Vasıf and Halis Turgut) fails to be reiterated in the
Turkish self-translation. The most drastic changes occur in passages where
Edib either mentions the first manifestations of despotism in Kemal or
explicitly touches upon the dictatorial aspect of the current government.
The clearest example of this alteration is the famous epilogue referring to
Kemal’s dictatorship. The original reads as follows:
Yet in the unending struggle for freedom there can be no real individual
symbol, no dictator. There will be only the sum total of a people’s sacrifice
to bear witness to the guarding of their liberties. (1928, 407)
The Turkish self-translation omits the lines referring to Kemal as dictator

and substitutes a more ambiguous one: “Türk milleti de diğer hür dünya
milletleri gibi hür olacaktır.” [The Turkish nation will be independent
like all the nations of the world] (1962/2013, 333).
82 M. Ozdemir
Interestingly, these examples demonstrate that the Turkish self-

translation of the memoir contradicts Edib’s initial reason to write her
memoir, which (as she had stated in The Ordeal itself ) is “to tell the story
of Turkey as simply and honestly as a child, that the world might some
day read it—not as a historical record nor as a political treatise, but as a
human document about men and women alive during my lifetime”
(1928, 190). Accordingly, the English version defends the victimised
nationalist figures, including the author herself. Far from that, the Turkish
rewriting fails to restate that defence. The English memoir is able to cap-
ture the personality and the motivations of Kemal in their nakedness and
present a charismatic leader who is able to achieve success only through
the joint efforts of many political and military leaders of the nationalist
movement. As such, Edib’s insight challenges the Kemalist myth of the
origins of the Republic as offered in Nutuk. The Turkish memoir, by con-
trast, complies with and even endorses this myth.
In the remainder of this section, I will analyse Edib’s decision of self-
censorship in translation as an example of hegemony. Antonio Gramsci
(1948/1971) distinguishes between civil and political society, the first
being the sphere where culture and literature operate as part of a body of
private and non-political organisms. Within civil society, the influence of
the relationship of ideas with certain institutions and peoples does not
work through domination, but rather through what Gramsci establishes as
“consent.” For him, consent is secured through processes by which domi-
nant groups negotiate with subordinate ones, in order to promote certain
political and social ideologies that ultimately favour the dominant groups.
Thus, in any society, certain cultural and literary forms achieve predomi-
nance over others by the consent of the majority of persons. Gramsci calls
this cultural control “hegemony,” an indispensable concept to understand
cultural life in Republican Turkey. In her article “The Paradox of Turkish
Nationalism and the Construction of National Identity,” Ayşe Kadıoğlu
postulates “a strong state tradition” that “evolved in such a way as to stifle
the civil society” in Turkey (1996, 177). Kadıoğlu points out that the
search for a homogenous Turkish society assumed a noticeably nationalis-
tic shape in the formulation of Kemalist ideology, especially during the
single party regime (1923–1945). The goal of establishing the premises of
the Turkish Republic assigned a substantial role to the strong elites of the
state in order to transform the cultural consciousness and to administer a
systematically formulated social engineering that was facilitated by repub-
lican reforms from above. We can posit the oral and written performances
of Nutuk as the sociocultural manifestation of the construction of a hege-
monic national identity.
Clearly, censorship does not always include imposing external con-
straints as extreme as banning a book or publicly condemning an author.
It also operates, as Merkle puts it, when “some of society’s members
achieve domination by having themselves endowed with the official right
to visibility and audibility, as opposed to the dominated who are cen-
sured and silenced” (2004, 6). It comes as no surprise that when Edib
first published the memoir in English and received a warm welcome
abroad, it immediately stirred harsh criticism of Edib’s life and works in
the Turkish media. Once lauded as “the mother of the Turk” with her
great role as representative of Turkish women in the Independence
Struggle, Edib began to be described as a “traitor,” mostly because her
portrayal of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was perceived as a great insult to the
leader of the Turkish nation. She was declared a “witch” by many leading
figures of the intellectual scene (Çalışlar 2010, 359–65). Combined with
the misleading representation of her as a “traitor” promoted by M. Kemal’s
Nutuk, this label of “witch” caused a delay in the appreciation of Edib’s
role in history. It also affected the reception of her works in literature and
postponed the publication of her memoirs along with her other works. In
effect, her articles were not published in Turkey from 1927 to 1935. This
covert perpetuation of the Kemalist version of the national history
achieved a more institutionalised and legally conclusive form through the
enactment of a law in 1951 that prohibited defaming Kemal. Undoubtedly,
the law reinforced the hegemony of Kemalist ideology and silenced
opposing voices.6 For that reason, it can be claimed that it is hegemony,
or rather the result of cultural hegemony in 1962, which forced Edib to
censor her own work when self-translating. Her self-translation into
Turkish finally consented to the intellectual and cultural direction
imposed by the dominant mode of national identity.
84 M. Ozdemir
The Turkish Ordeal as Personal History

Edib’s English memoir is marked by a peculiar narrative strategy that
reflects the fluctuations of her writing self, externalised as an alternation
between a first-person and a third-person narrative. Two underlying
authorial intentions might attend such a strategy. On the one hand,
Edib’s insistence on using a third-person narrative to address herself as
the representative of the nation in the struggle reveals an attempt to give
agency not just to the nationalists but also to the whole nation. Starting
from the moment she learned about the occupation of Smyrna towards
the end of the struggle (when the Nationalist Army marched into the
city), Edib strips herself of the individuality of the first-person narration,
the writing voice, the “I.” She states expressly: “I suddenly ceased to exist
as an individual: I worked, wrote and lived as a unit of that magnificent
national madness” (1928, 23). Her personal ordeal entails a conscious
effort to melt away into the collectivity of the Turkish nation. Edib
exposes her determination to give agency to the people by becoming
“nothing more than a sensitive medium which was articulating the word-
less message of the Day” (1928, 31). This gesture is evident in her effort
to leave aside her identity as a wife and a mother. It is difficult in both
versions of the Ordeal to envision the details of her private life. Sending
her two sons to the USA before fleeing to Anatolia, Edib does not express
a deeply felt maternal affection for the boys who indirectly and allusively
enter into her narrative. Similarly, the passages that refer to her husband
Adnan Adıvar only underscore his efforts in the war.
On the other hand, Edib’s effort to downplay the writing self is also a
manifestation of her personal ordeal in facing the realities of war. Edib
tries to find a way to prevent being consumed by the war she could not
escape being involved in: “I felt sick beyond description at the thought of
the war, but my mind was caught like a rat in a trap by the necessity of it”
(1928, 271). The autobiographical narrative does not portray scenes of
war that focus on bloodshed, agony, death or victory on the Turkish side.
Rather, the memoir portrays the absurdity of war in the face of a Greek
and a Turk embracing each other in death (1928, 307). The moral shock
at the hostile nature of humanity intensifies during the Greco-Turkish
war when, as a nurse, she has “the first glimpse” of the real face of war at
the Red Crescent Hospital in Eskişehir, which she calls “the scullery, the
backwash, the kitchen where the remains of the bloody feast of war are
sent to be put out of sight” (1928, 269). The alienation caused by an
inability to understand and identify with violence as an essential part of
humanity reveals itself as a division in her self [sic], of which she seems
aware:
So far I had often been conscious of a dual personality: one living and act-
ing, the other watching, criticizing. This ever-lasting critic in me has made
me suffer much more than any of my own kind has been able to make me
suffer. Now this mental critic was torturing me to the extent of wiping out
my everyday human identity. (1928, 368)
The existence of both an inner and an external self, sometimes clashing

with each other, is embodied through the use of the first person “I” and
the third person “she,” whose traces can be tracked from her early child-
hood years. In her introduction to the first of Edib’s memoirs, Sibel Erol
(1926/2009), reads the collation of the two narrative voices as a distancing
technique (1926/2009, xxix), which is also used in her second memoir.
Edib’s use of “she” when she introduces herself as a nurse (1926/2009,
261) and as a corporal (1926/2009, 311) in the Ordeal displays the same
disowning of that part of her identity related to the war zone: “Now that
I was a soldier I was acting like a soldier; consciously, even subconsciously,
I seemed to have ceased to be an individual” (1926/2009, 285). The paral-
lelism drawn between Edib’s childhood and war memories points to a
mutuality in the retrospective consciousness of the writing self that is, in
Erol’s words, “polymorphous and that responds to emotions and impres-
sions” rather than reason (1926/2009, xxx). Therefore, Edib eventually
resists the logic of language that tries to render her account comprehensi-
ble. Edib is successful in showing that a war zone requires a different sense
of self, time and reality by employing two levels of personal narration.
Conversely, in the Turkish memoir, the complexity of her individual
struggle is understated mainly because the rewriting portrays an Edib
who succeeded in erasing her identity as a mother and wife for the sake
of identifying herself with the nation. The passages that detail her parting
86 M. Ozdemir
from her boys in Istanbul are significantly reduced in size and emotion.
Conversely, her remarks pronouncing her intention to cease to be an
individual and merge with the nation are kept, but any reference to her
personal life and her inner distress is left out insofar as Edib exists only in
the spatio-temporal zone of the war narrative, which reduces the psycho-
logical dimension of the narrative matrix of the memoir that one finds in
the English version. Her depictions of the war scenes are correspondingly
simplified and softened. During the war, Edib reaches a point where she
feels sickened at witnessing humanity’s endless instinct to kill each other
and considers finalising her life with suicide:
“You, who really are me,” said the tormentor in my brain, “are an anom-
aly—a being that has wandered by some ghastly mistake into the body of
the graceless human demon. Why should you insist on abiding in their
midst or suffering their woes? Break your chains.” (1928, 368)
This passage markedly depicts the extent of her distress over the realities
of war as she witnesses them. The Turkish memoir does not, however,
reflect the undulating distance between the writing self and the experi-
encing self as profoundly as the English one. While the integration of her
subjective perspective disrupts the proper linearity and homogeneity of
national historiography in the English memoir, its elimination in the
Turkish version neutralises the national account into uniformity and fails
to disclose Edib’s dilemma in accepting the necessity of war.
The most remarkable omission happens, however, in a scene where she
learns from a newspaper about the death of her first husband, Salih Zeki
Bey, when she is in Eskişehir. In a flashback, Edib recollects the life she
led with him in their house in Nuri Osmaniye. That night she has a vision
of his figure in his old brown cap, which says to her “thou will never free
thy mind from my mind” (1928, 267). This untimely apparition in the
midst of war exposes her hidden efforts to suppress her individuality.
Moreover, Edib’s endorsement of the last sentence of this ghostlike figure
implies that she was still feeling trapped within the sphere of his constric-
tive influence on her. Considered in relation to similar deletions and
reductions, the omission of her contemplations on this particular vision
simplifies the psychological portrait of the autobiographical self in the
Turkish memoir by restraining her existence to a publicly visible plane.

Thereby, Edib assumes a writer’s voice in accordance with the modes of
autobiographical writing by women authors in the early Republican
period, when the public self was propounded at the expense of the private
self (Adak 2007).
The subsequent outcome of self-translating the memoir therefore can-
cels the clash between the inner and the outer self, and downplays the
alienating effect of the alternation between two narrative voices. The
modified image of the authorial self in the Turkish memoir allows the
reading of the self in self-translation only as a national figure, with the
nationalist self inscribing itself within the absolutist politics of her own
culture. The question that emerges is: Why did Edib agree to censor her
memoir to such an extent that the emerging rewriting ultimately contra-
dicts the English version’s initial claim to “present a human document
about men and women in the Struggle,” thus dimming its distinctively
psychological dimension as an autobiographical narrative? The external
constraints, namely historical pressures, do not fully account for this
question, for Edib’s self-translation process is also driven by personal
motivations.
Self-Translation as Testimonial Writing

As the introduction of the present chapter delineates, self-translation has
an advantage over other forms of rewriting: namely that aesthetic and
ideological discourses of different cultural contexts do not just meet and
compete in self-translating, but that the different selves of self-translator
as rewriter also display divided allegiances to these linguistic traditions,
with the authority as author of the two originals remaining unchallenged.
Therefore, self-translation emerges as a contested site where the act of
rewriting one’s own text cannot be totally aligned either with manipula-
tive control or with resistive struggle. Edib’s process of rewriting her mem-
oir illustrates that self-translation as rewriting emerges as an ideologically
contested terrain of multilateral self-alignments, transpiring intentionally
or unintentionally. Since it is not easy to determine the degree of impact
that external and internal elements had on her translation decisions, hers
88 M. Ozdemir
is a clear case of neither total manipulation nor complete struggle. Partial

in both, Edib’s self-translation suggests that there is no single path to
material and/or symbolic power.
In an additional preface to the Turkish memoir, Edib emphasised that
she did not translate it, but rewrote it. Given the time lapse between the
two versions, it could be taken into account that Edib might have pre-
ferred the practicality of rewriting her English narrative rather than trans-
lating it. The almost complete correspondence between the line of events
in each version and the sentence-by-sentence matches in some paragraphs
expose Edib’s understanding of translation as dissimilar to rewriting,
which also reflects the dominant perception of translation in the Turkish
literary scene at the time. Having contributed her translations of
Shakespearean plays to an extensive translation project launched by the
state-sponsored Translation Bureau, Edib seems to be aware of the insti-
tutional understanding of translation which was established under the
auspices of the Ministry of Education in 1940. Actively working between
1940 and 1966, the bureau published a total of 1120 translations and
issued a translation journal consisting of translations and original contri-
butions with translation theory and criticism. The dominant norm estab-
lished by the bureau was to produce adequate translations, which meant
full translations instead of abridged or summarised versions, preferably
from the original language (Gürçağlar 2008, 15). Thus, presenting the
memoir as a translation would understandably raise expectations of fidel-
ity to the original, which would be dismissed by presenting the Turkish
text as a rewriting. The term “rewriting” absolved Edib of remaining
faithful to the English version and enabled her to make the rewriting fit
in with the dominant ideological current of the time. Nevertheless, the
self-censored memoir is not just the result of Edib’s attempt to circum-
vent the hegemonic social discourse that controls national historiogra-
phy; it is also a response to her branding as a traitor in Nutuk.
Self-translation as rewriting is most influential when it is able to proj-
ect the process of constructing an image of an author or of a work in a
certain culture. It is clear by now that the self-translated memoir serves to
perpetuate the dominant image of Kemal and seems to inscribe Edib’s
authorial identity within the boundaries set by her Turkish context.
However, the Turkish memoir has another less recognised aim, which
is to rectify Edib’s authorial image as “traitor” and “witch” and move it

back to her role as “the mother of the Turk.” The passages where she
details her personal life or deliberates on her ordeal in living in the cli-
mate of war offer an image of her authorial self that does not fully iden-
tify with the cause of the national war. By excluding such passages, Edib
forestalls any possible accusation that might contribute to consolidating
her anti-nationalist image. Here, the line between explicit (external) and
implicit (internal) censorship becomes blurred, because the indirect cul-
tural hegemony is solidified not only by the legally mandated macro-level
(historical) mechanisms of social dominance, but also confirmed by the
micro-level (personal) factors. Ultimately, the self-translated censored
memoir aims to pre-empt charges from its Turkish audience of political,
cultural and linguistic treason by affirming a singular national history.
The ideological implications of the self-translated memoir are further
complicated by the fact that, while rewriting the memoir in the 1960s,
Edib was ill and the translator Vedat Günyol collaborated with her. As
mentioned by Çalışlar (2010), Günyol pointed out that it was Edib who
censored the passages where she criticised Kemal (2010, 499). Yet, it is
also apparent that he expected to be acknowledged as the co-translator on
the cover, which may derive from his belief that he took an active role in
the act of translating. Although at this stage it is not fully possible to
determine the extent of Günyol’s agency in censoring the Turkish text, it
does seem clear that censorship converges with self-censorship in Edib’s
self-translational process. As such, the Turkish rewriting is inflected both
by more ostensible forms of social pressure and by personal motivations.
As Edib’s resistance is associated with her choice of English as the first
language of the memoir and because her will to (re)write was driven by
her sense of discomfort and displacement in the context of her primary
language, self-translation constituted the backbone of her struggle to
write against the official history. The urge to translate also became an urge
to reinterpret and rewrite the national history and thus to recover the
missing parts in the national identity narrative(s). In this sense,
self-translation functioned as a counterpoint to the Kemalist myth and
foregrounded silenced voices of the nation. Anthony Cordingley (2013)
makes the following observation:
90 M. Ozdemir
Equipped with expert competence in more than one language, moving

freely between cultures, or having been forced into exile … self-translators
share with many other writers from the margins the tendency to subvert
the possibility that their writing affirms a singular national culture or litera-
ture. (2013, 3)
By choosing English as her linguistic space, Edib offers in her initial self-
translation testimonies of absent bodies and discourses that need to be
incorporated into the official history. Through her exercise of strategic
self-censorship, this impetus is continued despite and through the cen-
sored version of The Turkish Ordeal. Edib’s self-translation process proves
that resistance is a metonymic process, just as translation is. As her English
self-translation re-enacts history, albeit in a different language, the official
facts become translated by reaching a wider audience. Edib’s self-
censorship is, in this sense, exemplary. Read together with the Turkish
version, the English memoir acquires the status of testimonial writing,
merging self-narration with national history. This act of self-translation,
through reconstruction, therefore explores one of the most profound
relationships with national history, authorial identity and language.
Notes
1. Among them, Raik’in Annesi in 1909, Seviyye Talip in 1910 and Handan
in 1912.
2. For example, first published in English as The Clown and His Daughter in
1935, Sinekli Bakkal appeared in 1936.
3. Respectively Ateşten Gömlek in 1922 (translated into English in 1923 as
The Shirt of Flame) and Vurun Kahpeye in 1923 (meaning lit. Thrash The
Whore).
4. For the purpose of this article, I am consulting the 2009 edition of Edib’s
first memoirs Memoirs of Halide Edib (1926), entitled House with Wisteria:
Memoirs of Turkey Old and New (2009); and the original 1928 edition of
the second memoirs The Turkish Ordeal: Being the further memoirs of
Halide Edib.
5. All translations from the Turkish version of the memoir are mine unless
otherwise stated.
6. Hülya Adak (2003) gives one notable example, which is the publication
process of Kazım Karabekir’s autobiography. In 1960, his İstiklal Harbimiz
[Our Independence War] was withdrawn from the market soon after its
publication because it violated the law against slandering Mustafa Kemal.
It appeared as late as 1993.
References
Adak, Hülya. 2003. National Myths and Self-Na(rra)tions: Mustafa Kemal’s
Nutuk and Halide Edib’s Memoirs and The Turkish Ordeal. The South Atlantic
Quarterly 102 (2/3): 509–527.
———. 2007. Suffragettes of the Empire, Daughters of the Republic: Women
Auto/biographers Narrate National History. New Perspectives on Turkey 36:
27–51.
Bassnett, Susan. 2013. Self-Translator as Rewriter. In Self-Translation Brokering
Originality in Hybrid Culture, ed. Anthony Cordingley, 13–26. London:
Continuum.
Çalışlar, İpek. 2010. Halide Edib: Biyografisine Sığmayan Kadın. Istanbul: Everest
Yayınları.
Cordingley, Anthony. 2013. Introduction: Self-Translation, Going Global.
Cordingley, 1–10. London: Continuum.
Edib, Halide. 1926. Memoirs of Halide Edib. New York: Arno Press.
———. 1928. The Turkish Ordeal. New York: The Century Company.
———. 1962/2013. Türk’ün Ateşle İmtihanı. Istanbul: Can Yayınları.
———. 2009. House with Wisteria: Memoirs of Turkey Old and New. New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Erol, Sibel. 1926/2009. Introduction. In House with Wisteria: Memoirs of Turkey
Old and New. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Gramsci, Antonio. 1948/1971. The Prison Notebooks: Selections. (Trans. and
ed. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith). New York: International
Publishers.
Gürçağlar, Şehnaz Tahir. 2008. The Politics and Poetics of Translation in Turkey,
1923–1960. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Hokenson, Jan, and Marcella Munson. 2007. The Bilingual Text: History and
Theory of Literary Self-Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
92 M. Ozdemir
Kadıoğlu, Ayşe. 1996. The Paradox of Turkish Nationalism and the Construction
of Official Identity. Middle Eastern Studies 32 (2): 177–193.
Kemal, Mustafa. 1928/1984. Nutuk-Söylev. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu.
Merkle, Denis. 2004. External and Internal Pressures on the Translator:
Relationship to Censorship. Association Internationale de Littérature
Comparée/International Comparative Literature Association. http://www.ailc-
icla.org/2004/Denise%20Merkle.doc. Accessed 12 Mar 2016.
Tymoczko, Maria. 2009. Censorship and Self-Censorship in Translation: Ethics
and Ideology, Resistance and Collusion. In Translation and Censorship:
Patterns of Communication and Interference, ed. Eiléan Ni Chuilleanáin,
Cormac Ó. Cuilleanáin, and David Parris, 24–45. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
Tymoczko, Maria, and Edwin Gentzler. 2002. Introduction. In Translation and
Power. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Zürcher, Eric J. 1998. Turkey: A Modern History. New York: I.B. Tauris and Co.
Mehtap Ozdemir is a candidate at the PhD programme in Comparative

Literature at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, the USA. She holds a BA
in Translation Studies from Boğaziçi University, Turkey, and an MA in
Comparative Literature from İstanbul Bilgi University, Turkey. She participated
in Istanbul session of the Harvard Institute of World Literature in 2012, Nida
School of Translation Studies in 2015 and Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series as a
PhD fellow in 2015–2016. She is writing a dissertation on the reappraisal of
Ottoman literary modernity as a network of multilateral textual transactions
between Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, French and English.
Part II
Self-Minorisation and
Self-Censorship
The Failure of Self-Translation in
Catalan Literature
Josep Miquel Ramis
Introduction
Self-translation has been present in Catalan literature from its origins. In
recent years, however, it has become almost essential for contemporary
Catalan writers. Although the reasons for Catalan writers to self-translate
have apparently remained the same throughout Catalan literary history,
and the public presence of Catalan is now greater than any in other period
in history, at present self-translation, in conjunction with other simulta-
neous and connected situations, may have a pernicious effect on the
future of Catalan literature if it is not done accurately.
Authors translating their own work, mainly into Spanish, seem to gain
access to a significant new literary market. Publishers know this, and so
try to institute a general policy to favour it: imposing the requirement for
self-translations; publishing both Catalan and Spanish versions simulta-
neously; occasionally failing to specify which version is the original;
J.M. Ramis (*)

Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

96 J.M. Ramis
or not even mentioning that one is a translation. Despite these efforts and
the rise of self-translation, the penetration of Catalan literature into the
Spanish market has not been remarkable. At the same time, Catalan
authors who write in Spanish almost never self-translate into Catalan.
Instead, some of these works are translated into Catalan by professional
translators with considerable success.
Considering all these issues, and given a prior review of what self-
translation has represented in the history of Catalan literature, the ques-
tion is whether the traditional arguments to self-translate in Catalan
literature still stand. Does self-translation make sense at all if it is true
that the Catalan market does not appreciate the value of authorship?
Since self-translation seems to be a practice of literary and linguistic sub-
ordination in Catalan literature, would the next step for Catalan writers
be to write directly in Spanish? Could self-translation, under the current
conditions, be perverse and harmful to the “health” of Catalan literature
and, in conjunction with other connected situations, bring about its
failure?
elf-Translation in the Origins of
S
Catalan Literature
Self-translation is a common activity in Catalan literature. The first
known example appeared at the same time as the first great leading figure
in Catalan literature Ramon Llull (1232–1316). According to Julio César
Santoyo (2002, 2005), Llull was the most prolific self-translator in
Europe during the Middle Ages. Llull is a special case, as he wrote works
in Latin, Catalan and Arabic; these works were self-translated into the
other two languages in order to disseminate his philosophy more widely.
Llull is an example of both a direct and an indirect self-translator,1 as well
as a multidirectional self-translator since he worked with different trans-
lation combinations.
Although Llull is a very singular and special case because of the
recurrence of his self-translations and the variety of forms in which he
worked, he became the precursor for numerous self-translators
throughout Catalan literary history. This continuous use of self-
The Failure of Self-Translation in Catalan Literature 97
translation by Catalan authors can be explained by various historical

situations: the dualism between the cultivated language (Latin) and
the vulgar language (Catalan); the abandonment of Occitan as the
language used by Catalan poets and the increasing and continuous
Castilianisation of Catalan courts from 1410, with the entry of the
Trastámara dynasty and the union with Castile in 1479. Therefore,
self-translation from and into Catalan can be explained by historical
and political events, and, consequently, is a product of “external”
domination or power.
The historical relationship between Castile and the Catalan-speaking
regions within the old Crown of Catalonia and Aragon is a key point in
explaining self-translation in Catalan literature from at least 1410 to the
present. I define Catalan self-translation as a type of “intrastate self-
translation”—self-translations carried out between two literatures that
are usually performed within the limits of a single state, with all its prob-
lematic consequences (Ramis 2013, 2014).
This historical relationship shows a constant, uninterrupted and
increasing subordination of Catalan literature to Spanish literature, a
trend which continued from 1410 until the second half of the nineteenth
century. Consequently, there was no reciprocal transfer of literary heri-
tage between the two cultures (Bacardí 2007). From then on, Catalan
literature played the role of a subordinated literature and Spanish litera-
ture took on the role of a hegemonic one.2
From the 1850s onwards and throughout the Spanish Civil War
(1936–1939), while the situation of subordination did not change sub-
stantially, a new willingness for the re-emergence of Catalan literature
appeared. It was a widespread movement—often referred to as the
Renaixença [rebirth], although this term has come into question—that
worked to overcome the peripheral, subordinated and diglossic situation
of the Catalan language and culture in relation to Spanish language and
culture (Marfany 2008, 290).
The aim of the movement was for the Catalan language and litera-
ture to reach a “normal” situation, that is, to occupy cultural and social
centrality (Vallverdú 1975, 40). On the one hand, this implied that
Catalan would be habitually and continuously used by Catalan writ-
ers; on the other hand, readers would recognise the literature written
98 J.M. Ramis
in Catalan as their own literature, which would imply supporting its

values and prestige. In practical terms, it should mean that the use of
one language or another should not be determined by social conven-
tions; rather, it should be an actual personal choice (Marfany 2008).
Under this hypothesis, preference for one language or another in situ-
ations of prestige should not be established beforehand, and speakers
could defend the use of Catalan in any context. Marfany (2008,
101–2) explains that, in Catalonia, speakers did not take this step for-
ward until the second half of the nineteenth century. As a consequence,
the use of one language or the other was strictly determined by social
conventions.
During this period, Catalan culture and literature changed its course.
With three leading figures during the nineteenth century in poetry (Jacint
Verdaguer), drama (Àngel Guimerà) and narrative (Narcís Oller), aided
by the cultural movement of Modernisme [modernism] (1892–1911), a
new generation appeared who placed literary value on works written in
Catalan. Little by little, and without intentional planning, this genera-
tion began to abandon the traditional diglossic attitude of Catalan soci-
ety towards its own language and literature, paralleled with the inception
of Catalan political nationalism.
The recovery of Catalan literature was accentuated and strength-
ened during the first decades of the twentieth century. The new politi-
cal and cultural movement of Noucentisme [noucentism] (1906–1923),
which founded the first cultural and self-government institutions,
continued with a similar attitude to the previous movement. During
the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923–1930), from the
1850s to 1939, Catalan literature returned to a developed status; in
other words, it was a literature that followed global literary trends, a
literature that was open to the world and with the aim of becoming
an international literature through translation. This was a parallel and
complementary process for the consolidation of Catalan as a main
cultural language, whose status was central to culture. All this process
should have been consolidated and driven by the new institutions cre-
ated during the second Republic (1931–1936), but this was inter-
rupted by the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and the victory of
General Francisco Franco.
atalan Self-Translations During Franco’s

C
Regime: A Way to Survive
Although there had been some cases of self-translation and several self-
translators since Ramon Llull, it is from 1939 and after the Spanish Civil
War (1936–1939) that this activity gained prominence and importance.
There are several reasons for this.
The Spanish Civil War interrupted the process of consolidation of a
genuine Catalan literary system and set Catalan culture back significantly
(Samsó 1994, 46). Franco’s regime abolished the self-government and
cultural institutions of the Catalan region, outlawed the public use of
Catalan and the publication of any work written in Catalan. With these
measures, the process of normalising the Catalan language and literature
was immediately cut short.
This was not an abstract problem, exclusive to the Catalan language
and literature. It was also a practical problem for writers of current and
future generations. These generations had no institutions, no public
platforms—publishing houses, press—and no public language of their
own. Within that context, in the 1940s there were different attitudes
and actions amongst writers (Samsó 1994, 28–9; Badosa 2004, 53).
Some decided to accept the ideals and laws of the new regime: this
meant the withdrawal of the literary use of Catalan and its permanent
replacement with Spanish, as in the case of Ignacio Agustí. Others,
such as Josep Pla, Carles Soldevila or Sebastià Juan Arbó, to name just
a few, adopted a pragmatic attitude: they published in Spanish, since it
was the only way to continue to work as professional writers, but they
returned to Catalan as soon as publication in that language was allowed
again.3 Yet another reaction was to renounce publishing their own work
and immerse themselves in a public silence, surviving through patron-
age, working for publishing houses or doing all kinds of piece work—a
reaction adopted by Marià Manent and Carles Riba. Finally, some
writers chose to go into exile, where they could write in Catalan but
mostly without widespread recognition amongst the general public—
Josep Carner, Xavier Benguerel, Agustí Bartra, Mercè Rodoreda or Pere
Calders, among many others.4
100 J.M. Ramis
The banning of Catalan publications and the consequent loss of a pub-

lic literary space forced Catalan writers to write professionally in Spanish,
especially the ones that did not go into exile. Despite the regular literary
use of Spanish among writers of the nineteenth century, and the continu-
ation of this practice into the twentieth century, there was a difference in
the literary use of Spanish before and after the Spanish Civil War. After
the war, the Catalan language gained a social and political dimension that
it had never had before. The literary use of Catalan was idolised and
became one of the most appreciated symbols of cultural and political
resistance to Franco’s regime, because of the ban on the public and liter-
ary use of Catalan language. At that time, the literary use of Spanish by
Catalan writers could be understood as a desertion from one’s own lan-
guage and culture in support of the theses of Franco’s regime (Fuster
1970, 47).
For some authors, self-translation was a pragmatic last resort; self-
translation represented visibility and money. They needed to find a route
to publication for their pre-war literary works written in Catalan, which
they had not been able to publish because of the public banning of the
language. Self-translation allowed them to get benefit from their Catalan
works that could not have otherwise been earned under those circum-
stances and also gave them some public visibility in a different literary
market without the effort of writing an entire new work. In this sense,
self-translation was also a way to continue to work as professional writers,
regardless of their ideology.
Self-translation was an intermediate solution to the public banning
of Catalan and the need to use Spanish publicly. Self-translation allowed
for writing in Catalan, if only in private, with the hope that those pri-
vate writings could eventually be published when the political climate
changed. At the same time, self-translation could have represented a
way to write in Spanish without feeling the betrayal of one’s own cul-
ture. In fact, if self-translation was not more widespread during those
years, it could be because many Catalan writers felt that writing in
Spanish, even in self-translation, represented a cultural submission to
the language of Franco’s regime and, by extension, to the regime itself
(Ramis 2015).
atalan Self-Translations from 1975:

C
An Uncertain Way of Becoming Established
The importance of self-translation in Catalan literature up to 1975 was
directly related to specific historical events and changes, as well as to
domination, both in cultural and political spheres. It may therefore seem
natural to expect self-translation to end with the end of Franco’s regime
(1975). In fact, quite the opposite happened: the number of self-
translators and self-translations increased and has continued to do so up
to the present, as Santoyo (2010, 2015) and Grutman (2009, 2011) have
shown. Although historical, cultural and political circumstances still exist
to contextualise and explain self-translation in Catalan literature, self-
translation has become a crucial literary expression and has acquired
more importance than ever before (see for example the Institut Ramon
Llull database, compiling all Catalan books translated into other
languages).
A first explanation could be that new generations—born after the
transition to democracy—do not recognise the symbolism of writing
only in Catalan and the idea of the Spanish language as an “enemy” of
Catalan culture. The introduction of Catalan at almost all levels in the
education system and the increase in the publication of children’s litera-
ture have also helped. From a theoretical point of view, this was the best
situation ever for Catalan language and culture, and the conditions
seemed ideal to recover and restart the process of normalisation that was
halted during Franco’s regime (1939–1975). However, the situation has
not been as ideal as it might seem, and can even be regarded as
detrimental.
To summarise what has been discussed up to this point and to intro-
duce some further issues that will be included in subsequent pages, the
following is an excerpt from a recent conversation between two Catalan
writers and self-translators, Pere Gimferrer [P.G.] (a writer in Catalan and
Spanish who self-translates his Catalan works into Spanish but not the
other way around) and Eduardo Mendoza [E.M.] (a novelist in Spanish
and a playwright in Catalan; he self-translates his plays into Spanish, but
102 J.M. Ramis
he does not self-translate his novels into Catalan), which appeared in the
press and is publicly available online (Massot 2015, 39):
E.M.: Abans de la guerra, escriure en castellà era una excepció; a partir de

la guerra la presència d’escriptors en castellà es fa molt notable.
P.G.: En el franquisme pocs van escriure en les dues llengües. L’autor
català més venut a Espanya va ser [Josep Maria] Gironella i quan se’l va
traduir al català, ningú no va comprar el llibre. En canvi, avui hi ha traduc-
cions al català de llibres escrits en castellà que sí que es venen. El lector
català, a canvi d’abandonar certa militància lingüística, ha adquirit cert
independentisme lingüístic, potser perquè la militància s’ha traslladat al
terreny polític més que al literari.
E.M.: A Catalunya tot lector és potencialment bilingüe. A partir de cert
moment, quan no s’escriu com a exercici de creació, sinó com a professió,
automàticament es tria el castellà. Són ambidextres, i una mà li diu amb
aquesta guanyaré diners, amb aquesta altra, no.
[E.M.: Before the war, writing in Spanish was an exception; after the
war, the presence of writers in Spanish increased considerably.
P.G.: During Franco’s regime, a few writers wrote in both languages. The
best-selling Catalan author in Spain was [Josep Maria] Gironella. When his
work was translated into Catalan, nobody bought it. Today, however, there
are books originally written in Spanish whose translation into Catalan does
sell. Catalan readers have left behind a certain linguistic militancy in favour
of linguistic independence, perhaps because militancy has shifted from lit-
erature to politics.
E.M.: In Catalonia, every reader is potentially bilingual. At a certain
moment, when writing becomes a profession as opposed to a creative exer-
cise, he or she automatically chooses to write in Spanish. Catalan writers
are ambidextrous: one hand says, this is going to earn money; the other
hand can’t say the same.]5
At any rate, democracy and the boom of the phenomenon have not
changed the main reasons behind self-translation for the majority of
Catalan writers. Money and foreign visibility remain the most com-
mon explanations given by Catalan self-translators. The issues of earn-
ings and visibility are both derived from Catalan subordination to the
hegemonic Spanish market. Therefore, in general, the contemporary
Catalan self-translator has the same attitude of subordination as other
self-translators had in the past. This situation is not exclusive to Catalan

literature in Spain, where Galician and Basque literatures are in an even
more precarious situation, as demonstrated by Xosé Manuel Dasilva
(2010, 2015), Elizabete Manterola (2011, 2013, 2014, 2015) and Julio
César Santoyo (2015).
This is a consequence of political decisions that have persisted from
Franco’s regime and come from a centralist, monocultural and monolin-
gual conception of Spain: there is an explicit wish from the Spanish posi-
tion of power that the literatures (languages and cultures, by extension)
which are not the Spanish literature should not be developed as central
and hegemonic literatures in their home territories. The result of this
situation is an asymmetric literary market in Spain, where Catalan litera-
ture needs to exist within Spanish literature to be visible. In this way, the
majority of self-translations are an imposition on, and not a voluntary
choice for, Catalan writers. Paradigmatic examples of this imposition are
prestigious Catalan writers such as Quim Monzó, Sergi Pàmies, Ramon
Solsona or Màrius Serra, among others. While writing for one of the
leading Catalan newspapers, La Vanguardia, they are forced to self-
translate their contributions for the Spanish version of the newspaper.
This asymmetry between Catalan and Spanish means that self-
translations in Catalan literature are almost always unidirectional: from
Catalan into Spanish, whereas the converse is quite uncommon. This is
due to the rigid diglossia present in Catalan and Spanish societies, where
a widely spread stereotype is “anyone can read in Spanish, Catalan or
otherwise, but only Catalans can understand Catalan.” With this point of
view, it is not uncommon that translation from Spanish into Catalan has
been considered as a waste of time for authors and a waste of money for
publishers.
This trend has even broader consequences once we consider that self-
translation from Catalan into Spanish could be justified not only in
reaching out to the Spanish public, but also to a segment of the Catalan
public. There is a part of Catalan society that does not consume culture
in Catalan: culturally speaking, they are Spanish monolinguals. These
Catalans could be a target audience for self-translations of Catalan lit-
erature; they may recognise the authors as a part of Catalan society, but
they would never read their work if it is not written in Spanish.
104 J.M. Ramis
This adaptation of literary texts to suit a part of its own society shows
that Catalan literature is not fully normalised and cannot establish a
hegemonic position in its own territory. At the same time, it also shows
the perceptual inferiority of Catalan culture in relation to Spanish cul-
ture: Catalan people who are culturally Catalan are also culturally
Spanish and consume culture in both languages without any need for
adaptation.
Francesc Parcerisas (2010, 194–5) claims that the lack of interest for
Catalan literature on the part of Spanish literature is more the result of
ideological perceptions than literary opinions. This seems especially true
in light of the publishers’ behaviour, as Parcerisas points out that often
self-translations from Catalan frequently try to omit the fact that they are
translations and, more specifically, that they are translations from Catalan,
since it seems to be a hindrance to the success of these types of works in
the Spanish market.
Let us take the example of Jorge Herralde (2007, 14–6), a publisher at
Anagrama, one of the most important and independent publishers in
Spanish established in Barcelona, who justifies the limited reception of
Catalan literature in the context of the limited general reception of for-
eign translated literature. In this sense, as Spanish readers prefer original
works over translations, self-translation—a work translated by the
author—can be better sold as an original in the Spanish market if the fact
that it is actually a translation is omitted. Herralde adds, however, that
some additional handicaps aggravate the situation of a work being a
translation: the fact of being Catalan and written in Catalan. The discrep-
ancy between heterogeneity of literary practice thus comes into competi-
tion with the traditional nationalist monolingual statehood idea.
According to Parcerisas:
la condició de ‘traducció del català’ ha esdevingut pejorativa per una mena

de contradicció intrínseca: en tant que traducció es tracta amb tota evidèn-
cia d’una ALTRA literatura, però en tant que es tracta d’una literatura
d’àmbit estatal hauria de pertànyer a una ÚNICA literatura. La paradoxa
de l’alteritat dintre de la unitat sembla, doncs, per a molts difícil d’assumir.
(Parcerisas 2010, 214)
[The condition of being a “translation from Catalan” has become pejora-

tive as the result of a kind of intrinsic contradiction: as a translation it is
obviously from ANOTHER literature, but as a state literature it should
belong to a SINGLE literature. For many people, the paradox of otherness
within singularity is hard to accept.]
This is the point of departure for the current need for Catalan writers
to self-translate their own work: the publishing market and the tradi-
tional monolingual policies behind it. There are publishing houses
which require their Catalan writers to become self-translators with the
main objective of presenting the translations as originals for the Spanish
literary market. Given these tendencies, self-translation becomes, on
the one hand, the preferred—if not the only—way to become known
in Spanish literature. The lack of visibility of Catalan authors within
the mainstream Spanish market makes an author his or her only possi-
ble translator, since very few publishers would be willing to take the
risk and cover the expenses of translating and publishing a work which
might fail.
On the other hand, self-translation is a way publishing houses have
found to camouflage that a work is a translation with a Catalan origin, so
that they can present it as a Spanish literary original. Consequently, as the
new reader does not know its origin, the reception of the work is like a
true original in the new literature, as Tanqueiro (2007, 106) has demon-
strated in the cases of Antoni Marí and Empar Moliner. The consequence
of this behaviour is that self-translation perpetuates the monolingual
Spanish hegemonic system and favours the tactic of the publishing
houses, which contributes to the invisibility and the continuous minori-
sation and subordination of Catalan literature by its own members.
At the same time, this situation implies a bipolar literary nationality on
the part of the author: Catalan for Catalan readers and Spanish for
Spanish readers. According to Xosé Manuel Dasilva:
bajo ese ángulo cabe interpretar que se oculte en los títulos de crédito de
la autotraducción que lo que el lector tiene en sus manos es una versión
realizada desde otra lengua. Esto tiene como efecto inmediato que la
106 J.M. Ramis
nacionalidad literaria del escritor en cuestión se difumine … Como sin

mucho esfuerzo se puede constatar, el propósito de quien hace esto es for-
mar parte al mismo tiempo de dos literaturas. (Dasilva 2009, 152)
[From this point of view, we can interpret that the self-translation credits
hide that the work is a translation from another language. The immediate
effect is the blurring of the author’s literary nationality … It is easy to
understand that the aim is to be able to belong to two literatures at the
same time.]
On the contrary, one reason to self-translate a work should be to gain

visibility. This gain in visibility also extends to the source literature. These
types of practices from publishing houses, conversely, foment the invisi-
bility of Catalan literature. This bad praxis usually results in masking the
origin of these works in the Spanish market under the shelter of self-
translation. Moreover, this praxis could also mask the Catalan origin in
the global literary market, because foreign publishers could be unaware of
the existence of the previous Catalan version and take the Spanish version
as the original. Even worse, they might use the Spanish version as the
basis for translating the work into other literatures because the author has
not specified whether he or she wants to be translated from the Catalan
original. Therefore, if this were the general praxis, Catalan literature
would not exist in world literature.
Good praxis, which does also exist, would suggest identifying the self-
translation as a translation from another language, done by the author.
This behaviour should add value for the translation’s readers as they are
informed by an author:
Voilà une grande œuvre dans sa langue originale et moi je la traduis en

espagnol pour que les lecteurs … puissent apprécier: 1. la qualité de ce que
l’on écrit dans les langues minorisées; 2. la qualité de cette œuvre en par-
ticulier; 3. l’indéniable “fidélité” par rapport à l’original en raison de ma
position de pouvoir en tant qu’autotraducteur, et 4. la qualité du système
littéraire de l’original auquel ils devraient porter un plus grand intérêt,
l’autotraducteur, bien que littérairement compétent dans les deux langues,
n’ayant pas accepté de créer directement dans la langue majoritaire mais
ayant conservé … sa fidélité au système littéraire original. (Parcerisas
2007, 116–7)
[Here is a great work in its original language and I have translated it into
Spanish so that readers … can be exposed to: 1. the quality of literature in
minority languages; 2. the quality of this work in particular; 3. the irrefut-
able “accuracy” with respect to the original, resulting from my power posi-
tion as a self-translator, and 4. the quality of the original literary system, to
which the majority culture should pay more attention, since the self-
translator, though he or she has literary competence in both languages, has
refused to write directly in the majority language, but rather has main-
tained his or her loyalty to the original literary system.]
Publishers do not see enough benefits from these practices and they tend,
as much as they can, to publish originals and self-translations at the same
time. They argue that both versions benefit from media exposure, given
that originals can have a greater impact than translations in the current
Spanish literary market. What publishers do not reveal is the conse-
quences of this act for Catalan literature: its invisibility in its own geo-
graphical area. This means that Catalan readers find the same book in
Catalan and Spanish in bookstores; consequently, some readers who are
used to reading in Spanish do not make any effort to read Catalan litera-
ture in the original language. It is an imposed or tolerated case of linguis-
tic substitution, and it clearly goes against the normalisation of the
Catalan language and its literature. In the long run, this type of attitude
could lead to the extinction of Catalan literature, a process that seems to
be happening in other literatures, such as Welsh (Parcerisas 2007, 2009),
Gaelic (Whyte 2002; Krause 2007), Breton (Hupel 2015) or Occitan
(Agresti 2000; Forêt 2015), among others.
Another attraction for publishing houses to hide the origins of a
work and its author are Spanish literary prizes. The significant amounts
of money offered for these prizes, especially the Premio Planeta, attract
some writers of Catalan literature, who have to present a Spanish orig-
inal. Maria de la Pau Janer won the 2005 Premio Planeta with Pasiones
romanas [Roman Passions] and she was a finalist in the 2002 edition
of the same prize with Las mujeres que hay en mí [The Women in Me].
In 2004, one of the finalists was another author of Catalan literature,
Ferran Torrent, with his book La vida en el abismo [Life in the Abyss].
Both cases reopened this issue with serious controversy in the world of
108 J.M. Ramis
Catalan literature. In the case of these novels, the Spanish version

appeared first, but the Catalan version appeared after only a small time
lag since both writers are well known and widely read in the Catalan liter-
ary market. These examples show that self-translation is also used to win
literary prizes in other languages, and this practice changes the chrono-
logical order of appearance of the versions. This change of order implies
that the self-translation is presented as an original and the original as a
self-translation. Commercially speaking, it has been a successful trend.
However, it has clear implications: more invisibility and more minorisa-
tion, with the consequence of maintaining the status quo for both litera-
tures in Catalan culture. As Joan Ramon Resina points out:
Las generaciones tardofranquistas y postfranquistas de autores catalanes en

castellano son las primeras en triunfar en el mercado literario español y en
entrar en sus estructuras de prestigiamiento. Esta promoción, efectuada
mediante la poderosa maquinaria de los premios literarios y su soporte
mediático, no es extrínseca al objetivo de mantener el mercado catalán
receptivo no sólo a estos productos locales en castellano, sino sobre todo, a
otros asociados a ellos por el lenguaje común y por una red de relaciones
intertextuales, crítico-históricas y canónicas. (Resina 2002, 107)
[Catalan writers in Spanish towards the end of Franco’s regime and in
the early years of democracy were the first to find success in the Spanish
literary market and entered into its structures of promotion. This promo-
tion, at the hands of powerful literary awards and their media support, was
meant to keep the Catalan market receptive to local works in Spanish and,
especially, to other works associated with them by the common language
and by a network of intertextual, critical, historical and canonical
relations.]
Moreover, this is not a new phenomenon. Xavier Benguerel won the 1974
Premio Planeta with Icaria, a novel he presented to the judges self-
translated from Catalan. Similarly, Sebastià Juan Arbó won the first Premio
Blasco Ibáñez in 1966 with Entre la tierra y el mar (Entre la terra i el mar)
[Between the Land and the Sea], published the same year by the publishing
house Prometeo. The original Catalan version did not appear until 1992,
when Emili Rosales published the former’s posthumous complete works.
Nevertheless, these two works were presented very differently to Spanish
readers: while Icaria, Icaria clearly showed on the cover that the book was
a self-translation from Catalan, Entre la tierra y el mar never mentioned
that it had a Catalan origin and it was presented as an original Spanish
work.
This trend has reached a new level in recent years. Seeing the success of
some Catalan novelists who changed their literary language and pub-
lished in Spanish first because of literary prizes, publishers have seen it as
a formula for success. They translate, not self-translate in this case, from
Spanish to Catalan works of Catalan writers who have always written in
Spanish, but who have a media impact in the Catalan cultural system.
This includes writers like Javier Cercas, Albert Espinosa, Ildefonso
Falcones, Chufo Lloréns, Jordi Molist, David Monteagudo, Rosa Regàs,
Carlos Ruiz Zafón or Maruja Torres. Curiously, these translations, in a
Spanish-Catalan combination that was never successful before, have
worked quite well commercially: Catalan readers have bought the Catalan
version as if it were an original, although the fact that it is a translation is
not hidden and that they are perfectly capable of reading the original
Spanish version. This is something repeatedly shown, for example, in the
best-sellers lists of the cultural supplements of Catalan newspapers.
There is still another step: the publication in Spanish of Albert Sànchez
Piñol’s latest bestseller, Victus, published by La Campana in 2012. Up
until this book, Sànchez Piñol was an author who wrote exclusively in
Catalan, with notable success and who never self-translated his work,
although all his works are also published in Spanish. With this novel he
decided to write and publish directly in Spanish; some months later, the
Catalan version appeared in a translation by Xavier Pàmies, printed by La
Campana in 2013. Commercially, it has been a successful venture: both
versions have sold very well as originals (the bestseller of 2013 ranking for
“Sant Jordi,” the Catalan book festival), and the critics have supported
the work without any criticism over the change of language, something
that would have been inconceivable just a few years earlier, as the recep-
tion of Maria de la Pau Janer’s novel in the press could confirm. In addi-
tion, this venture was orchestrated by a Catalan publishing house which
had never published in Spanish up to that point. The success of the novel
is also the success of a publishing house that could never imagine selling
as many books as it sold with Victus. It could be a pernicious precedent
110 J.M. Ramis
if other Catalan publishing houses follow its example, as has already hap-
pened with Club Editor, an independent Catalan publishing house with
a long history that had never published in Spanish before. In 2015, it
published the novel L’últim mono/El último mono [The Last Craving], by
Lluís Maria Todó, simultaneously in Catalan and Spanish. Moreover, the
current developments are even less promising: in 2015, the leading pub-
lishing group in Catalan (Grup 62)—with approximately 50 per cent of
the total publications in Catalan—has been absorbed by the large Spanish
publishing group Planeta, which means that half of all the publications in
Catalan are now controlled by a Spanish publishing house in Spanish
that could well benefit from this type of lucrative practice.
The lure of literary prizes in Spanish, the success of Catalan-language
translations of works by Catalan authors who write in Spanish, and the
surprising example of the latest novel by Sànchez Piñol, along with the
tactics of publishing houses and the tolerance of readers, all place Catalan
literature in a situation where a question needs to be asked—whether
writing in Catalan is still useful. This entire situation came to a head in
2007, when Catalonia was the Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book
Fair and part of the Catalan cultural world wanted to include Catalan
writers who write in Spanish within Catalan literature. There was a big
controversy between those who defended the view that Catalan literature
is written in Catalan—the philological (and expert) point of view—and
those who wanted to include any Catalan writer, even if he or she wrote
in Spanish. Obviously, the second option diluted the impact of Catalan
literature, but widened the scope of authors to be included at the fair.6
Some voices in the Catalan cultural press brought up the debate about
the real usefulness of writing in Catalan as a result of some of these situ-
ations (Serra 2011; Puigtobella 2013; Serrahima 2013), but the debate
was silenced because it is an unpleasant matter for Catalan cultural and
political powers and for the writers and journalists who uphold the status
quo.
It is true that Catalan works are sold in a relatively small market, but it
is also true that Catalan versions achieve greater success, although they are
translations. It is equally true that the public presence of Catalan is greater
than any other period, for example in the press, where there are more
newspapers in Catalan than at any other time in history, but it should
be explained that half of them are simply translations from an original

version in Spanish. Is Catalan literature turning into an only transla-
tions–recipient literature? What incentive do Catalan writers have to
write in their own language? The Catalan original has less distribution
than the Spanish one; translation and even self-translation of Catalan
works into Spanish usually go unnoticed and they are invisible to the
Spanish literary system. Moreover, Catalan authors see that originals in
Spanish translated into Catalan sell better. Altogether, this appears to be
sufficient argument to turn writing in Catalan into a folkloric and exotic
option, if Catalan culture does not engage in a critical reflection on and
medium to change this situation. Catalan literature has enough poten-
tial to turn all these issues around: a long history, established writers and
quality public institutions—Institut Ramon Llull, Institució de les
Lletres Catalanes—which go to great lengths to highlight the quality
and promote the visibility of Catalan literature through the translation
of works into many other languages, in addition to many other activi-
ties. The dilemma for Catalan literature is the choice between reaching a
real place of its own in the panorama of world literature or being trans-
formed into a totally subordinated and minorised literature, as has hap-
pened with the cases mentioned before: Occitan, Breton, Welsh and
Gaelic, among others.
Conclusion
Self-translation has been a recurrent and continuous practice in Catalan
literary history, and it is crucial in present-day literature. At a time when
Catalan literature benefits from the most promising conditions to become
a known and recognised literature within world literature, self-translation
could be a useful instrument to reach this goal. Self-translation is an asset
for the recognition of a literature, since the authors themselves, the main
actors in any literature, are the ones who showcase the literary capital of
their culture to another audience. Nevertheless, publishing houses’ poli-
cies, Spanish cultural ideas and unconscious practices by Catalan authors
and readers could lead self-translation to become one of the main reasons
behind a future extinction of Catalan literature.
112 J.M. Ramis
The systematic use of self-translation by Catalan authors to translate

their works into Spanish is a laudable effort to let Spanish readers know
about Catalan literature. Despite this effort, however, the Spanish literary
market remains uninterested in Catalan literature due to intrinsic
prejudices. The Spanish literary market prefers originals and Spanish
writers, and Catalan self-translation fulfils these requirements by omit-
ting the Catalan origins of the texts. By hiding this origin, writers and
publishing houses are isolating Catalan literature from Spanish readers
and even potential foreign readers, that is, from the world.
Spanish literary prizes would be excellent recognition for Catalan writ-
ers if they could present their works in the Catalan language. By encour-
aging these writers to write in Spanish or to present their Spanish versions
as originals, even though the Catalan versions will subsequently be pub-
lished, publishing houses and Catalan writers are putting Catalan litera-
ture in a position of direct subordination to Spanish literature and
implying to their readers that Spanish literature is the only important
literature.
Catalan readers, at the same time, do not seem to be worried about the
original language of the works they read. They buy books in Catalan,
although they are translations from Spanish, which they could read in the
original language. This is the inverse phenomenon of what Spanish read-
ers do. Based on this perspective, a bestselling Catalan writer, Albert
Sànchez Piñol, decided to write his latest novel in Spanish and give it to
a translator to translate into Catalan, and Catalan readers bought both
versions. This attitude set an alarming precedent for Catalan literature,
since writing directly in Spanish would mean avoiding problems in the
Spanish market while maintaining the same success in the Catalan mar-
ket as if the original work had been written in Catalan.
Catalan literature is still far removed from failure, but these extreme
situations—directly or indirectly derived from self-translation—mark a
worrying trend. Self-translation should continue to be an advantage for
Catalan writers and Catalan literature, and it should be a productive way
of introducing these writers and this literature to the world. Catalan lit-
erature should truly act as a central and hegemonic literature and be con-
scious of this stance. Catalan self-translators should demand that their
original language and literature clearly appear in their Spanish
versions first, and also in all other future in world literature. Catalan writ-
ers should defend their Catalan versions as originals when competing for
Spanish literary prizes, or they should renounce such prizes. Catalan
readers should tell Catalan writers that they value the language of their
works, and that they want to continue reading in their own language and
not in another language.
In summary, all agents in Catalan literature should work collabora-
tively to increase the appreciation of Catalan literature. There is sufficient
time and resources to correct these alarming trends and to ultimately
transform Catalan literature into a central and globally recognised litera-
ture. If this trend is not corrected, Catalan literature is in danger of
becoming a mere receiver of translations that will gradually disappear.
Perhaps, the question is how the academic community can influence
these trends, having recognised there is a need to act, what can be done
to ensure this collaboration and what time and resources can and need to
be spent to ensure that Catalan literature remains and grows as a globally
recognised entity.
Notes
1. Direct self-translation (also known as individual self-translation) is done
exclusively by the author on her/his own, while indirect self-translation (or
shared self-translation) is done by the author with someone else’s help or
advice. A more thorough explanation can be found in Ramis (2014).
2. Casanova’s (1999) terminology (dominant-dominated) does not seem
appropriate. Catalan literature has never been strictly dominated by
Spanish literature, but it has acted as subordinate to some of the Spanish
movements. In the context of relations of power, Even-Zohar’s (1990)
terminology (central-peripheral) does not seem entirely clear, even though
his postulates are useful in defining the relations between the different
Iberian literatures.
3. Although their attitude was basically the same in the 1940s, once Catalan
was allowed for publication (the first attempts date from 1948), two of
these authors, Pla and Soldevila, wrote their works exclusively in Catalan.
The other, Arbó, continued with his career as a writer in Spanish, in paral-
lel with the recovery of his career as a Catalan writer.
114 J.M. Ramis
4. Some of these authors did achieve recognition within Catalan circles in

exile, but that did not lead to recognition of their work in Catalan lit-
erature as a whole, and even more, it carried economic difficulties for
the ones who wanted to earn a living from their writing. The real rec-
ognition of these writers came afterwards, when they returned from
exile. The great exception was Josep Carner, who never returned to
Catalonia.
5. All translations into English are my own, unless otherwise stated.
6. The programme of Catalan cultural activities for the fair can be consulted
at http://www.frankfurt2007.cat/arxius/KATALANISCHEKULTURIN
FRANKFURT2.pdf (accessed on 23 June 2015). Although some Catalan
writers who write in Spanish (Eduardo Mendoza, Juan Marsé, Javier
Cercas, Enrique Vila-Matas and Carlos Ruiz Zafón) were invited, they
rejected the invitation. Nevertheless, a Catalan writer who writes in
Spanish, Juan Goytisolo, appeared in the book fair on a documentary
made for that event. Moreover, some of the most important writers who
led the Catalan representation in Frankfurt, like Pere Gimferrer, Baltasar
Porcel, Quim Monzó and Carme Riera, are at the same time self-transla-
tors into Spanish.
References
Agresti, Giovanni. 2000. Autòtraduccion: necessitat o exigéncia? Oc. Revista de
las letras e de la pensada occitanas 57: 27–35.
Bacardí, Montserrat. 2007. La traducció del castellà al català: una tradició ale-
atòria. 1611. Revista d’Història de la Traducció 1. http://www.traduccionliter-
aria.org/1611/art/bacardi.htm. Accessed 30 June 2015.
Badosa, Cristina. 2004. La prose catalane en situation “bilingue”. In Écrire en
situation bilingue. Actes du colloque des 20, 21, 22 mars 2003. Volume I:
Communications, ed. Christian Lagarde, 51–64. Perpignan: CRILAUP—
Presses Universitaires de Perpignan.
Casanova, Pascale. 1999. La république mondiale des lettres. Paris: Seuil.
Dasilva, Xosé Manuel. 2009. Autotraducirse en Galicia: ¿bilingüismo o diglosia?
Quaderns. Revista de traducció 16: 143–156.
———. 2010. La autotraducción vista por los escritores gallegos. In Traducción
y autotraducción entre las literaturas ibéricas, ed. Enric Gallén, Francisco
Lafarga, and Luis Pegenaute, 265–279. Berna: Peter Lang.
———. 2015. Los horizontes lingüísticos del autotraductor. Una visión a partir
del contexto de Galicia. Glottopol 25: 59–70.
Even Zohar, Itamar. 1990. Polysystem Studies. Poetics Today 11: 9–26.
Forêt, Joan-Claudi. 2015. L’auteur occitan et son double. Glottopol 25: 136–150.
Fuster, Joan. 1970. La qüestió del bilingüisme. Serra d’Or 127: 47.
Grutman, Rainier. 2009. La autotraducción en la galaxia de las lenguas. Quaderns
16: 123–134.
———. 2011. Diglosia y autotraducción ‘vertical’ (en y fuera de España). In
Aproximaciones a la autotraducción, ed. Xosé Manuel Dasilva and Helena
Tanqueiro, 69–91. Vigo: Academia del Hispanismo.
Herralde, Jorge. 2007. Autores catalanes traducidos al castellano. Una experiencia
editorial (1971–2007). Barcelona: Anagrama.
Hupel, Erwan. 2015. Le cœur et l’esprit: déchirements et stratégies
d’autotraduction chez quelques auteurs bretons. Glottopol 25: 124–135.
Institut Ramon Llull. Online. Database of Translations of Catalan Books into
Other Languages. http://www.llull.cat/catala/quiesqui/trac_traduccions.cfm.
Accessed 30 Nov 2016.
Krause, Corinna. 2007. Eadar Dà Chànan: Self-Translation, the Bilingual
Edition and Modern Scottish Gaelic Poetry. PhD Thesis, University of
Edinburgh, School of Celtic and Scottish Studies. https://www.era.lib.ed.
ac.uk/handle/1842/3453. Accessed 30 June 2016.
Manterola, Elizabete. 2011. La autotraducción en la literatura vasca. In
———. 2013. Escribir y (auto)traducir en un sistema literario diglósico: la
obra de Bernardo Atxaga. In L’autotraduction aux frontières de la langue et de
la culture, ed. Christian Lagarde and Helena Tanqueiro, 62–67. Limoges:
Lambert-Lucas.
———. 2014. La literatura vasca traducida. Berna: Peter Lang.
———. 2015. La autotraducción en el contexto vasco: entre distancia inter-
lingüística y la constitución de un campo literario nacional transfronterizo.
Glottopol 25: 71–87.
Marfany, Joan-Lluís. 2008. Llengua, nació i diglòssia. Barcelona: L’Avenç.
Massot, Josep. 2015. Elogi de la lectura. La Vanguardia, 21 April 2015. http://
www.lavanguardia.com/20150421/54430746272/sant-jordi-2015-elogi-de-
la-lectura-josep-massot.html. Accessed 16 Mar 2017.
Parcerisas, Francesc. 2007. Idéologie et autotraduction entre cultures asymé-
triques. Atelier de traduction 7: 111–119.
116 J.M. Ramis
———. 2009. De l’asymétrie au degré zéro de l’autotraduction. Quaderns 16:

117–122.
———. 2010. La difusió de la literatura catalana en el món editorial espanyol
del segle xx. In Traducción y autotraducción entre las literaturas ibéricas, ed.
Enric Gallén, Francisco Lafarga, and Luis Pegenaute, 193–220. Berna: Peter
Lang.
Puigtobella, Bernat. 2013. La llegenda de Sant Jordi. Núvol, el digital de cultura,
29 April 2013. http://www.nuvol.com/opinio/la-llegenda-de-sant-jordi.
Accessed 30 June 2015.
Ramis, Josep Miquel. 2013. La autotraducción y el difícil encaje de sistemas
literarios en contacto. EU-topías 5: 99–111. http://eu-topias.org/la-
autotraduccion-y -el-dificil-encaje-de-sistemas-literarios-en-contacto/.
Accessed 30 June 2015.
———. 2014. Autotraducció. De la teoria a la pràctica. Vic: Eumo.
———. 2015. Aproximación teórica a la traducción y la autotraducción. A
propósito de las literaturas catalana y española. In Literaturas Ibéricas. Teoría,
historia y crítica comparativas. Revista de Filología Románica. Anejos, ed. Juan
M. Ribera Llopis et al., 59–72. Madrid: Publicaciones Universidad
Complutense de Madrid.
Resina, Joan Ramon. 2002. ‘Escribo en castellano porque me gusta.’ Juan Marsé
o Joan Marés: la literatura entre dos lenguas. In Escribir en dos lenguas.
Escritores catalanes y la elección de la lengua literaria/Escriure entre dues llengües.
Escriptors catalans i l’elecció de la llengua literària, ed. Pilar Arnau i Segarra
et al., 101–109. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger.
Samsó, Joan. 1994. La cultura catalana: entre la clandestinitat i la represa pública.
Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat.
Santoyo, Julio César. 2002. Traducciones de autor: Una mirada retrospectiva.
Quimera 210: 27–32.
———. 2005. Autotraducciones: Una perspectiva histórica. Meta. Journal des
traducteurs/Translators’ Journal 50 (3): 858–867.
———. 2010. Autotraducciones intrapeninsulares: Motivos históricos, razones
actuales. In Traducción y autotraducción entre las literaturas ibéricas, ed. Enric
Gallén, Francisco Lafarga, and Luis Pegenaute, 365–380. Berna: Peter Lang.
———. 2015. Consideraciones acerca del estatus actual de la autotraducción en
la Península Ibérica. Glottopol 25: 47–58.
Serra, Màrius. 2011. La nova clandestinitat literària. L’Avenç 369: 8–9.
Serrahima, Xavier. 2013. Un estat sense literatura? Núvol, el digital de cultura,
May 4. http://www.nuvol.com/opinio/literatura-catalana-i-llengua. Accessed
30 June 2015.
Tanqueiro, Helena. 2007. L’autotraduction comme objet d’étude. Atelier de tra-

duction 7: 101–109. http://www.usv.ro/fisiere_utilizator/file/atelierdetraduc-
tion/arhive/arhive_full_text/atelier_de_traduction_7.pdf. Accessed 30 June
2015.
Vallverdú, Francesc. 1975. L’escriptor català i el problema de la llengua. Barcelona:
Edicions 62.
Whyte, Christopher. 2002. Against Self-Translation. Translation and Literature
11: 64–71.
Josep Miquel Ramis holds a PhD in Translation Studies and Catalan Literature
from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. He is a member of differ-
ent research groups in literary translation and reception, and he has completed
different research visits at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the
Université Paris IV—Sorbonne and the ENST Bretagne. His research interests
include literary translation and Catalan literature, with a special focus on self-
translation. In 2014, he wrote his monograph Autotraducció: de la teoria a la
pràctica (Eumo). He teaches at Universitat de Barcelona and also freelances as a
translator and editor/proofreader.
The Power and Burden of
Self-Translation: Representation
of “Turkish Identity” in Elif Shafak’s
The Bastard of Istanbul
Arzu Akbatur
The growing interest in self-translation in recent years has made it clear

that much can be gained from rethinking self-translation in different
contexts and in relation to other fields such as postcolonialism, feminism
or ethnography. Especially within the wider context of globalisation and/
or cultural imperialism, self-translation has come to encompass multifari-
ous issues, including the politics of representation, the asymmetrical
power relations between “major” and “minor” languages, and the com-
plex dynamics of writing/translating in/to a dominant language. In some
contexts, these issues immediately bring to mind the traditional western/
eastern divide and the tendency to equate “minor” languages/literatures
with the “non-western.” However, it would be problematic to assume
that all minority writers/writing originates from non-western cultures, or
to suppose that a “minority” status is automatically a less privileged one.
Similarly, essentialising “the west” (or “the east”) undermines the
A. Akbatur (*)
Boğaziçi University, İstanbul, Turkey

120 A. Akbatur
power relationships between the many languages in Europe as well as the

heterogeneity of its literatures.
In his entry on “self-translation” for the Routledge Encyclopedia of
Translation Studies, Rainier Grutman discusses precisely the asymmetrical
power relations between major and minor languages in recent times,
which “may compel the writers of the latter to translate their work into
the dominant language” (2009, 258). Although this entry does not fur-
ther discuss the case of bilingual writers from minor languages who prefer
to create in the dominant language, it does suggest many similarities
between writing in a major language and self-translation, therefore invit-
ing us to reflect on how the “in-betweenness” of such writing complicates
the issues of power, representation and cultural identities. Yet, scholars
such as Rita Wilson have observed that “self-translation is generally con-
sidered as something marginal, a sort of cultural or literal oddity, as a
borderline case of both translation and literary studies” (2009, 187). In a
more recent work, Grutman and Trish Van Bolderen do point out the
possibility of viewing self-translation “both in a narrow sense and from a
much broader, even metaphorical, perspective” (2014, 323), and refer
specifically to migration studies, which have provided valuable insight
into the relationship between self/translation, writing in a dominant lan-
guage, identity and other spheres. Incorporating a broader metaphorical
perspective seems a fruitful move in order to overcome the “marginal”
nature of self-translation. Put differently, without reducing its primary
object to the textual product,that is, self/translation proper, it would be
very productive to consider all contextual matters such an undertaking is
related to.
Since self-translation defies the conventional notions informed by
binary thinking, the boundaries between author and translator, original
and translation, source and target cultures become more permeable and
blurred (Hokenson and Munson 2007). Following this non-dualistic
approach, and rather adopting a broader and metaphorical perspective,
this chapter aims to explore the interwoven relations between self-
translation and writing in English and Turkish. More specifically, it seeks
to scrutinise how this complex practice plays a transformative role in the
representation of identity and culture, by taking the Turkish writer Elif
Shafak’s work (originally written) in English as a case in point. As will
The Power and Burden of Self-Translation: Representation 121
become evident in the following sections, in her writing Shafak discusses

issues of identity, belonging and representation making ample use of the
“in-betweenness” metaphor and often comparing it to the position of
Turkey and Turkish cultural identity determined by the western/eastern
divide. Her novels, written in English, paved the way for Shafak to medi-
ate between two languages and cultures. Yet, she has been mainly received
as a cultural mediator narrating stories of her native country to the west-
ern world, or put differently, the cultural mediator translating the Turkish
culture and identity together with Orhan Pamuk (The Economist 2004,
online). The agency of the author/translator is embedded in power and
ideology, and therefore closely linked to questions such as who has the
power to represent or what gets represented. As such, this chapter delves
into the power relations observable in the interventionist role Shafak
plays as a self-translator in the (re)contextualisation of her work repre-
senting Turkish identity and culture. As I will argue, this is happening at
the same time as she—quite paradoxically—objects to the “burden of
[self-]translation” (Dirlik 2002, 216), which attributes a representative
function to a minority writer and her work.
Shafak’s Writing/Self-Translating in/to English

One of the best-known writers from Turkey and translated into more
than 40 languages, Elif Shafak has published 16 books, 10 of which are
novels. Her first four novels were written in Turkish, and only two of
those appeared in English translation.1 Her debut on the international
market was with The Flea Palace (Paker 2004, 7), in which she actively
participated in the translation of one of her Turkish novels into English.
Following her four novels in Turkish, Shafak began to write in her
second language (English), a decision much discussed and criticised in
Turkey, but following this, this was to become a systematic choice. So far,
her six novels originally written in English have been translated into
Turkish; and in each case, Shafak herself was involved in the process of
translation in different ways, as the title pages indicate. Despite having
previously entered the international market via English translation, it was
actually her first novel originally written in English, The Saint of Incipient
122 A. Akbatur
Insanities (2004), earning her a wider acclaim outside Turkey. The novel
can be considered a landmark, as much for the language it was written in
as for the new context of reception it brought about, reframing Shafak as
one of those “nomadic multilingual writer[s]” (Paker 2004, 7) along with
Zadie Smith, Jhumpa Lahiri and Aleksandar Hemon. Interestingly,
although Shafak’s six novels were written in English, the Turkish transla-
tions of these were published first. It is precisely the author’s writing in
English that presents a rather distinct case of displaying the power rela-
tions embedded in the complex nature of the activity of writing and self/
translating; especially if her novels originally written in English are con-
sidered self-translations, as most scholars suggest. Two aspects are worth
mentioning in this regard.
On the one hand, the fact that the six English originals of Shafak’s
novels—The Saint of Incipient Insanities (2004), The Bastard of Istanbul
(2007), The Forty Rules of Love (2010), Honour (2012), The Architect’s
Apprentice (2014) and Three Daughters of Eve (2016)—came out some-
time after the publication of their Turkish translations seems to have
allowed the writer to make changes in the English (original) versions
before they came out. Indeed, in a talk she gave on 17 November 2009
(DEU, İzmir), Shafak confirmed that she revisited the original version (in
English) of The Forty Rules of Love after it had been translated into Turkish,
adding that the process had been one of rewriting the original (Shafak
2009). On the other hand, as said above, Shafak herself contributed to
the translations into Turkish of some of her English originals, to the
extent of declaring that she had “rewritten” them in Turkish. The
paratextual material in the Turkish versions gives evidence of this: except
for Araf (the Turkish translation of The Saint of Incipient Insanities) all the
title pages indicate that the Turkish translator worked in collaboration
with the author. The extent of such collaboration and rewriting becomes
even more evident upon closer scrutiny of both versions and is also con-
firmed by the translators themselves. For example, as I will discuss later,
the translator of Baba ve Piç (the Turkish translation of The Bastard of
Istanbul) revealed in a personal communication (Biçen, quoted in
Akbatur 2010, 226) how the target text was substantially altered by
Shafak herself, without necessarily being the result of a process of collabo-
ration between the writer and the translator. In any case, it seems logical
to assume that this collaboration in the rewriting of the Turkish versions

facilitated a cross-textual process in which the writer subsequently revis-
ited and rewrote the English originals, which were still to be published.
In short, Shafak’s works in English can be viewed as both “translations
from” and “self-translations of ” a minority writer within the Anglophone
world, not only because the writer is involved in the process of translating
into English her Turkish novels, but also because her subsequent original
writing in English is only published once the Turkish translations (in
which she also collaborates) have come out. Shafak’s writing in English
also invites comparison to that of “minority” writers whose task is “similar
to the task of the translator” (Tymoczko 2007, 229–230). Such compari-
son becomes possible when taking into account the position of Shafak as
belonging to a literature (such as Turkish) of “minority status” compared
with the widely translated literatures (such as English). In other words,
this “minority status” relies on the core/periphery model applied to the
flow of translations (Heilbron 1999, 2008) especially in a global setting.
Here, “minority” also defines the group of writers, usually from “nations
and social groups that lack authority, political power and prestige or that
have been colonized, exploited, stigmatized” (Venuti 1998b, 135), and
(mainly of non-western origin) who prefer to write in a major language.
When looking at contemporary Turkish literature in the British con-
text, Alev Adil discusses self-translation with regards to minor literatures
in global markets, stating it becomes “a cramped space (that) forces the
individual intrigue to connect immediately to politics” (2006, 133). In
this context, self-translation is indeed closely tied to minority writing
since the author, just like a translator, may opt for providing “cultural
explanation and background in order to compensate for the cultural
ignorance and difference in perspective of an audience unfamiliar with
the cultural context of the subject matter” (Tymoczko 2007, 228–229).
She may also “use paratextual materials (footnotes, introductions) to fill
in for differences in cultural knowledge presupposed by the subject and
the audience” (2007, 229).
When discussing Shafak’s writing in English, the ramifications of the
publication order of her novels must be taken into account. As already
mentioned, the Turkish translations of the novels originally written in
English were published in Turkey before the release of the English
124 A. Akbatur
o riginals, which appear to have been “rewritten” by the author, and this
clearly complicates issues of reception and representation. Indeed, the
reception and representation of Shafak and her books in an inevitable
process of recontextualisation in the Anglophone context seem to have
been inscribed with linguistic and cultural values, political views as well
as certain stereotypical images of the “foreign” culture (Akbatur 2010).
More importantly, these factors are mutually shaping and being shaped,
maintained and reinforced by reviews, articles, interviews and the pub-
lishers’ discourse. The author’s role in such representation and recontex-
tualisation cannot be overlooked, and this chapter aims to underline
precisely the power that the author holds as a “self-translator” who plays
an interventionist role in the representation and recontextualisation of
her work, while at the same time, constructing a particular discourse both
through her writings/self-translations and interviews.
The view that Shafak’s writing in English can be considered a “self-
translation” was first put forward by Saliha Paker. Her review of The Saint
of Incipient Insanities (2004) suggested that the novel “in a conceptual
sense […] may be considered a translation, the self-translation of a
nomadic multilingual writer” (2004, 17). Other authors (Eker 2006;
Erol 2006; Oztabek-Avci 2007; Birkan Baydan 2009) have also under-
lined the idea that Shafak’s The Saint can be viewed as a self-translation,
arguing that by writing in English, the author translates not only herself
but also her name, her perspective and her culture for the western English-
speaking readers. In fact, her name “Shafak” is the Anglicised form of
“Şafak,” and the author talks about the Anglicisation of her name in rela-
tion to the criticism she received from Turkish nationalists about aban-
doning her mother tongue, writing a novel in English (The Saint) and
“giving up [her] dot” (Frank and MacDonald 2005, online). In the same
interview, she replies: “A dot is very political, it’s not innocent. Even the
dot under just one letter is something very ideological, very political”
(Frank and MacDonald 2005, online). Interestingly, as we see in The
Saint, the “self-assuredness of the Americans in reprocessing the names
and surnames of the foreigners” (Shafak 2004, 5) is one of the identity
issues Shafak problematises in the novel, whose main character Ömer’s
“dots were excluded for him to be better included” in America (Shafak
2004, 5).
Amongst her novels written/self-translated in/to English, Shafak’s The

Bastard of Istanbul (2007) presents a special case, as it provides consider-
able insight into the paradoxical relationship between self-translation,
power and representation. The controversy that the novel triggered
about the Armenian issue—one of Turkey’s most sensitive political top-
ics2—eventually led Shafak to be tried for violating the notorious Article
301 of the Turkish Penal Code, accused of “denigrating Turkishness.”
This attracted much attention in the international arena. The trial was
initiated by a complaint regarding the statements made by a character in
the novel, defining the Armenian massacres of 1915 as “genocide.” The
same charges were brought against Shafak’s publisher Semih Sökmen
and the co-translator of the novel, Aslı Biçen. Following Sökmen’s
appeal, the proceedings against him and Biçen were dismissed and
Shafak was finally acquitted on 21 September 2006, as the court ruled
that the indictment was not supported with relevant evidence. The case
was watched closely by the Turkish and international media. The trial
triggered numerous news items and this ultimately had a direct impact
on the number of reviews The Bastard of Istanbul received, a boom com-
pared to the interest in the previous novels by Shafak. This media atten-
tion, together with the fact that the Turkish version was published
before the English “original,” seems to have played a crucial role in the
reception of the author and her novel. In Publishers Weekly, Louisa
Ermelino announced that “[w]ith the uproar The Bastard of Istanbul
precipitated in Turkey, and the coverage in the international press
thrusting Shafak into the limelight, Penguin has moved up publication
here [in the US] from March 2007 to January” (2006, 29). Similarly, on
11 January 2007 The Economist presented Shafak as “an award-winning
novelist who was little known outside her native Turkey before a brush
with the authorities last year over her sixth novel, The Bastard of Istanbul”
(The Economist 2007, online). Thus, one may question whether the
novel would have received the same level and kind of response if it had
first been published in the English “original.” It seems clear that the
publication of the Turkish version before the English one had a direct
impact on the way Shafak and her work were represented and recontex-
tualised in both cultures.
126 A. Akbatur
The Bastard of Istanbul as Self-Translation

The Bastard of Istanbul tells the intertwined stories of two families: the
Turkish Kazancıs in Istanbul and the Armenian-American
Tchakhmakhchians in San Francisco. The threads of the stories are tied
through Asya Kazancı and Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian, two young
women who share much in common. Asya Kazancı, the girl with no
father—hence the title of the book—lives with her mother Zeliha (whom
she calls “Auntie”), her three aunts, a grandmother and a step-great-
grandmother. Because the men of the Kazancı family have mysteriously
suffered from an early death, the only son, Mustafa (Asya’s uncle), has
been sent to the US to keep him away from this family curse. Once there,
Mustafa marries Rose, a US-American divorcee from her Armenian hus-
band, Barsam Tchakhmakhchian, who is the father of Armanoush.
Armanoush believes she does not know her own family’s history and so
decides to discover her Armenian past. Without telling her parents, she
goes to Istanbul to search for her roots and stays with the Kazancı women.
What Armanoush learns there is not so much about her past, but rather
about the significant difference between the attitudes of the Turks and
Armenians towards the 1915 massacres as well as the parallels between
the two cultures, most particularly underlined by their cuisines. Yet, it is
through one of Asya’s aunts that the readers learn about Armanoush’s past
and, in fact, how the histories of the two families are connected. More
family secrets are revealed towards the end of the novel, when we learn
that Asya’s mother Zeliha Kazancı was raped by her brother Mustafa, and
Asya’s uncle is actually her father. So, even if Armanoush (as well as the
others) remains ignorant of the secret that links the two families, Asya
learns who her father is, making the novel’s fundamental question a rhe-
torical one: How good is knowledge (of the past) if you cannot change
anything?
On the back cover of the UK edition of The Bastard of Istanbul, one of
the blurbs quoted from The Irish Times reads: “A beautiful book, the fin-
est I have read about Turkey” (emphasis added). Although it cannot be
expected from a blurb to provide real insight into the novel, as it merely
serves to praise the product, the very invocation of Turkey in the blurb
is just one of the examples suggestive of how the novel is represented by

the publishers and reviewers metonymically as standing for or speaking for
a generalised and abstract notion of Turkey. It also ties in with the view
that the author becomes the “self-translator” of her native culture inter-
preting it for the foreign readers. If, as Tymoczko states, “translation is
always a metonymic process” (1999, 41–61; 2007, 128), perhaps, in this
case, self-translation is all the more so, given the involvement of the
“minority” writer in rewriting her work for the English-speaking audi-
ence. Obviously, the concept of self-translation in this context stands
against the background of larger issues and is not simply the very practice
of a “minority”-language author writing in English. In other words, the
question is more to do with how Shafak narrates and reflects diverse
apprehensions of Turkish culture and identity than with the fact that she
uses English as her medium. Thus, we may ask what in The Bastard of
Istanbul makes the novel a “self-translation,” that is, what has led the
reviewers to receive and (re)contextualise Shafak’s novel as representing
Turkish identity and Shafak as an interpreter of Turkish society.
Leaving aside the relationship between the English and Turkish ver-
sions, one can look at The Bastard of Istanbul as a self-translation in a
metaphorical sense by focusing on the cultural information offered by
Shafak, who, being the “native informant,” provides the English-speaking
audience with a view on particular aspects of Turkish culture and society.
A comparative analysis of the two versions allows us to better understand
how the texts have been calibrated by the author to suit two different
readerships. As already mentioned, Baba ve Piç (literally, The Father and
Bastard) came out in Turkish translation as a collaborative work between
Shafak and the translator Aslı Biçen, whereby the writer took part in giv-
ing the text its final form. Yet, both the changes made in the Turkish
translation and Biçen’s statements in a personal interview (Akbatur 2010)
about the translation process reveal that the Turkish version was substan-
tially altered by Shafak herself. There are, for instance, a considerable
number of additions to the Turkish version, which far outnumber the
omissions from the English. In this sense, the alterations resulted from
Shafak’s own decisions, and not actually from collaboration with the
translator. In fact, Biçen’s statement that she [Biçen] “did not want [her]
name to appear as the translator” of this book “having allowed the writer
128 A. Akbatur
to make whatever changes she wanted to do on her own novel” (Akbatur

2010, 261–262) is sufficient reason to also consider the Turkish version
of the novel a self-translation, which is not again devoid of power nego-
tiation. In this respect, “the radical reframing of this novel in its Turkish
translation [which] has clearly been made by the author” (Erkazanci-
Durmus 2014, 118) is suggestive of the intricate dynamics of self/transla-
tion, power, and representation.
The interaction or “cross-fertilization” (Grutman 2009, 257) between
the two versions demonstrates many levels of dialogic connections, which
are not dissociated from the way Shafak and her work have been repre-
sented, particularly in the Anglo-American context. Such “cross-
fertilization” also lays bare the power the self-translator holds while
playing a trans/formative role in the representation of a cultural identity.
In The Bastard of Istanbul, cultural information, especially regarding
the history of the modern Turkish republic, draws attention. As indicated
earlier, it is possible to compare this information to “additions” in a trans-
lation, serving the purpose of filling in the cultural gap for the target
readers who are not familiar with the cultural context of the source mate-
rial. These are some examples:
It was the year 1923. The time Petite-Ma arrived in this city cannot be
confused for it coincided with the proclamation of the modern Turkish
Republic. (Shafak 2007, 137)
[W]hen choosing a surname in 1925, after the Law of Surnames obliged
every Turkish citizen to carry a surname, it was his craft that Rıza Selim
wished to be called after: Kazancı. (Shafak 2007, 138)
Particularly in the year 1933, when the anthem of the Tenth Anniversary
was composed, “March of the Republic,” [Petite-Ma] had to play it over
and over again. (Shafak 2007, 141)
Since under the new civil law men could no longer have more than one
wife, [Rıza Selim Kazancı] would have to divorce this wife of his. (Shafak
2007, 142)
Most of this information, which is omitted in the Turkish version, not

only serves to inform the target readers about Turkey’s past and present
but also helps portray the women characters in the novel, forming
a discourse related with a particular aspect of the Turkish identity. The

example below is one of the most arresting passages in the novel in terms
of the conflicting ideologies represented. It shows Grandma Gülsüm, the
mother of the four Kazancı sisters, and Auntie Cevriye, a history teacher,
standing against religious fanaticism as staunch supporters of Atatürk
and his revolutions. It also touches upon one of the most debated issues
in Turkey: the headscarf or turban. The English version reads:
“What’s that sorry thing on your head?” was the first reaction of Grandma
Gülsüm, who having not softened a wee bit after all these years still main-
tained her Ivan the Terrible resemblance. “From this moment on I am
going to cover my head as my faith requires.” […] “What kind of nonsense
is that?” Grandma Gülsüm frowned. “Turkish women took off the veil ninety
years ago. No daughter of mine is going to betray the rights the great commander-
in-chief Atatürk bestowed on the women of this country.” […] “Yeah, women
were given the right to vote in 1934,” Auntie Cevriye echoed. “In case you
didn’t know, history moves forward, not backward. Take that thing off
immediately.” […] But Auntie Banu did not. (Shafak 2007, 68; emphases
added)
The Turkish version (in back-translation3) reads as follows:
“What’s that thing on your head?” was the first reaction of Grandma
Gülsüm. “From this moment on I am going to cover my head as my faith
requires.” “Such tactlessness! Do you hear what you’re saying?” Grandma
Gülsüm snarled. “Where did this turban come from? We don’t have such
fanaticism in our family.” “It’s been eighty years since the Turkish woman got
rid of the çarşaf,” said Auntie Cevriye with an enthusiasm to show off her
expertise. “Are you trying to reverse the flow of history? Take that thing off!”
But Auntie Banu persisted and did not. Even declaring herself a soothsayer
did not disturb the family members as much as this headscarf issue. (Shafak
2006, 79–80; emphases added)
In this passage, the utterances of Grandma Gülsüm and Auntie Cevriye

inform the target readers about what “the great commander-in-chief
Atatürk” did for Turkish women in terms of dressing and in making them
an integral part of civil life. However, the references to Atatürk
130 A. Akbatur
and his reforms concerning women’s right to vote and religion-based

clothing are completely omitted from the Turkish version, except from
Auntie Cevriye’s statement that “it’s been eighty years since the Turkish
woman got rid of the çarşaf.” This çarşaf, a garment designed to cover a
woman’s body from head to foot and sometimes worn with a veil, appar-
ently signifies the fanaticism projected on to the “veil” in the English
version. Another important point here is that the lexical choices in the
Turkish version may be interpreted as reflecting a different approach to
the “headscarf ” issue, as debated in the present sociopolitical Turkish
context. Grandma Gülsüm’s reaction is directed at Auntie Banu’s turban
which she equates with fanaticism, and Auntie Cevriye thinks it is no
different than wearing a çarşaf. Therefore, it may be argued that their
reaction has more to do with a particular way of covering the head, in the
sense that turban is attributed a symbolic and ideological meaning.
Gülsüm and Cevriye do not react against other religious practices Banu
commits herself to, such as praying and fasting. Similarly, they do not
react against Banu’s declaring herself a “soothsayer,” which is noted in the
Turkish version. Moreover, the sophisticated and modern woman
Petite-Ma also prays and covers her head, although this never becomes a
matter of dispute on the part of Grandma Gülsüm or Auntie Cevriye. In
fact, this is the only instance when Grandma Gülsüm sounds like a secu-
larist, but the way she is depicted (“her Ivan the Terrible resemblance”)
and the way she heartily speaks of Atatürk and his reforms seem to make
her a “staunch Kemalist” in the English version.
The history teacher Auntie Cevriye also appears to be more enthusias-
tic about giving lectures on Turkish history in the English version. First
of all, she is introduced as a “Turkish national history teacher” (Shafak
2007, 23), while the indicative “national” is omitted in the Turkish ver-
sion. Her reaction to Auntie Zeliha in the excerpt below shows how she
becomes the voice of the modern (i.e., secular) Turkish nation. In the
English version, we read:
“This baby will be a monarch!” “He cannot!” the teacher Cevriye broke in,
missing no opportunity to show her expertise. “There aren’t monarchs any-
more, we are a modern nation. (Shafak 2007, 28; emphasis added)
The Turkish version (in back-translation) reads as follows:
“[This child] will be a sultan!” “As if there are sultans anymore!” interrupted
Cevriye, the teacher in her flared again. (Shafak 2006, 37; emphasis added)
Not only does Cevriye sound smoother in Turkish by saying “[a]s if there
are sultans anymore!” but this history teacher also misses the opportunity
to contrast the “modern” Turkish nation with the “backward” Ottoman
millet under the rule of monarchs, since her statement “we are a modern
nation” is omitted in the Turkish version. The same emphasis on Cevriye’s
discourse can be clearly seen in the following example:
The problem with us Turks is that we are constantly being misinterpreted

and misunderstood. The westerners need to see that we are not like the
Arabs at all. This is a modern, secular state. (Shafak 2007, 135; emphasis
added)
The Turkish version (in back-translation) reads as follows:
Our problem is that we are being constantly misunderstood. The Westerner

supposes that Turks are like Arabs too. Why? Because we could not distinguish
ourselves. We will express ourselves to the Westerners without thinking that
a person just counts as one. (Shafak 2006, 145; emphasis added)
The reference to Turkey being a modern and secular state is again omitted
in the Turkish version, which, in a way, frees Cevriye from being per-
ceived as a persistent defender of Turkey’s modernity and secularism.
Additionally, although Cevriye expresses her concern about Turks being
misunderstood in both passages, the English version obviously addresses
the westerners implying that they “misinterpret” Turks when comparing
them with Arabs. The Turkish version, on the other hand, addresses the
Turks putting the blame on them for this misinterpretation (i.e., “if the
westerner supposes that the Turks are like the Arabs, it is because the
Turks cannot distinguish themselves”). For this reason, she believes, it is
the Turks’ responsibility to help the westerners to correctly understand
them.
132 A. Akbatur
In all these examples, the way Shafak alters the passages clearly reflects
the power of the authorial voice in shaping discourse when addressing
two separate readerships. It also supports the view that Shafak’s writing
and translational strategies in the two versions reveal an awareness and
calculation in terms of target readers’ perceptions and expectations, which
determines this discourse.
Shafak’s portrayal of these Kazancı women when (re)writing/self-
translating in/to English is significant because some of the reviews on The
Bastard of Istanbul specifically underline the idea that these women “rep-
resent some aspect of Turkish identity” (Margaronis 2007, online).
Therefore, it appears that in these reviews Shafak is attributed the role of
an intermediary who “has contrived to represent her nation to the
Americans” (Margaronis 2007, online) and “has dedicatedly interrogated
[her] country’s self-image” (Choudhury 2007, online). The novel has
been perceived as providing an understanding of the “modern Turkish
psyche” with “insight into the political and ethical turmoil in Europe’s
threshold” (Matossian 2007, online). Also significant is how this depic-
tion of Kazancı women in The Bastard of Istanbul influences the critical
readings of the novel. A highly suggestive illustration of the interaction
between what the novel apparently represents and how it is received is an
article by Ayşe Naz Bulamur in the Journal of Turkish Literature’s special
issue featuring Elif Shafak. In this article, Bulamur argues that “the rep-
resentations of Istanbulite women in The Bastard of Istanbul are inter-
twined with the discourses of Turkish nationalism” (2009, 21). The
emphasis is placed here on Istanbul due to its position in-between east
and west: “[Shafak’s] Istanbul breaks away from Atatürk’s version of mod-
ernization and becomes a hybrid space where Islamists defend one’s right
to publicly practice religion and Kemalists advocate a secular democracy”
(Bulamur 2009, 22). Bulamur draws on the depiction of the novel’s
women characters in the Kazancı family with their “multiple and even
contradictory dress codes and religious beliefs” (2009, 23). In this sense,
this author frequently refers to the tension between the Islamist and
Kemalist inhabitants of the Kazancı household. Not surprisingly, she
quotes the above-cited dialogue about the dispute over Auntie Banu’s
headscarf, to show the ideological differences between the two “camps.”
According to Bulamur, “the headscarf provokes the gaze of nationalists
such as Gülsüm and Cevriye, who perceive it as a ‘nonsensical’ Muslim

practice and accuse covered women of violating Atatürk’s mission of con-
structing a secular nation” (2009, 35).
It is evident that Bulamur’s identification of Gülsüm and Cevriye as
Kemalists on the one side, and Banu as an Islamist on the other, derives
mainly from the headscarf dispute. This “easy” identification seems to
depend upon the way Shafak has made her characters speak in the novel,
hence exemplifying the relation between textual and extratextual dis-
course. Yet, it also appears that Bulamur relies too easily on the discourse
Shafak has constructed in the English version of the novel while translat-
ing Turkish identity for a foreign audience. Bulamur does not question
whether the Turkish version of the novel differs from the English one and
takes it for granted that the “original” in English is the “authentic” text.
The differences between the two versions, however, result in differences
between textual discourses that have a direct impact on the reception and
reading of the novel, of its characters and more generally of the represen-
tation of Turkish identity.
The Power and Burden of Self-Translation

In his article discussing the dynamics of literature, identity and represen-
tation, Arif Dirlik argues that the “burden of translation” is closely con-
nected with the “function” imposed on minority writers to speak for their
communities and to provide an authentic representation of them (2002,
216). Here, Dirlik is using the term “translation” in a metaphorical sense,
to illustrate how the works of minority writers stand for and represent a
whole culture, society and identity. Building on that, the reception of
self/translations of works by minority writers can be problematised in a
similar vein, rephrasing the “burden of translation” as “the burden of
representation” for a minor literature written and/or translated in/to a
major language. In both cases, composition in or self/translation into a
major language signifies more than just the creation or recreation of a text
in that particular language, and self-translation—literally or metaphori-
cally—acquires a significant role “in constructing representations [and
thus images] of foreign cultures” (Venuti 1998a, 67).
134 A. Akbatur
Shafak also expresses her resentment regarding this “burden of repre-

sentation,” which is closely tied to her (re)contextualisation as a writer
from Turkey. In an interview published in 2003, before the publication
of her first novel written in English (The Saint), she underlined this
resentment when explaining what it means to be a “woman of colour” in
America:
On the one hand, the progressive groups in the United States constantly
encourage minorities or people from the non-Western world to tell their
own stories. This is very important and optimistic but at the same time
dangerous because if you are, let’s say, an Algerian woman writer, you are
expected to tell your own story, the suppression of women in Algeria. Your
identity starts to precede your work […] Even when they look liberating,
categories slyly damage the work produced and restrict the artist herself. In
the U.S.A. there is a tendency to pigeonhole artists, especially those from
non-Western worlds or minorities. If you are not a white, heterosexual
woman, then they immediately formulate categories to put your work into,
such as lesbian fiction, Third World fiction, etc. (in Chancy 2003, 77)
Again, in a later interview after the publication of The Bastard of Istanbul,

Shafak asks: “How can I represent anyone other than myself?”4 to express
her anxiety towards, in the words of the interviewer, “the increased pres-
sure on [her] to act as a representative of her home country” (Lea 2007,
online). It is clear that the “burden of representation” for the foreign and
minority writer is twofold. Once the writer is carried across to the target
culture(s), she is represented in a particular way, and she is expected to
act/write/speak as a representative of her culture of origin.
Despite her discomfort with this attribute of minority writers, Shafak
becomes a powerful mediator as an author writing/self-translating Turkish
culture and identity. This seems to be effective in securing her a position
within the Anglo-American construct of the world literary canon. The
discourse of in-betweenness, which signifies the ambivalent character of
Turkish culture, appears to be a recurrent theme in Shafak’s writing/self-
translations in English, and thus a key element in the representation of
the author and her work. Without doubt, Istanbul has a major role in the
formation of this discourse as it becomes the epitome of Turkey’s
in-betweenness, due to its position between the east and the west. In
Shafak’s novel The Saint, for instance, the Bosphorus Bridge is used both
as an image on the cover page and as a metaphor of in-betweenness in the
narrative. Furthermore, the in-betweenness discourse in the novel was
already hinted at in the Meridians’ interview of 2003, where Shafak states
that she views the Bridge as the best analogy “to understand Turkey’s
position and the precariousness of Turkish national identity” (Chancy
2003, 59), an analogy that is further reinforced in The Bastard of Istanbul.
This representative function of the city (and thus of the novel) is again
supported by extratextual discourse evident in both Shafak’s words and in
the readings of the novel. In the same interview mentioned above, Shafak
comments on how Istanbul’s cosmopolitanness contrasts with issues of
national identity in Turkey:
Turkey underwent an incredible transformation on the way from a multi-

ethnic empire to a nation-state […] On the one hand, Turkey is unlike any
other Muslim country in the region and yet it is not “Western” enough. It
is this in-betweenness that is a constant flaw in the Turkish national identity.
In order to cover that, many people tend to become all the more national-
ist, all the more religious, or if they are secular, their understanding of secu-
larism becomes all the more rigid […] It is sad to see how Turkish
nationalism waged a war against “cosmopolitanness,” and yet it is striking
to see that despite all the attempts to build a monolithic national culture,
the spirit of cosmopolitan culture and the vestiges of the past still survive
in the she-city called Istanbul. (Chancy 2003, 68–69; emphasis added)
However, while repeated references to Turkey’s in-betweenness seem to

scrutinise the dichotomy between “a monolithic national culture” and a
multiethnic cosmopolitan culture, they ironically seem to reinforce the
in-betweenness discourse which has become an ossified identification of
Turkish identity. Shafak’s remarks regarding Turkey’s peculiar position
between the east and west, which is presented as the reason for “a con-
stant flaw in the Turkish national identity,” are also carried across to The
Bastard of Istanbul. This can be seen in the following passage, which is an
observation made by one of the Turkish characters in the novel:
136 A. Akbatur
We are stuck. We are stuck between the East and West. Between the past and
future. On the one hand there are the secular modernists, so proud of the
regime they constructed, you cannot breathe a critical word. They’ve got
the army and half of the state on their side. On the other hand there are the
conventional traditionalists, so infatuated with the Ottoman past, you can-
not breath a critical word. They’ve got the general public and the remaining
half of the state on their side. What is left for us? (Shafak 2007, 81; empha-
sis added)
In both the English and Turkish versions, in-betweenness is explained as

the polarisation between “secular modernists” and “conventional tradi-
tionalists.” However, in the English version, the polarisation rests upon
another division as well, namely “the East and the West,” which is omit-
ted in the Turkish version. It can be said that the connotations of the east/
west divide may have been offered in the English version to make it clear
for the foreign readers that the east signifies religious and cultural tradi-
tions (thus an attachment to the past), while the west stands for an ide-
alised modernity and desired future. The concern of the speaker voiced
by the question “[w]hat is left for us?” can also be interpreted as a criti-
cism against such a divide. Nonetheless, this seemingly critical approach
is made possible only within the limits set by the categorisation “east/
west” and does not truly reach beyond binary oppositions, such as
“Kemalist/Islamist” or “secularist/traditionalist.” Besides, such categori-
sation in the textual discourse seems to affirm and valorise the cultural
and political imagination that situates Turkey “between the East and the
West” rather than challenge the stereotypical depictions determined by
this binary thinking. As Sibel Irzık and Güven Güzeldere write:
The timeless and spatial model in which Turkey is purportedly situated

between two roughly symmetrical worlds, the “East” and the “West,” does
not accord with the ways in which economic, political and cultural alterna-
tives are imagined and articulated in the Turkish public sphere. […] Turkey
is neither caught between nor a successful synthesis of an “East” and a
“West.” It is, rather, a country in which many of the fundamental social
divisions have been experienced, articulated, concealed, or displaced in a
cultural/ideological vocabulary mobilizing the “West” [or, the “East”] in
different power and justification strategies. (2003, 285)
What the novel’s character says above may sound like expressing the need
to think and imagine political or cultural “alternatives.” Still, it is doubt-
ful whether the very deployment of the east/west divide in the English
version could possibly undermine the discourse of in-betweenness. In
fact, this discourse seems to work to contradictory ends, as it precludes
rather than advocates possible alternatives. This and many similar
instances in the novel (including the conflicting secularist vs. Islamist
camps identified by Kazancı women) reassure affinity between the
author’s writing/translating strategies and the (mainly) western precon-
ceptions of what Turkey is.
Conclusion
In this chapter I analysed Elif Shafak’s novels in English as a case in point
for exploring the interwoven relations between writing and self-translation.
My analysis reveals that when discussing Shafak’s “writing/self-translat-
ing” in The Bastard of Istanbul, her mediating role cannot be considered
exempt from power relations. Writing in English, Shafak seems to benefit
from the hegemony of this global language as she writes/translates (and
thus represents) her culture, identity and perspective. However, this act of
self-translation is not free from contradictions. Shafak is critical about the
representative function, the burden of self-translation, attributed to minor-
ity writers and their texts. Yet, thanks to this burden, her work has been
received, represented and reviewed in ways that contributed to its promo-
tion mainly in the Anglo-American context. The power of self-translation,
on the other hand, is evident in Shafak’s agency as a visible and interven-
tionist author when addressing two separate readerships, tailoring her text
in view of their preoccupations and expectations. In fact, this agency
becomes more prominent in Shafak’s mediating role in interpreting
Turkish culture and identity for a western audience. However, her writ-
ing/translating strategy paradoxically revolves around a particular dis-
course that relies much on the existing preoccupations of the target
readership, while intending to question the established representations
138 A. Akbatur
of Turkish identity. This ambivalent case of Shafak thus demonstrates that

self-translation is not merely a text p
roduction. Rather, it is closely related
to political, social, cultural and ideological factors governing, in particu-
lar, the representation and contextualisation of minor languages/
literatures.
Notes
1. The two novels translated into English are The Flea Palace and The Gaze.
Also available in English translation, The Black Milk is not a novel.
2. The 1915 events continue to be the main source of controversy in Turkish-
Armenian relations. The heart of the issue is whether the death of nearly
1.5 million Armenians in the declining Ottoman Empire during the First
World War is considered as “genocide” or not. The official Turkish dis-
course does not deny the tragic consequences of the 1915 events, but it
does maintain that the “genocide thesis” is a result of the dynamics of
Cold War politics. Nowadays, raising this issue and writing/speaking in
favour of the “genocide thesis” in Turkey is likely to be treated as a crime
and a reason to be tried for “insulting Turkishness.”
3. All back-translations into English are mine.
4. Shafak’s reaction echoes Chinese-American writer Amy Tan’s frustration
about the reception of her best-selling novel The Joy Luck Club (1989): “I
am alarmed when reviewers and educators assume that my very personal,
specific, and fictional stories are meant to be representative down to the
nth detail not just of Chinese-Americans, but, sometimes, of all Asian
culture” (Tan 1999). Surprisingly, Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul was
described by USA Today as “a Turkish version of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck
Club” (Donahue 2007, online), which also appeared as a blurb on the
front cover of the US-American edition of the novel. A similar resentment
was also voiced by Orhan Pamuk in a festival organised by The New Yorker
in 2007, in which he took part together with Salman Rushdie. As Arzu
Eker Roditakis states, Pamuk’s resentment “mainly stemmed from the fact
that writing from the periphery automatically frames his writing about
‘home’ within the parameters of representation” (Eker 2015, 1).
References
Adil, Alev. 2006. Western Eyes: Contemporary Turkish Literature in a British
Context. In Writing Turkey: Explorations in Turkish History, Politics, and
Cultural Identity, ed. Gerald MacLean, 129–144. London: Middlesex
University Press.
Akbatur, Arzu. 2010. Writing/Translating in/to English: The ‘Ambivalent’ Case of
Elif Şafak. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Boğaziçi University, Turkey.
Birkan Baydan, Esra. 2009. A Case of Unconventional Relationship Between
Source and Target Texts in Elif Shafak’s The Saint of Incipient Insanities and
Araf. In Researches on Translation Studies, Linguistics and Language Teaching,
ed. Neslihan Kansu-Yetkiner and Derya Duman, 62–67. Izmir: Izmir
University of Economics Publications.
Bulamur, Ayşe Naz. 2009. Istanbulite Women and the City in Elif Şafak’s The
Bastard of Istanbul. Journal of Turkish Literature 6: 21–44.
Chancy, Myriam J.A. 2003. A Meridians Interview with Elif Shafak. Meridians:
Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 4 (1): 55–85.
Choudhury, Chandrahas. 2007. Turkey’s Old Crimes Refuse to Stay Buried.
The Sunday Telegraph 57. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/fiction-
reviews/3668015/Turkeys-old-crimes-refuse-to-stay-buried.html. Accessed
22 Sep 2015.
Dirlik, Arif. 2002. Literature/Identity: Transnationalism, Narrative and
Representation. Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies 24 (3):
209–234.
Donahue, Deirdre. 2007. The Bastard of Istanbul. USA Today, February 15.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2007-02-14-roundup-
international-voices_x.htm. Accessed 11 Sep 2016.
Eker Roditakis, Arzu. 2006. Self-translation of Celebrated In-betweenness: The
Case of The Saint of Incipient Insanities by Elif Shafak. Paper presented at the
First International IDEA Conference: Studies in English, Boğaziçi University,
Istanbul, 24–26 April.
———. 2015. Literary Journalism and Translation as Dynamics in the
Recontextualization of Traveling Fiction: Orhan Pamuk’s Pre-Nobel Novels in
English and Their Reception in Reviews. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation,
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
Erkazanci-Durmus, Hilal. 2014. A Narrative Theory Perspective on the Turkish
Translation of the Bastard of Istanbul. In Literary Translation: Redrawing the
140 A. Akbatur
Boundaries, ed. Jean Boase-Beier, Antoinette Fawcett, and Philip Wilson,

114–133. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ermelino, Louisa. 2006. East Meets West. Publishers Weekly, 28–29.
Erol, Sibel. 2006. Review of the Saint of Incipient Insanities, by Elif Shafak.
American Association of Teachers of Turkic Language Bulletin 35–36: 53–58.
http://www.princeton.edu/~turkish/aatt/pdf/SpringFall2006.pdf. Accessed
22 Sep 2015.
Frank, Sarah Adair, and Alison MacDonald. 2005. A Conversation with Elif Shafak.
Otium 2. http://www.elifsafak.us/en/roportajlar.asp?islem=roportaj&id=2.
Accessed 12 Sep 2015.
Grutman, Rainier. 2009. Self-translation. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation
Studies, ed. Mona Baker, 257–260. London: Routledge.
Grutman, Rainier, and Trish Van Bolderen. 2014. Self-Translation. In A
Companion to Translation Studies, ed. Sandra Bermann and Catherine Porter,
323–332. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Heilbron, Johan. 1999. Towards a Sociology of Translation: Book Translations
as a Cultural World-System. European Journal of Social Theory 2 (4): 429–444.
———. 2008. Responding to Globalization: The Development of Book
Translations in France and the Netherlands. In Beyond Descriptive Translation
Studies: Investigations in homage to Gideon Toury, ed. Anthony Pym et al.,
187–198. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
and Theory of Self-translation. Manchester: St Jerome.
Irzık, Sibel. and Güven Güzeldere, eds. 2003. Introduction to The South Atlantic
Quarterly 102: 283–292.
Lea, Richard. 2007. Continental Collisions [Interview with Elif Şafak and
Maureen Freely]. The Guardian, August 7. http://www.guardian.co.uk/
books/2007/aug/07/culture.features. Accessed 12 Sep 2015.
Margaronis, Maria. 2007. The Things They Carried. The Nation. http://www.
thenation.com/article/things-they-carried/. Accessed 22 Sep 2015.
Matossian, Nuritza. 2007. No Father-land. Finally, Turkey’s shame is fiction’s
gain. Financial Times 37.
Oztabek-Avci, Elif. 2007. Elif Shafak’s The Saint of Incipient Insanities as an
International Novel. Ariel 38: 83–99.
Paker, Saliha. 2004. Reading Turkish Novelists and Poets in English Translation:
2000–2004. Translation Review 68: 6–14.
Shafak, Elif. 2004. The Saint of Incipient Insanities. New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux.
———. 2006. Baba ve Piç. Translated by Aslı Biçen with the author. Istanbul:
Metis Yayınları.
———. 2007. The Bastard of Istanbul. London: Viking Penguin.
———. 2009. Edebiyatta Kadın Olmak ve Aşk [Love and To Be a Woman in
Literature]. Talk given as part of Düşün Toplantıları [Food For Thought
Meetings] organised by Dokuz Eylül University, İzmir, Turkey, 17 November.
———. 2010. The Forty Rules of Love. New York: Viking Penguin.
———. 2012. Honour. London: Viking Penguin.
———. 2014. The Architect’s Apprentice. London: Viking Penguin.
———. 2016. Three Daughters of Eve. London: Viking Penguin.
Tan, Amy. 1999. Why I Write. Literary Cavalcade 51 (6): 10–13.
The Economist. 2004. Problems of Identity. http://www.economist.com/
node/3084596. Accessed 18 Sep 2015.
———. 2007. Who to Believe? http://www.economist.com/node/8516103.
Accessed 18 Sep 2015.
Tymoczko, Maria. 1999. Translation in a Postcolonial Context. Manchester: St
Jerome.
———. 2007. Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators. Manchester: St
Jerome.
Venuti, Lawrence. 1998a. The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of
Difference. London: Routledge.
———. 1998b. Introduction to Translation and Minority. Special Issue. The
Translator 4 (2): 135–145.
Wilson, Rita. 2009. The Writer’s Double: Translation, Writing, and
Autobiography. Romance Studies 27 (3): 186–198.
Arzu Akbatur is an assistant professor in the Department of Translation and

Interpreting Studies at Boğaziçi University, Turkey. She holds a PhD in
Translation Studies from Boğaziçi University, with her dissertation entitled
“Writing/Translating in/to English: The ‘Ambivalent’ Case of Elif Shafak”
(2011). She received her BA and MA degrees in English Language and Literature
from Boğaziçi University and Yeditepe University, Istanbul, respectively. Her
main research interests include literary translation, Turkish literature in English
translation, translation and representation.
Self-Translation and Linguistic
Reappropriation: Juan Gelman’s Dibaxu
Brandon Rigby
Published in 1994, Argentine poet Juan Gelman’s most formally experi-

mental book dibaxu is a self-translated, bilingual Ladino-Spanish1 poetry
collection of tender love poems which Gelman wrote in exile to contend
with the pain and loss that he suffered during the Dirty War. I argue that
dibaxu offers an alternate viewpoint of the homeland and loved ones than
that traditionally embraced by writers in exile, including Gelman’s own
earlier exilic poetry. Rather than the conventional agony over those places
and people left behind or anger directed at those people and regimes
responsible for the poet’s deterritorialisation, the poetic voice of dibaxu
is hopeful, with an emphasis on his love for the addressee. The poems in
this collection focus on love instead of mourning because, rather than
dwelling on what has been taken away, the speaker uses his poetry to
craft a new space where he can be reunited with his loved one. This new
location grows directly out of the process of self-translation as mean-
ing trembles between the languages, opening an interliminal position
B. Rigby (*)
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

144 B. Rigby
wherein the speaker can use the poetry to form a new site outside of
linear history, but crafted from time and the word itself. The result of
this “spatialization of time” (Fabry 2008, 233–238) is the opportunity
for reunification with the lost love, a symbolic representation of his
homeland and loved ones, taken away by the military regime that perpe-
trated the Argentine Dirty War. Fearing the international condemnation
that greeted similar military dictatorships in South America during the
same period, this military regime perfected “the forced disappearance of
persons—a method of killing that left no trace of the victims” (Wright
2007, 29–30). Gelman establishes the new space in dibaxu, countering
the violence of the military regime through a process of self-minorisa-
tion: he writes in a marginalised language to poetically recover those lost
to “forced disappearances,” combatting and criticising the hegemonic
powers that exiled him and their rhetoric with an unpretentious, simple
language of low prestige. By creating this new space to rekindle love, the
poet reappropriates that which the military regime took away from him,
and by engaging in the combined process of self-translation and self-
minorisation, he is able to accomplish his task in a linguistic sphere no
longer controlled by the dictatorship.
As a writer active in the communist movement since his early youth,
Gelman was forced to exile himself in Rome in 1975, after receiving
death threats from the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina [Argentine
Anticommunist Alliance]. Although the military relinquished control of
Argentina in 1983, Gelman was unable to return to his homeland until
1988, and during his exile, many of his closest friends and family mem-
bers fell victim to the violence of the military regime. His daughter, son
and pregnant daughter-in-law were kidnapped and tortured in 1976 soon
after the military coup. His son was murdered in the months following
the abduction and his daughter-in-law was forced to give birth in a covert
government site, where her child was taken away from her before she was
murdered herself, joining the ranks of los desaparecidos— the forcefully
disappeared victims of the Dirty War—which were synonymous with the
military dictatorship. Adding to the grief of exile, Gelman’s mother also
died of a heart attack while he was barred from the country. Additionally,
many other friends and writers close to him disappeared due to the gov-
ernment’s actions in this period (Montanaro and Ture 1998, 95–97).
Self-Translation and Linguistic Reappropriation: Juan Gelman’s... 145
For these reasons, Gelman refers to exile as a “castigo duro” [harsh

punishment], adding that the Greeks considered it a fate worse than
death (Montanaro and Ture 1998, 27). Though unpublished until
1994, Gelman composed dibaxu in 1983–84 during his European
exile. He originally wrote the poems in Ladino in response to the
deterritorialisation and feeling of powerlessness he felt at that time,
later self-translating them into modern Spanish when he prepared
them for publication. While exiled in Europe, Gelman was introduced
to the Ladino poetry of Clarisse Nicoïdski, a Franco-Bosnian novel-
ist. Although an Ashkenazi Jew, Gelman found that writing poetry
in Ladino allowed him to claim his Jewish roots at a time when the
military regime had stripped him of his Argentine identity, while also
emphasising his exilic condition by using a language born out of the
longing engendered by diaspora. Perhaps more importantly though,
the use of Ladino in a bilingual format with contemporary Spanish,
made possible by self-translation, endowed Gelman with the power
over language—and therefore power over ideology and identity forma-
tion—that the Dirty War junta desperately tried to control. Scheiner
states that self-translation and bilingual writing “highlight[s] the inter-
connectedness of language and culture by recognising language’s cul-
tural specificity” (2000, 4). In addition to allowing him to foreground
his Jewish lineage, engaging with Ladino via the combination of self-
translation and the bilingual format allowed Gelman access to this
diasporic tongue’s “cultural specificity” and history of displacement.
Therefore, he was able to evoke his exilic position in Europe as he
adopted Nicoïdski’s language of the past.
In Latin America, including Gelman’s Argentina, Sephardic Jews are
viewed as a “minority within a minority” (Bejarano and Aizenberg 2012,
xiii), dwarfed by larger Ashkenazic communities. Ladino, as the language
of the Sephardim, is thus marginal to other Jewish languages (Balbuena
2009, 285), a tongue that only exists in exile and conceived as dwelling
in a “double exile” (Balbuena 2003, 189) after the death of the majority
of its speakers. Gelman’s decision to write in a marginalised, exilic tongue
is the first step of his self-minorisation. This course of action is intensi-
fied as the marginal language forms only one half of the equation of self-
translation, a process that is often viewed as “something marginal, a sort
146 B. Rigby
of cultural or literary oddity, as a borderline case of both translation and

literary studies” (Wilson 2009, 187). This double marginalisation, first
through Ladino, and then through the act of self-translation into modern
Spanish allows the speaker to assume an extra-territorial location from
where he can enunciate his poetry, inviting his love to join him there.
This self-marginalisation is crucial to Gelman’s poetics for two reasons:
it allows him to articulate his exile, as well as withdraw to an interior
position within his poetry, and therefore under his control. Thus, self-
minorisation is the reappropriation of the very act of deterritorialisation
that cut off the poet from his loved ones, and through which he is able to
create the new space of reunification.
Pérez López argues that both Ladino as an exilic tongue and the pro-
cess of self-translation act synergistically to convey the estrangement that
Gelman suffers as he is exiled from Argentina and his loved ones are
abducted and murdered:
La autotraducción de una lengua exiliada … desregula la lengua empleada,

con lo que desregula también el orden de un mundo alienado que se con-
taría en un lenguaje alienado. Si la experiencia del exilio podría consider-
arse como una experiencia extrema de la alienación, entendida como
extrañamiento o enajenación del yo, su respuesta poética no puede ser más
concluyente, al proponerse una lengua extranjera, extraña y extrañante que
hace necesariamente visibles las fronteras y separaciones. (2002, 91)
[Self-translation of an exiled language … deregulates the language used,
just as it also deregulates the order of an alienated world to be narrated with
alienated language. If the experience of exile could be considered an
extreme aspect of alienation, understood as estrangement or alienation of
the self, its poetic response cannot be more conclusive than to decide on a
language that is foreign, strange and strangifying that necessarily makes vis-
ible borders and differences.]2
Ladino in the presence of modern Spanish in this sense becomes a meta-

phor for self-translation; they each make visible the “borders and dif-
ferences” by highlighting the distinctions across languages, while also
reinforcing the similarities. By marginalising him further through the
process of “alienation,” self-translation and Ladino allow Gelman to go
beyond the deterritorialisation and marginalisation imposed upon him
by the military junta, to a place within himself from where he can begin
to craft the space of re-encounter.
He articulates his marginalised position of exile by writing in a mar-
ginal tongue, a strategy of self-minorisation that enables him to establish
the new space of reunification outside of the historical narrative of the
Dirty War. María Semilla Durán notes that Gelman identifies with and
expresses his Jewishness for the first time, when his other identity, “la
Argentina, le ha sido prohibida” [the Argentine, has been prohibited]
(2014, 179). This disassociation of the self from the national identity is
a direct result of both the act of deterritorialisation (Roniger 2010, 145)
and the conscious efforts of the dictatorship to marginalise those citizens
who oppose them. In Argentina, General Videla, leader of the first mili-
tary junta, classified the supposed insurgents fighting against the govern-
ment as those “we do not consider Argentine,” holding “ideas contrary
to our western, Christian civilization” (Wright 2007, 106). The latter
part of this dictatorial rationalisation indicates the government’s complic-
ity in marginalising the Jewish population of Argentina at this time. By
identifying Argentina with its Christian values, the dictator reinforces
the persecution and Anti-Semitism that Argentine Jews face, resulting
in disproportionate suffering inflicted on the Jews throughout the Dirty
War (Wright 2007, 112–113; Finchelstein 2014). It is from this perspec-
tive of ostracisation that Gelman chooses to further marginalise himself
by adopting the Ladino language so that he can be reunited with his love
in the new space created by his bilingual, self-translated poetry.
Gelman states in the introduction to dibaxu that this collection was a
direct outcome of Citas y Comentarios, his book that revisits early mod-
ern mystical poetry. It is from his interaction with mystical poetry that
he is able to formulate the concept of reuniting with his lost ones in the
most interior part of the soul (Sillato 1996, 107). By turning inwards and
searching for this “residencia interna” [internal residence] (Mercado 2008,
12), Gelman opens up the possibility of being with his loved ones again;
the hope and anticipation of this reunion stems directly from the words
and language of the poetry. Through these linguistic building blocks the
speaker is able to construct a new space, and because it is an atemporal
space formed within the poet himself, it is out of the reach of the regime
of terror that strives to forever eliminate the chance of amorous reunion.
148 B. Rigby
Dibaxu extends many of the tropes and images that have frequented
Gelman’s poetry throughout his career, albeit, in a way that allows him to
criticise the regimes of the Dirty War. By using Ladino to express these
recurring rhetorical figures, Gelman no longer needs to write them in
Spanish. This technique of creating a cache of his poetic traditions in
the Ladino version allows him to continue an intertextual discourse with
his past work, while simultaneously circumventing the language of his
oppressors. The resulting subversion, recovering that which was forcibly
taken away by writing in an exilic tongue, permits a criticism of dicta-
torial repression that lacks the language and imagery of fury that was
common in his previous exile poetry. Unfettered by the need to focus on
outrage, Gelman uses dibaxu to instead emphasise the revival of his loved
ones by spatialising time into a new space of reunion.
María del Carmen Sillato points out that heteronyms, translation and
intertextuality are recurring motifs in Gelman’s poetry, expressing a sense
of otherness that ties all his work together (1996, 16). She argues further
that the intertextuality found in his work, rather than merely a recurring
theme, is part of the underlying structural foundation of his poetry:
Es en este sentido que consideramos las estrategias intertextuales empleadas

por Gelman como una manifestación del concepto de otredad … a partir
del texto mismo cuya existencia depende de la existencia de otros textos.
(Sillato 1996, 81)
[In this sense we can consider the intertextual strategies used by Gelman
a manifestation of the concept of otherness … based on the same text
whose existence depends on the existence of other texts.]
Therefore, in order to fully grasp the impact of the languages and images
in dibaxu on its ability to create a new space within the author’s control,
it is paramount to contextualise it within Gelman’s oeuvre, particularly
his poetry written in exile.
A longitudinal examination of Gelman’s exilic poetry reveals a transi-
tion from what Crites suggests as “describing what is happening in the
world around him to concentrating on the irreparable loss suffered by his
country, and specifically by himself as father and friend of the dead,” as
the “tone and the form progressively become more intimate, intense and
fragmented” (2001, 492). As the focus shifts from events surrounding

him to an interiorisation of his gaze, Gelman simultaneously moves from
a burning rage directed at those who deprived him of his homeland and
loved ones, to focusing on the possibility of reuniting with those he has
lost. This evolution of exilic perspective is observed in the books leading
up to dibaxu. For example, in “Rojos” from Relaciones, Gelman forges
links between the assassination of García Lorca at the beginning of the
Spanish Civil War to the atrocities in Tucumán province which paved
the way for the Dirty War, hoping to draw international attention to
the conflict. This is followed a few years later by Si dulcemente, written
abroad after the abduction of his son and daughter-in-law, as well as the
death of close friends and writers. The opening poem of this collection,
demonstrates a personalised view of the violence wracking Argentina,
portrayed with a seething condemnation of the instigators: “te pisaré loco
de furia./te mataré los pedacitos./te mataré uno con paco./otro lo mato
con rodolfo./con haroldo te mato un pedacito más./te mataré con mi hijo
en la mano” (Gelman 2012, 389). [i will crush you crazed with fury./i will
kill all your little pieces./i will kill one of you with paco./the other i will
kill with rodolfo./with haroldo i kill you a little bit more./i will kill you
with my son in my hand]. The memories of lost ones function as weap-
ons of vengeance, demonstrating an undeniable rage against those behind
the disappearances of the Dirty War. By using lower case throughout the
poem, including for the proper names, Gelman foreshadows the use of this
same technique in dibaxu, pointing towards a rebellion against the formal
uses of the language controlled by the military regime. This rebellion is
emphasised and exemplified by the use of Ladino and self-translation in
the later collection. Furthermore, the use of lower-case letters highlights
the intertextual dialogue between dibaxu and Nicoïdski’s Ladino poetry
(Balbuena 2009, 289), which was also written entirely in lower case, thus
reinforcing Gelman’s exilic position in Europe and his drive to contest the
power differential imposed upon him by the dictatorship.
The remaining two sections of Si dulcemente, while maintaining an
omnipresent loss (Fabry 2008, 184), demonstrate the shift away from
rage to a more tender expression of the poet’s grief, what Julio Cortázar
calls an “impensable ternura” [unthinkable tenderness] (Gelman 2012,
435). This tenderness, permitting both the speaker and the reader to draw
150 B. Rigby
closer to those lost in the Dirty War, is a direct precursor to the sensitive
love poems of dibaxu. The combination of Ladino and self-translation
makes it possible for the poet to continue an intertextual dialogue with
his previous work by extending prominent tropes from throughout his
career, all while circumventing the language hijacked by his oppressors.
In addition to providing an avenue of expression away from the influ-
ence of the Dirty War regimes, intrinsic aspects of Ladino, such as the
innate diminutives, the feminisation of certain words and the normalisa-
tion of irregular verb forms, are all recurrent tropes of Gelman’s poetic
work. Therefore, while Ladino is a language which the junta does not
control, perhaps more importantly, it is also the repository of typical
Gelmanian traits, allowing him to perpetuate his frequent leitmotifs in
and through this exilic tongue. This allows the modern Spanish also pres-
ent in dibaxu to act as a foil to the Ladino. In this way, his individuality
is manifested through Ladino, using Spanish to highlight the otherness
of exile represented by the Jewish, diasporic tongue.
I argue that the creation of the location formed from time and word
in dibaxu is contingent on a dual reading of the languages as their inter-
linguistic interactions shape the new space. The co-presence of the lan-
guages is necessary, demonstrating what Santoyo calls “intratextual
self-translation,” or a singular text built upon a linguistic intermingling
and duality (2011, 218). The Spanish language, which has been inflamed
by the dictatorship with a rhetoric of violence and oppression, is relieved
of the pressure to continue the intertextual tradition of his poetry as
Gelman writes his characteristic tropes into the Ladino. Thus, the act
of self-translation establishes a dialogue between his previous work and
Ladino. In this way, Gelman strips the military junta of one of their
most potent weapons, namely the ability to foster fear; the junta’s con-
sistent denial of the whereabouts of los desaparecidos is an appropriation
of the language of the Argentine people leading to an assertion of domi-
nance over any who would oppose them, ensuring that other Argentines
remained uninvolved. Throughout this process of self-translation, Ladino
becomes the new mother tongue for Gelman, and the Spanish, while
important to the work and therefore not completely abandoned by the
poet, becomes a mirror of the other. Rather than renouncing modern
Spanish, the author places the aspects of it to which he is endeared into
the Ladino, and the modern Spanish of dibaxu becomes a nondescript

version of Spanish that is markedly not Argentine and, therefore, does
not belong to those responsible for the Dirty War. In this way, Gelman
uses the process of self-translation to subvert Spanish.
Gelman’s use of Ladino can also be conceptualised in anti-nationalistic
terms. Although Gelman makes it clear that he pines for his beloved
Argentina (Gelman 2007), he still adopts an anti-nationalist position to
fight against the distinctly Argentine nationalism that led to the Dirty
War. Commenting on the interplay between nationalism and exile, Said
argues that “in time, successful nationalisms consign truth exclusively
to themselves and relegate falsehood and inferiority to outsiders” (2000,
176). This process is evident in Argentina, with the development of
a strong nacionalismo since the 1920s, which was largely based on an
admiration for Hitler’s fascist tactics and convictions, especially the anti-
Semitic tenets at the core of Nazism, grounded in a Latin American set-
ting. This connection between fascism and Argentine nationalism was a
key part of the dictatorship’s ideology during the Dirty War as it fought
to defend Argentina from those they deemed un-Argentine (Finchelstein
2014, 123). Establishing what Argentina stood for and represented, as
well as labelling their enemies anti-nationalist, was crucial to justify the
junta’s goal of eradicating those who opposed them. By composing self-
translated poetry in Ladino, Gelman removes his writing from the nation-
alist rhetoric controlled by the junta, while simultaneously addressing his
yearning for his homeland through love poetry in a language that echoes
his deterritorialisation and his separation from his beloved. At a time
when the governing regime expelled any who resisted them, labelling
them un-Argentine, Gelman actively removes himself from the junta’s
sphere of power, through the means of self-translation and self-minorisa-
tion. In the process, as he uses this self-marginalisation to place himself
outside the influence of the dictatorship, he consequently restores his
own agency that the perpetrators of the Dirty War desperately sought to
take away from Gelman and others like him.
Gelman feels a kinship for Ladino, which, like him, has suffered
“los embates de la vida” [the poundings of life] (Rivera 2014, 66), and,
although anachronistically related to his porteño Spanish, or the geolect
of Buenos Aires, the Sephardic language connects emotionally to it
152 B. Rigby
(Montanaro and Ture 1998, 27) in a way that alleviates the burden of
self-expression from resting squarely on the shoulders of the modern
Spanish commandeered by the military junta of Argentina. For example,
the use of voseo in Ladino, an archaic form of the informal, second person
common in Argentina, produces the positive affect that Gelman seeks
in language, and therefore the Spanish side is virtually devoid of this
particular characteristic of porteño Spanish. For example, in poem XX,
the lines “lu amadu cría lu qui si amará/comu vos” [that which is loved
creates what will love/like you] (Gelman 1994, 50) connect the recipi-
ent with the second person singular pronoun of Ladino and Argentine
Spanish. However, the voseo is conspicuously absent as the lines are mir-
rored across the page in modern Spanish as “lo amado crea lo que se
amará/como tú” (Gelman 1994, 51).
Another element of Ladino that fulfils the poet’s emotional yearn-
ings for his mother tongue is the frequent use of archaic sibilants that
evokes the sheísmo of Buenos Aires, where the voiceless postalveolar frica-
tive replaces the palatal approximant of standard Spanish. According to
Semilla Durán:
No podemos evitar escuchar, en esa proliferación de «x» y de «y», ese sonido

intruso de palatalización que le hemos impuesto al castellano, que nos des-
igna, nos identifica y nos diferencia en el interior de la lengua. (Semilla
Durán 2014, 180)
[We cannot avoid hearing, in this proliferation of “x” and “y,” this intru-
sive sound of palatalisation that we have imposed on Spanish, that designates
us, identifies us and differentiates us from the interior of our language.]
Gelman has chosen Ladino precisely because of its quality as an exilic

language, aptly representing his deterritorialisation and his desire to
go backwards in time to reunite with loved ones that were taken away.
Archaic characteristics of the language, such as the aforementioned voseo
and the proliferation of antiquated postalveolar fricatives, allow him to
represent all these things, including his Argentine self-identification,
through a method devised and controlled by him. Further intrinsic attri-
butes of Ladino which connect with Gelman’s body of work demon-
strate the expediency of using this language to continue an intertextual
discourse with his previous poetry while criticising those accountable for
his anguish.
One of the techniques that Gelman utilises throughout his work,
but with increasing frequency and scope in the exilic poetry preceding
dibaxu, is the feminisation of masculine nouns, such as “la todo,” “la
pecho” and “la cielo.”3 During the course of his poetic career, this femi-
nisation is a method of intensification (Olivera-Williams 1988, 139),
drawing attention to a word that is otherwise “adormecida” [lulled to
sleep] (Mesa Falcón 1989, 84, quoted in Crites 2013, 720), especially
evident in the case of dibaxu where the self-translation and bilingual
presentation highlight the variation across languages, providing what
Rose calls a “stereoscopic reading,” making “the reading of [the] literary
[text] richer,” including “more complex, more problematic, more trou-
blesome” (Rose 1997, 75). Thus, in poem VII, “el calor” (Gelman 1994,
21) [the heat] on the Spanish side emphasises the striking presence of
“la calor” in Ladino. I argue that, in addition to renewing the poetic lan-
guage, the feminisation in Ladino is also a reinforcement of the feminine
addressee that haunts the collection. Even though the beloved repre-
sents his homeland and all those that Gelman lost, men and women, the
addressee is characterised in feminine terms in the mystical tradition of
the beloved. As the Ladino side innately feminises the language, empha-
sising the beloved and thus the space where she and the speaker can be
reunited, the foregrounding of feminine aspects contributes a sense of
tenderness and understanding that allows those impacted by violence to
grieve their loss.
Another way to understand the contribution of feminisation to
Gelman’s exile poetry is by comparing it to dialects of Spanish that have
a tendency to alter standard forms of speech, such as “el habla infantil
previa a su normalización” [childlike speech prior to its normalisation]
(Dalmaroni 2001, 8). This linguistic variant is evident in any bur-
geoning speaker who is still learning the rules of language, capable of
manipulating her tongue in a way that the rigidity of adulthood does
not allow. The childlike flexibility of grammar, manifested in this case
through feminisation, relates to Ladino in that it acts as a portal to the
past, allowing the speaker to look upon earlier periods with nostalgia,
regardless of whether a more innocent time ever really existed. Although
154 B. Rigby
this linguistic infantilisation is an innate characteristic of Ladino, it is

through the bilingual format and act of self-translation that this feature
is highlighted, achieving Gelman’s goal of finding a way to return to
“una ternura de otros tiempos” [a tenderness from other times] (Gelman
1994, 7). Additionally, this “childlike speech” manifests itself in other
ways in dibaxu that connect Ladino to the poet’s larger body of work.
The use of diminutives and de-irregularised past participles are two
hallmarks of Gelman’s poetry, each of which appear in dibaxu as essential
components of Ladino that allow the poet’s legacy to continue, in a space
safe from those that would use Spanish against him. The non-standard,
regularisation of irregular verbs present in Gelman’s poetry since at least
the early 1970s, while always associated with a childlike form of speaking,
take on a renewed innocence as they emerge in dibaxu, such as muridu
in place of muerto [dead] (Gelman 1994, 38, 64) and rompidu instead
of roto [broken] (Gelman 1994, 44). Concentrating these normalised
verbs in the Ladino versions of the poetry foregrounds their omission
in Spanish, which, Fabry argues, is a way of adopting the perspective
of the “other”: “la deformación lingüística a la que Gelman somete el
castellano en otros poemarios, se desplaza aquí hacia el judeoespañol,
como si las transgresiones lingüísticas de Gelman se arraigaran en ese
‘otro’ castellano” [the linguistic deformation to which Gelman subjects
the Spanish language in other poetry collections is displaced here towards
the Judeo-Spanish, as if Gelman’s linguistic transgressions were ingrained
in this ‘other’ Spanish] (Fabry 2008, 235). While writing in Ladino is a
conscious choice of self-minorisation, at least initially, I argue that situat-
ing salient features of his poetry only in the Ladino version converts it
into his mother tongue, which, in turn, transforms the Spanish side lack-
ing these qualities into the other (Hazelton 2007, 236). This linguistic
transposition, subverting the traditional power differential between the
minorised and the hegemonic language, highlights self-translation’s abil-
ity to disrupt the status quo. In other words, Gelman’s self-translation
paradoxically allows him to undergo the process of self-minorisation in
order to reappropriate the control over language that was stolen from him
as his language was hijacked to serve the military regime. Stating that
self-translation is “unpleasant,” but, more importantly, “dangerous, since
it undermines the status of the L1 work” (Beaujour 1995, 719), Beaujour
argues against self-translation precisely because of its capability to upset

the linguistic status. However, the self-translation of dibaxu works in a
contrary direction to what Beaujour cautions against. Spanish, Gelman’s
first language and under the control of the leaders of the Dirty War, is
undermined as Gelman chooses to make Ladino the L1 of dibaxu. As
Ladino inherently possesses qualities that Gelman has long expressed
through experimentation, the poet no longer is limited to writing them
into Spanish and is able to defy the dictatorship through innocence and
“childlike speech.”
Diminutives, “which accentuate the emotional tension” (Crites 2001,
497), are another feature of Gelman’s writing that he naturally incorpo-
rates into Ladino. Used throughout his poetry, diminutives take on a new
significance in dibaxu, where in Ladino, according to Fabry, diminutives
are not a conscious stylistic choice, but a constitutive dimension of the
language (2008, 235). As an integral trait of Ladino, the diminutives are
one of the features that Gelman finds attractive in the language, citing
in the introduction to dibaxu that Ladino gives him a “candor perdido y
sus diminutivos, una ternura de otros tiempos” [lost innocence, and its
diminutives, a tenderness from other times] (Gelman 1994, 7). These
“other times” that the poet longs for could be a historical time at the
beginning of Ladino, as the past is idealised as a simpler time when com-
pared to the present, but it could also represent a time in the author’s
own life, perhaps a time of family bliss when his children were young. In
either situation, the idea of being transported to another time through
the innocence of the diminutives reinforces the argument that Ladino
enables the poet to escape the persecution of the recent past, and in so
doing, establish a space of safety for himself and his beloved.
A Gelmanian characteristic that is noticeably missing in dibaxu is
the neologisms that frequent his other work (Fabry 2008, 234). Semilla
Durán clarifies this omission by examining Gelman’s use of Ladino,
commenting that as non-native speaker that does not belong to the lin-
guistic tradition, his Ladino is “una lengua casi inventada para rendir
cuenta de un momento preciso de su itinerario personal” [an almost
invented language that explains a precise moment in his personal tra-
jectory] (2014, 178). As an “almost invented language,” the entirety
of Ladino in this work is a neologism consistent with Gelman’s use of
156 B. Rigby
new coinages in previous poetry that force the reader to view the poetic
language in a novel way. Thus, while on the surface, the language of
dibaxu appears “más sencillo y depurado que evita la sintaxis tensionada
de otros de sus libros” [more simple and pure, avoiding the tense syntax
of his other books] (Pérez López 2002, 93), I argue that this collection
is his most experimental, with the Ladino a venture into overcoming
death and loss by forming a new space, created out of the language itself.
Paradoxically, it is by writing in a marginal tongue and engaging in the
minorised process of self-translation that Gelman is able to confront
the hegemonic powers that have deprived him of so much. In conse-
quence, by composing poetry from a peripheral position traditionally
devoid of power, he is able to challenge the official rhetoric of the Dirty
War, demonstrating self-translation’s ability to mitigate discrepancies in
power and enable the dispossessed by placing languages on equal foot-
ing and revaluing the act of translation, a process that is conventionally
viewed as subaltern as well.
While completely different in concept from any of Gelman’s other
works, before or since, dibaxu maintains intertextual linkages with his
body of work in part by means of the linguistic experimentation of
Ladino, but also through the recurring symbols that unite all his poetry.
Birds are one of the most common images in Gelman’s poetry, and they
are also the most frequently used noun in dibaxu. In addition to building
upon his previous work, the presence of so many birds in dibaxu links
it to the Ladino poetry of Clarisse Nicoïdski and other contemporary
Ladino writers, as well continuing a tradition of birds as the messengers
of love that extends through the Middle Ages back to classical literature.
Balbuena points out that the Shekhinah, “which literally means ‘dwell-
ing,’ or ‘resting,’” is often represented as a bird accompanying the people
of Israel throughout their diasporic sojourn (2003, 184). In consequence,
the birds that populate dibaxu carry the message of love to the poetic
recipient, but they also reflect Gelman’s deterritorialisation in Europe and
help him insert himself into the discourse of European Jewish exile exem-
plified by the work of Nicoïdski.
The birds in dibaxu are often associated with the voice, most fre-
quently acting as an intermediary between the speaker and the addressee.
In poem IV, the bird springs forth out of the voice of the speaker, open-
ing the way for him to his beloved: “il páxaru/qui vola in mi boz/atan chi-
tiu//por il páxaru pasa un caminu/qui va a tus ojus//el pájaro/que vuela en
mi voz//tan chico//por el pájaro pasa un camino/que va a tus ojos//” [the
bird/that flies in my voice//so small//a road passes through the bird/that
goes to your eyes] (Gelman 1994, 14–15). The bird, in this case, makes
it possible for the speaker to connect with the addressee, doing so syn-
esthetically as the auditory voice and the visual eyes are linked together.
This synesthetic bird which acts as an intercessor between the speaker and
his beloved becomes a metaphor for the poetry of dibaxu. It is through
the poetry that the speaker is able to craft the new space where he can
be reunited with his love, a poetry that is deeply synesthetic itself as the
acoustic trembling between languages is vitally important, but the visual
back and forth is just as crucial.
In poem XIV, the bird springs from the recipient’s voice, while still
guiding the speaker to her: “lu qui avlas/dexa cayer/un páxaru/qui li soy
nidu//lo que hablas/deja caer/un pájaro/y le soy nido//” [what you say/
lets fall/a bird/and I am its nest] (Gelman 1994, 34–35). Although still
connecting addressee and speaker, the direction reversal of the bird in
this case emphasises the recipient, who has been restored to life through
the poetry, and her ability to also contribute to the dialogue with the
speaker that fortifies the new space created in the poetry. As the bird
falls from the words of the addressee, the speaker becomes a nest for the
bird, indicating that the home for the beloved’s words comes directly
out of the speaker and his poetry, again underlining the theme that the
poetry and language of dibaxu is what grants new life to both speaker
and addressee. It is their connection to orality and the voice that enables
these birds to connect the speaker and addressee. By means of their song,
a manifestation of the oral, interlinguistic vacillations that Gelman urges
of his readers made possible through the process of self-translation and
the bilingual format, birds in this collection bring the lovers together,
acting as a metaphor of the ability that poetry wields to create the space
of reunification.
The words of the poetry are crucial to establish the new space of refuge
because it is through the speaker’s words that the addressee is resurrected
in preparation for their reunion. Poem XIII is one of the shortest poems
in the collection. Its pithiness exhibits the ability of dibaxu to overcome
158 B. Rigby
the forced disappearances and state-sponsored terror of the Dirty War,

allowing the lovers to be together:
eris eres
mi única avla/ mi única palabra/
no sé no sé
tu nombri/ tu nombre/(Gelman 1994, 32–33)
[you are/ my only word//i don’t know/your name//]
The notion that the speaker does not know his lover’s name is an echo
of the official line of the instigators of the Dirty War, who, after making
their victims disappear, toiled endlessly to eradicate their identity as well.
General Videla, the leader of the first military junta, stated the govern-
ment’s position to the press regarding los desaparecidos:
Le diré que frente al desaparecido en tanto esté como tal, es una incógnita.
Si reapareciera tendría un tratamiento equis. Pero si la desaparición se con-
virtiera en certeza de su fallecimiento tiene otro tratamiento. Mientras sea
desaparecido no puede tener tratamiento especial, porque no tiene identi-
dad: no está ni muerto ni vivo. (Crenzel 2010, 161)
[I will say that in regard to the desaparecido as he may be now, is an
unknown. If he reappeared he would have such-and-such treatment. And
if the disappearance clearly became a death, he would have another treat-
ment. As long as he is desaparecido, he cannot have special treatment,
because he does not have an identity: he is neither dead nor alive.]
By eradicating the identity of those that they abducted, the government

effectively places them in a position akin to limbo, where each person
“is neither dead nor alive.” This military-imposed indeterminacy was
parroted by the Argentine media in the years following the Dirty War,
when human rights organisations began to recover the remains of vic-
tims. As the victims were exhumed, the media employed a narrative that
supported the government’s official version by stripping the humanity
from the desaparecidos:
El primer elemento a señalar es que la figura que se construye es la del

cadáver o los cadáveres en plural, los cuerpos, pero no se habla de ‘muertos’.
De este modo, los medios de comunicación prolongan en su discurso la
privación de humanidad que había producido, en los hechos, la dictadura

con las víctimas del sistema represivo y prolongan la privación de la muerte
que implicó la modalidad de la desaparición forzada … En las noticias, los
cuerpos ‘aparecen’ sin identidad: no sólo porque no tienen nombre, sino
porque esa muerte que no se menciona los ha vaciado de su calidad de seres
humanos. (Feld 2010, 34)
[The first thing to point out is that the image that is constructed is that
of the cadaver or cadavers in plural, the bodies, but one does not speak of
‘the dead’. In this way, the press prolongs the discourse of deprivation of
humanity produced, through the actions of the dictatorship, towards the
victims of the repressive system and prolong the lack of death that the
method of forced disappearances implied … In the news, the bodies
‘appear’ without identity, not only because they do not have a name, but
because this death that is not mentioned has emptied them of the quality
of a human being.]
Poem XIII appears to specifically react to the stance taken by the media
and the military regime, removing the addressee from the location of ambi-
guity that they have placed her in, moving her to the new space that the
speaker has created for her. In order to refer to the victims, the Argentine
press used the term Latin term nomen nescio (NN), or name unknown
(Feld 2010, 25). Nescio is a first-person conjugation, so a more literal trans-
lation of the term would be, “I do not know the name” (Thode 1992,
179). Gelman echoes this sentiment almost exactly at the end of the poem,
stating “i don’t know/your name//” (Gelman 1994, 32–33). However,
rather than a concession of defeat and acceptance of the military dictum,
the admittance of not knowing the addressee’s name follows the powerful
pronouncement: “you are/my only word//” (Gelman 1994, 32–33).
Regardless of the junta’s disavowal of victims’ identities, which pro-
longed the terror that began with abduction (Feld 2010, 36), Gelman
asserts that his poetry is able to grant life to the beloved, recovering them
from the forgetfulness of forced disappearance. Rather than the rage of
earlier exile poetry, or the anguish of the poem-letters written to his mur-
dered son, this poem is symptomatic of the hope that irrupts in the pages
of dibaxu. The speaker expresses his faith that his words have the power to
bring the addressee back to life, so that she can join him in the new space,
also formed through his words. As his poetry revives his lost love and
160 B. Rigby
reunites them, the forced loss of her identity and name due to the govern-
ment’s actions no longer hold any power over either of them. In the case
of dibaxu, the poetry that defies the power of the military state is made
possible by the process of self-translation as the two languages interact on
the page to create the new space of solace that the dictatorship has tried
so hard to deny to Gelman. The balance of power of the military regime,
predicated on a nationalistic monolingualism, is upended as these simple
self-translated love poems reestablish the memory of the beloved.
Referring to the self-translations of the French-American novel-
ist Raymond Federman, Alyson Waters comments that the doubling
of languages “allows for a double questioning of the representation of
the unrepresentable” (2011, 64). In this sense, self-translation and self-
minorisation are employed to question, and thus to delegitimise, the offi-
cial discourse of the military dictatorship. The military junta strove to
represent los desaparecidos as a non-existent cipher, denying any knowl-
edge of their whereabouts. By using the process of self-translation to cre-
ate a new space for these lost loves, Gelman directly challenges the junta’s
position of trying to make them “unrepresentable.”
As the poetry confronts the devastating impact of the Dirty War, bring-
ing lost ones back to life through the word, that same poetic word also has
the power to restore their name and identity, which have been stripped
away from them. Poem XXVIII demonstrates this power, by asking “¿quí
avla ti dezirá?//quí nombri ti nombrará?//¿qué palabra te dirá?//¿qué nom-
bre te nombrará?//” [which word will say you?//which name will name
you?//] (Gelman 1994, 62–63). The power of words and names becomes
evident, because as they are evoked, the lost ones are brought back into
existence, restoring their stolen identities and personalities at the same
time. The poetic word is the means by which the speaker can breathe life
anew into his beloved, allowing him to also hold on to the homeland
from which he has been exiled:
Desde el exilio [el poeta] sólo tiene su palabra, su voz, para recuperar el país
del que ha sido desterrado … La poesía actúa como acto redentor, como
posibilidad de conjurar aquello que ya no se posee y se desea, como manera
de construir una realidad en la que el poeta se reencuentre con tantos seres
cercanos a su corazón. (Sillato 1996, 55–56)
[From exile, the poet only has his word, his voice, to regain the country
from where he has been banished … Poetry functions as a redeeming act,
as a possibility to conjure that which one does not possess but desires, as
means of constructing a reality in which the poet can reencounter with so
many people close to his heart.]
The redemption of both the lost loved ones and the patria through the
word allows the exiled poet to hold on to those things dear to him that he
has had to leave behind. The poetry of dibaxu takes this process one step
further. The words of this collection do not stop at allowing the speaker
to hold onto the idea of his loved one. Rather, it is through the words
of the poem that the speaker is reunited with his beloved “nila caza dil
tiempu” [in the house of time] (Gelman 1994, 8).
The optimism present throughout dibaxu blooms directly out of the
word and language of the poetry. As the languages interact and alter each
other, the interliminal space that emerges between them makes it pos-
sible for time to be spatialised, allowing the speaker and his beloved to
have a new site of reunification, free from the control of the oppressive
military regime. This interstitial lacuna stems from the language of the
poetry itself, made possible by the process of self-translation. In conse-
quence, as Gelman writes in Ladino, translating his work into Spanish
and presenting the poetry side by side, this process establishes the neces-
sary conditions for the lovers to be reunited, removing the power over
language and life that the dictatorship has sought to establish. As if to
underscore the hope for this new space, the images of dibaxu carry out a
dialogue with Gelman’s other works. This intertextual discourse connects
this work with those preceding it, while also distinguishing it from the
earlier poetry of fury and suffering. It also continues a tradition of mod-
ern Ladino writing both in Europe and Latin America that seeks to coun-
ter the violence and oppression enacted against the Jewish people in the
twentieth century (Bejarano and Aizenberg 2012). The lovers of dibaxu
can only be reunited in the new space made possible by the poetic word,
a location that materialises as the pain of the past is set aside, allowing
for the focus on hope. It is ultimately through the poet’s self-translation
and bilingual writing that love has a chance again in the world of the
exile and the disappeared. Gelman’s double self-minorisation, writing in
162 B. Rigby
a peripheral language and subsequently using the traditionally margin-

alised process of self-translation, is what ultimately endows him with the
power to confront the regimes of the Dirty War. This challenge, however,
does not employ the same tactics of violence paired with nationalistic and
controlling rhetoric used by the military juntas. Instead, he embraces an
exilic language while barred from his homeland, and this self-marginal-
isation allows him to wrest control over language away from his oppres-
sors, using a minorised language to overpower the pronouncements of
authority and influence.
Notes
1. The name of the language of the Sephardic people is widely debated. For
the different names and meanings, see Balbuena (2009, 286–287).
2. All translations into English are mine, unless otherwise stated.
3. All examples are from Carta abierta, in Gelman (2012). See also Citas y
Comentarios in the same volume.
References
Balbuena, Monique Rodrigues. 2003. Diasporic Sephardic Identities: A
Transnational Poetics of Jewish Languages. Ann Arbor: ProQuest.
———. 2009. Dibaxu: A Comparative Analysis of Clarisse Nicoïdski’s and Juan
Gelman’s Bilingual Poetry. Romance Studies 27 (4): 283–297.
Beaujour, Elizabeth Klosty. 1995. Translation and Self-translation. In The
Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov, ed. Vladimir E. Alexandrov,
714–724. London: Garland.
Bejarano, Margalit, and Edna Aizenberg, eds. 2012. Contemporary Sephardic
Identity in the Americas: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse
University Press.
Crenzel, Emilio, ed. 2010. Los desaparecidos en la Argentina: Memorias, represen-
taciones e ideas (1983–2008). Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos.
Crites, Elsa. 2001. Gelman: Endurance, Despair and Love. Bulletin of Hispanic
Studies 82 (4): 491–500.
———. 2013. Gelman: ‘El amante mundial’ y ‘Cólera buey’. Bulletin of

Hispanic Studies 90 (6): 720.
Dalmaroni, Miguel Ángel. 2001. Juan Gelman: Del poeta-legislador a una len-
gua sin estado. Orbis Tertius 4 (8): 1–15.
Fabry, Geneviève. 2008. Las formas del vacío: La escritura del duelo en la poesía de
Juan Gelman. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Feld, Claudia. 2010. La representación de los desaparecidos en la prensa de la
transición: el ‘show del horror’. In Los desaparecidos en la Argentina: Memorias,
representaciones e ideas (1983–2008), ed. Emilio Crenzel, 24–41. Buenos
Aires: Editorial Biblos.
Finchelstein, Federico. 2014. The Ideological Origins of the Dirty War. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Gelman, Juan. 1994. dibaxu. Buenos Aires: Seix Barral.
———. 2007. Discurso Premio Cervantes 2007. November 28. http://www.
juangelman.net/premios/discurso-premio-cervantes-2007/. Accessed 15 Oct
2015.
———. 2012. Poesía reunida. Vol. 1. Buenos Aires: Seix Barral.
Hazelton, Hugh. 2007. Polylingual Identities: Writing in Multiple Languages.
In Canadian Cultural Exchanges: Translation and Transculturation/Échanges
culturels au Canada: Traduction et transculturation, ed. Norman Cheadle and
Lucien Pelletier, 225–245. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP.
Mercado, Sarli E. 2008. Cartografías del destierro: En torno a la poesía de Juan
Gelman y Luisa Futoransky. Buenos Aires: Corregidor.
Mesa Falcón, Yoel. 1989. Gelman y el exilio de la poesía. Casa de las Americas
XXX (177): 81–107.
Montanaro, Pablo, and Rubén Salvador Ture. 1998. Palabra de Gelman
(Entrevistas y Notas Periodísticas). Buenos Aires: Corregidor.
Olivera-Williams, María Rosa. 1988. Poesía del exilio: el Cono Sur. Revista his-
pánica moderna 41 (2): 125–142.
Pérez López, María Ángeles. 2002. La visión exiliar de Juan Gelman. América
Latina Hoy 30: 79–95.
Rivera, Bianca Pamela Ramírez. 2014. Vos que me empezaste y quiero que me
acabes en la mitad de vos. La mística de la poesía de Juan Gelman. Acta poé-
tica 35 (2): 51–67.
Roniger, Luis. 2010. Exilio político y democracia. América Latina Hoy 55:
143–172.
Rose, Marilyn Gaddis. 1997. Translation and Literary Criticism. Translation as
Analysis. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
164 B. Rigby
Said, Edward W. 2000. Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Santoyo, Julio-César. 2011. La autotraducción intratextual. In Aproximaciones a
la autotraducción, ed. Xosé Manuel Dasilva and Helena Tanqueiro, 217–231.
Vigo: Editorial Academia del Hispanismo.
Scheiner, Corinne Laura. 2000. Bilingualism and Biculturalism in Self-translation:
Samuel Beckett and Vladimir Nabokov as Doubled Novelists. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Semilla Durán, María. 2014. Homenaje a Juan Gelman. Diálogos constantes
más allá del dolor. El hilo de la fábula. Revista anual del Centro de Estudios
Comparados 14: 175–185.
Sillato, María del Carmen. 1996. Juan Gelman: las estrategias de la otredad.
Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo Editora.
Thode, Ernest. 1992. German-English Genealogical Dictionary. Baltimore:
Genealogical Publishing Company.
Waters, Alyson. 2011. Filling in the Blanks: Raymond Federman, Self-Translator.
In Federman’s Fictions: Innovation, Theory and the Holocaust, ed. Jeffrey R. Di
Leo, 63–75. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Wilson, Rita. 2009. The Writer’s Double: Translation, Writing, and
Wright, Thomas C. 2007. State Terrorism in Latin America: Chile, Argentina, and
International Human Rights. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield.
Brandon Rigby is a PhD candidate of Romance Languages at the University

of Oregon, the USA. His research interests include modern and contemporary
poetry, transatlantic studies, self-translation and bilingual studies, and transla-
tion theory. He is particularly interested in poets who translate their own poetry
and present it bilingually, examining their divergent uses of the process of self-
translation. He is completing his dissertation titled “Interliminal Tongues:
Self-translation in Contemporary Transatlantic Bilingual Poetry,” in which he
analyses the self-translated, bilingual work of Puerto Rican poet Urayoán Noel,
Argentine poet Juan Gelman, and Galician poet Yolanda Castaño.
Self-Translating Between Minor
and Major Languages: A Hospitable
Approach in Bernardo Atxaga’s
Obabakoak
Harriet Hulme
As Michael Cronin notes, “[t]ranslation relationships between minority

and majority languages are rarely divorced from issues of power and iden-
tity” (Cronin 1996, 4). Translation can exacerbate any uneven power
dynamics between languages: if publishers, translators or editors priori-
tise the claims of a dominant target language, they may choose to forfeit
or alter the cultural and linguistic specificity of the original text. I under-
stand “major” languages as equivalent to the “supercentral” languages dis-
cussed by Abram de Swaan, who defines them as the ones used both
internationally and nationally by over 100 million speakers, for example
English, Spanish and Swahili (de Swaan 2002, 4–5). My definition of
“minor” languages is by opposition to the “major” ones: when translating
between a pair of languages, unless both are “major,” one will inevitably
occupy a more peripheral position.
The power asymmetry which exists between minor and major lan-
guages can exaggerate the “violence” that, as Lawrence Venuti suggests,
H. Hulme (*)
University College London, London, UK

166 H. Hulme
“resides in the very purpose and activity of translation: the reconstitution

of the foreign text in accordance with values, beliefs and representations
that pre-exist it in the target language, always configured in hierarchies
of dominance and marginality, always determining the production, cir-
culation, and reception of texts” (2008, 18). For Venuti, this violence
arises when translation transforms a text without acknowledging the
motivations for that transformation, a method he defines as “domes-
ticating.” Domesticated translations work to efface “the linguistic and
cultural difference of the foreign text … making it intelligible and even
familiar to the target-language reader, providing him or her with the nar-
cissistic experience of recognising his or her own culture in a cultural
other” (Venuti 1992, 5). Resisting this cultural narcissism when translat-
ing from a minor to a major language involves “foreignising” the target
text by maintaining the cultural and linguistic idiom of the source text.
Foreignising methods open “up the standard dialect and literary can-
ons to what is foreign to themselves, to the substandard and marginal”
(Venuti 1998, 11). By refusing to “domesticate” a non-hegemonic for-
eign text into the hegemonic language, the translator can make a stand
for more minor languages and cultures which are often disenfranchised
by the translation process.
Venuti’s “foreignisation” method prioritises the first of Schleiermacher’s
two options for the translator, leaving the author in peace as much as pos-
sible and “moving the reader towards him [sic]” (Schleiermacher 2002,
49). Venuti seeks to reverse the traditional binary dynamics of translation
which, he suggests, have used fluent translation strategies to prioritise
target over source, domestic over foreign, major over minor. While Venuti
seeks to liberate translation from the strictures of these textual hierarchies
in order to give voice to the source text, foreign culture, and minority
language, he ultimately maintains these hierarchies, reversing the order
of dominance and replacing one side of the binary with the other. What
happens, then, if these binaries dissolve, if author and translator are one
and the same, creating from within the minor and the major literary and
linguistic system? In self-translations from a minor to a major language,
does Venuti’s distinction between “foreign” and “domestic” still have rele-
vance? And should it? A possible answer to these questions could lie within
Paul Ricœur’s ethical paradigm of “linguistic hospitality” (2006, 10).
Self-Translating Between Minor and Major Languages... 167
Hospitality involves acknowledging the relation between the foreign and

the domestic as one of open interaction rather than aggressive opposi-
tion. This chapter suggests that in self-translation the traditional binaries
between the foreign and the domestic, and the major and the minor, are
dissolved in favour of a collaborative and welcoming dynamic.
I explore this hypothesis through Bernardo Atxaga’s Obabakoak (1988
in Euskera/1989 in Castilian) [Obabakoak, also in English, 2007].
Bernardo Atxaga, the pen name of Joseba Irazu Garmendia, is an interna-
tionally acclaimed contemporary Basque author and self-translator who
writes in both Euskera and Castilian. He was born in 1951 in the small
village of Asteasu, in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa/Guipúzcoa, Spain.
Obabakoak, his first book to be translated into English, is a collection
of stories that hinges loosely upon the inhabitants of Obaba, a fictional
town in the Basque Country.1 While Atxaga sets many of his stories out-
side the Basque Country, he also touches upon some specific internal ten-
sions. In one story, “Método para plagiar” [How to plagiarise], he turns
his focus to the tension between minor and major languages, exploring
the challenge of preserving the unique Basque language and literature
without isolating it from or subsuming it to the surrounding hegemonic
cultures. In 1989, a year after Obabakoak appeared in Euskera, Atxaga
confronted this challenge himself, producing a Castilian translation of
the text with the same title (Atxaga 2008b). For this self-translation, he
altered his original text, adding paratexts, removing some stories and
rearranging others. The added elements frame the text within its Basque
context for a non-Basque readership. However, the frame Atxaga chose
focuses upon the specific features of the Basque literature and language:
the uniqueness of Euskera, a language with no known connection to any
other existing linguistic system; the limited Basque bibliography of only
a hundred books published before the twentieth century (Lasagabaster
1986, 13); the challenges involved in writing in a language with very little
literary precedent.
Atxaga’s decision to highlight the limitations of Euskera within this
self-translation opens him up to the criticism of self-domesticating his
text. While Venuti’s use of this term focuses upon forms of linguistic
fluency which render the process of translation invisible, Atxaga’s text
enacts this domestication on the level of textual presentation, creating
168 H. Hulme
paratexts which—by affirming the minority status of the Basque liter-

ary, linguistic and cultural scene—operate to meet the expectations of
the new, more dominant, Castilian readership. Reading the alterations
made in this self-translation as domesticating depends upon a process of
textual comparison of the original and the self-translation. However, the
purpose of this self-translation was not necessarily comparative. Atxaga’s
initial decision to translate Obabakoak arose from the need to make his
work accessible to the judges of the 1989 Spanish Premio Nacional de
Literatura [National Prize for Literature], some of whom were non-
Basque speakers. As a non-Basque reader myself, my access to Atxaga’s
text also depends entirely upon his self-translation. What, then, does it
mean not to read Obabakoak in Basque? Can reading the text only in
Castilian do anything but assert the hegemony of that major language?
In Obabakoak, Atxaga highlights the connective power of translation,
weaving a network of translated and plagiarised texts into his stories
from the fictional town of Obaba. This network can be a source of fric-
tion. Yet it can also be a source of inspiration, creating powerful, hos-
pitable and creative collisions between two different worlds, collapsing
the binary opposition between domestic and foreign. Could similarly
hospitable forms of cultural mediation and textual transformation be at
stake in Atxaga’s decision to self-translate his text?
ernardo Atxaga: The Double Bind

B
of the Basque Author
Atxaga grew up speaking Euskera as his first language, and only learnt
Castilian Spanish later, at school. In his own words: “Mi mundo también
era enteramente aquel en que se hablaba en vasco, y yo me eduqué en ese
idioma, aunque más adelante en la escuela me encontraría con el castel-
lano” (Etxeberria 2002, 314) [In my world we spoke entirely in Basque,
and I was educated in that language, although later at school I came into
contact with Castilian Spanish].2 Despite learning Basque first and
Castilian later, Atxaga suggests that he views both these linguistic identi-
ties as mother tongues: “Siempre he dicho que yo tengo dos lenguas
maternas, el castellano y el euskera. Que. el euskera es, sencillamente,
la ‘primus inter pares’” (Atxaga 2004) [I’ve always said that I have two
maternal languages, Castilian and Euskera. Euskera is simply the “primus
inter pares”]. Given that one of these languages was learnt at home and
one at school, Atxaga’s definition of both as “mother” tongues appears
contradictory. This contradiction in turn reflects the diglossia within the
Basque Country, which means that bilingualism is experienced by the
majority of Basque speakers (Manterola 2011a, 60). At the same time, by
referring to his two languages as mother tongues, Atxaga emphasises the
particular importance he assigns to both. The chronological primacy of
Euskera positions it as the “primus inter pares,” but if Euskera is daily
existence, so too is Castilian. He argues: “la realidad es que yo hablo con
igual facilidad dos lenguas. Con algunas personas hablo en euskera, con
otras en español” (Atxaga 2006b) [The fact is that I speak both languages
equally well. With some people I speak Euskera, with others Spanish].
The distinct, but equally important, roles of Euskera and Castilian are
apparent in Atxaga’s approach to writing: Euskera, the “primus inter
pares,” is the language in which Atxaga first creates his novels; Castilian,
his second mother tongue, is the language into which these texts are sub-
sequently (self-)translated, thereby expanding his readership beyond the
Euskera-speaking world.3
Indeed, Atxaga’s decision to write in Euskera is a personal choice. Yet,
the impact of this decision upon the Basque literary community has
been significant. Atxaga was one of the first authors to write in the stan-
dardised form of Euskera, Euskera Batua, a language developed during
the late 1960s. Before the arrival of Batua, novels classed as Basque might
have been written in one of a number of dialects, creating a fragmented
system in which texts were comprehensible only to a small minority.
Standardisation enabled Basque literature to develop a unified literary
system in its own right. However, “writers … had a challenging job ahead
of them: turning a somewhat ‘artificial’ version of the language into a
live, flexible [language] for the literary expression of the new realities”
(Lasagabaster 2012, 14). Atxaga has recognised, and embraced, this chal-
lenge. The most renowned of the estimated 300 current Euskera writers
(Lasagabaster 2012, 17), he has also had to accept the responsibility that
comes with pre-eminence in a minor literary field: “Atxaga is … aware of
the absurd fact that he may be the Shakespeare of his language. What he
170 H. Hulme
does … could well affect generations, possibly even centuries, of writers”

(Kurlansky 1999, 329). Kurlansky’s comment stresses the impact that
Atxaga’s decision to write in Basque has had not only upon the literary
field, but also upon the development of the Basque language more gen-
erally. Nevertheless, his definition of this impact as “absurd” also high-
lights the power dynamics at play within responses to Basque authors by
critics writing from within a more hegemonic literary sphere (Kurlansky
is American). As Mari Jose Olaziregi notes, international responses to
Atxaga’s work, and to translated Basque literature more generally, fre-
quently deploy a rhetoric of strangeness and exoticism (Olaziregi 2005,
59), thus re-emphasising the asymmetry between major and minor lan-
guages and literatures.
While Atxaga’s decision to write in Euskera has positioned him at the
forefront of Basque literary development, it has also brought him to the
front line within the associated political and linguistic debates. Euskera
has a complex political history: the language is indelibly linked to the
identity of the Basque people and the Basque land, a connection which
has seen Euskera repeatedly made a pawn in the power struggles waged
around or over the Basque Country. In 1894, when Sabino Arana cre-
ated the Partido Nacionalista Vasco [Basque Nationalist Party], the revit-
alisation of Euskera was at the heart of his project. Euzkadi, the name
he coined to represent the geopolitical entity that was to be the Basque
nation state, means simply “the place where Euskera is spoken” (Clark
1979, 421). During Franco’s dictatorship (1939–1975), Franco turned
this connection into a weapon: he attempted to annihilate Basque nation-
alism, repressing all elements of Basque culture and banning Euskera
entirely (Hooper 1995, 383). When the Basque armed separatist group
ETA formed in 1959, a key part of their campaign to create a Basque
nation state involved the regeneration of this banned language (Sullivan
1988, 130). In this politically charged context, texts written in Euskera
could be part of a linguistic rebellion, resistance or revitalisation, but they
struggled to be independent from the political context in which they
were produced (Kurlansky 1999, 195).
It is clear that Atxaga’s decision to write in Euskera inevitably involved
him in this conflicted literary scene (Martín 2000, 193): when he began
writing in the 1970s, Euskera was still banned, and Atxaga notes that his
initial impetus for writing in Euskera was political as much as literary
(Etxeberria 2002, 320). Despite this connection of language and politics,

Atxaga has repeatedly sought to resist the politicisation of his texts, assert-
ing the importance of literary autonomy even—or perhaps especially—in
a literary arena as politically charged as the Basque one (Etxeberria 2002,
334). In 1977, Atxaga helped found the group Pott [Failure]: which,
“above all … defended the autonomous nature of literature. This, in the
context of the era, implied a harsh denunciation of literature that served
extra-literary objectives (nationalistic, linguistic, and so on)” (Olaziregi
2005, 48–55).
The desire amongst authors of Atxaga’s generation to separate the
political and the literary, coupled with the changing political situation in
Spain after the death of Franco in 1975, has led, in the last 30 years, to
the increasing liberation of the Basque literary scene from overtly politi-
cal concerns (Apalategui 2000, 64–65). Yet despite his assertions of the
importance of literary autonomy and the changing nature of the linguis-
tic scene post-Franco, Atxaga’s decision to write primarily in Euskera has
continued to implicate him in a series of questions regarding the politi-
cal and literary role of an author writing in a minority language. As he
describes in Um lugar llamado Obaba, he is continually asked why he
writes in a language few people can understand, rather than one which
occupies a more central place in the linguistic world (Atxaga 2013, 31).
Would writing in Castilian allow Atxaga to evade these questions? Tijana
Miletic notes in European Literary Immigration into the French Language
that many bilingual authors choose to write in a second language because
it “provides them with the freedom from the conscious and unconscious
heritage of their mother tongue” (Miletic 2008, 29). Miletic uses the
examples of Milan Kundera and Jorge Semprún whose two languages
(French and Czech for Kundera; French and Spanish for Semprún) do
not share a national heritage.
In Atxaga’s case, however, the diglossia in the Basque Country impli-
cates both Castilian and Euskera in a complex—and intertwined—
political, cultural and social heritage, thereby limiting the freedom
that either language, alone, could provide (Manterola 2011b, 60). As
Atxaga discusses in his 2003 novel El hijo del acordeonista (2006a) [The
Accordionist’s Son 2008a], writing solely in Castilian would merely replace
one set of difficulties with another: “There are so few Basque speak-
ers, fewer than a million. And every time even one of us abandons the
172 H. Hulme
language, it feels as if we were contributing to its extinction” (Atxaga

2008a, 10).4 Abandonment, extinction: the vocabulary of erasure Atxaga
employs here emphasises the sense of linguistic, and emotional, betrayal
that would accompany a decision to write in any language but Euskera.
While writing in Castilian might enable Atxaga to evade the “paradigm
of the national author” (Martín 2000, 193), it would only implicate him
in another paradigm, that of the disloyal Basque author, abandoning a
minority language, and thereby exacerbating that minority status. Atxaga
appears caught in a double bind. Choosing to write in Euskera connects
him to the important task of defending a threatened minority language;
equally, however, it limits his readership and connects his work to what
he regards as stereotypes surrounding Basque writers: their lack of literary
tradition; the importance of orality in their texts; and, most worryingly,
the relation of their work to the Basque nationalist cause and even ETA
(Atxaga 2013, 23). Choosing to write only in Castilian might liberate
Atxaga from these stereotypes and would undoubtedly expand his read-
ership; equally, however, it would open him to accusations of linguistic
abandonment and political disengagement.
In Un lugar llamado Obaba, Atxaga states that translation offers a
potential pathway through this impasse for it allows any language, no mat-
ter how peripheral, to be made accessible to a wider readership (Atxaga
2013, 33). Self-translation in particular allows him to replace a substi-
tutive dynamic with a conjunctive one, and thereby support Euskera
without being circumscribed—politically or creatively—by its minority
status. However, choosing to self-translate his texts between Euskera and
Castilian raises a further set of questions. Is this decision really a choice
or merely a compulsion? Moreover, how can self-translation negotiate the
complex dynamics between his two languages?
txaga’s Self-Translation: A Case

A
of Domestication?
Grutman suggests that “a variety of political or market-related reasons”
explain why speakers of minority languages “might feel compelled to
translate their work into the dominant language” (2009, 258). Atxaga’s
decision to translate Obabakoak into Castilian was caused by such exter-

nal factors. In 1989, Obabakoak was nominated for the Spanish Premio
Nacional de Literatura (National Prize for Literature). While nominated
texts can be written in any of the four official languages in Spain (Castilian,
Catalan, Galician or Basque), according to the 1978 Spanish Constitution,
Castilian is the “common” language for all Spaniards. Not all members of
the jury can read the co-official languages, which means that they must
be translated into Castilian before they will be considered. Domínguez
sees this as highly ironic: while the Premio Nacional de Literatura is
designed to recognise the diversity of literatures and languages within the
Spanish literary system, it factually represses this diversity through trans-
lation (Domínguez 2010, 102–103). Atxaga complied with the request
to translate his text, hiring multiple translators to translate Obabakoak
into Castilian to ensure its timely completion, and then proofreading and
creating a text from these different versions (Atxaga 1994, 61–62).
Obabakoak became that year’s winner, and the “award of the prize was,
therefore, indissolubly linked to that (self-) translation to Castilian”
(Domínguez 2010, 103). For Domínguez, this is a crucial point: although
Atxaga continues to be read predominantly as a Basque author, his autho-
rial success is, in fact, predicated upon his ability to conform to the
demands of the hegemonic Castilian subsystem through self-translation.
Manterola (2011b, 73) further suggests that the international success of
Obabakoak depended not upon the critical approbation of readers in
Basque but rather upon the acclaim the text garnered once translated into
Castilian.
Atxaga subsequently decided to replace this collaborative transla-
tion with his own version of Obabakoak into Castilian (Garzia 1990,
16); this version became the source text for Margaret Jull Costa’s English
translation. If compliance with the requirements of the Castilian sys-
tem is implicit within Atxaga’s decision to have Obabakoak translated
for the prize, it is explicit in some of the alterations he made for his
subsequent self-translation. Some of these alterations are dictated by
the specific challenges of translating from Euskera: one story, written
in a Basque dialect particular to the mountain region of the Basque
Country, was removed because it “was deemed too difficult to translate
into the Spanish language” (Olaziregi 2005, 150). Other changes reveal
174 H. Hulme
the challenges inherent within all translations, regardless of the lan-

guages in question. As Olaziregi discusses in Waking the Hedgehog, the
original Basque text is split into two sections, and the second of these,
“En busca de la última palabra” [In Search of the Last Word], contains
a series of short stories organised in alphabetical order. For Olaziregi,
this alphabetisation adds another interpretative layer to the text: “The
reader realises that apart from the narrative lines in the story, the book
is organised according to some sort of a structure or scheme, and in
consequence a second reading starts imposing itself on the initial one”
(Olaziregi 2005, 98). This “second reading” connects the stories to one
of the key themes of Obabakoak, the development of language itself, as
Atxaga explains:
el sonido “B” es el primero que emitimos como seres humanos. … en

Obabakoak se hablaba de unas gentes que … pasaban del mutismo a decir
algo. Decidí que el nombre de la geografía debería tener varias “B” y elegí
“Obaba” por ser una palabra que figura en las canciones de cuna vascas.
(Atxaga 2004)
[The sound “be” is the first that we make as human beings. … Obabakoak
described some people … who moved from silence to saying something. I
decided that the name of the geographic space should contain several “Bs”
and chose “Obaba” since it is a word appearing in Basque lullabies]
Atxaga’s decision to create a sequence of alphabetised stories in the text

mirrors this linguistic journey from babyhood to adulthood, from silence
to speech. Yet, the Castilian text does not—or perhaps, given the need to
remain faithful to the meaning of the stories’ titles, cannot—reproduce
this alphabetisation. The loss of this structure in the Castilian under-
mines the connections between these stories and the linguistic journey
Atxaga posits as a key theme of Obabakoak. In so doing, Atxaga’s
translation from a minor to a major language enacts a double erasure: as
Euskera is literally erased from the text by translation, it is also erased
thematically, the importance Atxaga assigns to giving a voice to the
Basque community weakened by the loss of this structural emphasis
upon linguistic development.
In place of this formal focus upon the development of Euskera, Atxaga

supplies a content-based discussion, adding a new section, “A modo de
autobiografía” [By Way of an Autobiography], to guide the non-Basque
reader into the specifics of the Basque linguistic, literary and cultural
scene. This section focuses upon the challenge of writing in Basque, and
particularly the limited precedent for such a project:
Those of us who are just beginning to be translated into other languages,

set off with very little baggage. We looked into our bundle and found only
five, at most ten, books written in the language we were trying to write in.
… what we lacked was an antecedent … we lacked books from which we
could learn to write in our own language. (Atxaga 2007, 324–325)5
The problem with such a lack of antecedent, suggests Atxaga, is dual:

writers wishing to express themselves in Euskera must effectively con-
struct their own language to do so; once they have done so, however, they
still face the challenge of finding a readership, given the limited material,
and precedent, for reading in Euskera. Atxaga notes the progress that has
been made in recent years which “enables writers like myself to live off the
royalties from such works as … Obabakoak (1988)” (Atxaga 2007, 326).
In referring to Obabakoak metatextually here, Atxaga emphasises that the
Castilian text we are reading is a translation, positioning this autobio-
graphical section as a paratextual addition to an already existing text.
Genette suggests that paratexts operate “to present [the text] in the
usual sense of this verb but also in the strongest sense: to make present, to
ensure the text’s presence in the world, its ‘reception’” [Genette’s empha-
sis] (Genette 1997, 1). “A modo de autobiografía” presents Obabakoak as
a Basque text, ensuring it is received as such within the more hegemonic
literary system it is entering. In focusing upon the cultural specificity of
the text, it is my contention that Atxaga appears, in Venuti’s terms, to
foreignise the Castilian version of Obabakoak, insisting upon its status
as a translation. For Domínguez, however, Atxaga’s paratext evokes that
specificity through a rhetoric of marginality and limitation which exoti-
cises the Basque linguistic and literary culture (Domínguez 2010, 104).
Unlike Venuti’s conception of foreignisation, which seeks to present the
176 H. Hulme
marginal on its own terms, exoticisation invokes otherness as a product

for consumption by a more dominant receiving culture (Said 1978, 7).
In this regard, Domínguez discusses Atxaga’s comment that “by the time
I was twenty-three, I had read all the Basque literature that the dictator
[Franco] had not managed to burn” (Atxaga 2007, 324). In Domínguez’s
terms:
There is no doubt of the desired impact—unnecessary in the case of the

Basque audience—on the Spanish audience of the record of a literature
that can be read in all its entirety in three years. Thus, we have the motif of
a “small literature” thematised in a hermeneutic experience impossible for
the audience of the “great” literatures. (Domínguez 2010, 104)
For Domínguez (2010, 103), the translation enacts a “Castilian-ization”

of Obabakoak, presenting the text through a rhetoric of smallness and
marginality which accords with the pre-existing values and beliefs of the
wider Spanish literary system. In Domínguez’s reading, Obabakoak’s self-
translation emphasises the dichotomy between Euskera and Castilian,
the source culture and the target one. Hokenson and Munson sug-
gest that the act of self-translation inevitably disrupts such traditional
binaries:
Theoretical models of source and target languages … break down in the

dual text by one hand, as do linguistic models of lexical equivalence, and
foreign versus domestic culture. Literary critical models … of translation as
diminution and loss, a falling away from the original, similarly cannot
serve. (Hokenson and Munson 2014, 3)
While these models may not serve, they remain surprisingly dominant,
particularly in relation to the uneasy dynamic between minor and major
languages and cultures. Indeed, for Domínguez, a comparative reading
of the Basque and the Castilian versions of Obabakoak is essential if the
erasures and alterations enacted by the self-translation are not to remain
encoded and unseen: “But seeing that a contrastive reading of the
original and final texts is not a habitual practice, this Castilian-isation is
not noticed by the average Spanish-speaking reader” (Domínguez
2010, 103). Hence, comparative criticism is invaluable in enhancing

the understanding of political, linguistic and cultural violence which
can be wielded by translation, particularly within a language pair of
asymmetrical power.
At the same time, reading self-translations only through a narrative of
resemblance, as similar to or different from an original text, maintains
the hierarchies between source and target, original and copy, foreign and
domestic, which self-translation should destabilise. These hierarchies per-
sist into subsequent re-translations: Atxaga’s English translator Margaret
Jull Costa describes the sense of embarrassment she feels about using
Atxaga’s Castilian text as the source for her translations. “I do feel embar-
rassed about it, not translating from the Basque,” she suggests, describ-
ing “that feeling that I’m translating from a translation, even though the
translator of that translation is the author, and so I’m at another remove
from the original” (Jull Costa 2013, 2014). The implication that a self-
translation might be, in some way, less authentic than the original text has
particular resonance in relation to my own reading of Obabakoak, which
depends upon the existence of the Castilian text. If the Castilian text is
perceived as less valid, less authoritative, and less original than the Basque
one, does this reduce the validity and authority of criticisms and readings
which focus upon that self-translated text?
If one insists upon reading self-translations only in comparison to the
original text, the answer to this question might be in the affirmative.
However, as Domínguez states above, self-translations—particularly from
minor to major languages—are rarely created in order to be compared.
While there are undoubtedly many bilingual Basque-Castilian readers of
Atxaga’s texts, there are also many monolingual readers from his “other”
mother tongue, who would otherwise be excluded from his work. Besides
revealing the appropriations and alterations enacted by translation from
a minor to a major language, Atxaga’s self-translations inevitably also
exhibit the inclusivity and hospitality enabled by such translations. In
Obabakoak itself, Atxaga explores the importance of textual inclusiv-
ity, assigning a particular power to forms of reading and writing which,
through translation, seek to bring the foreign and domestic into a pro-
ductive and hospitable collision.
178 H. Hulme
Obabakoak: Domesticating the Foreign;

Foreignising the Domestic
Obabakoak narrates a series of stories about the interaction of foreign and
domestic cultures through writing. In stories such as “Esteban Werfell”
[Esteban Werfell also in English], “Exposición de la carta del canónigo
Lizardi” [An exhibition of Canon Lizardi’s letter] and “Post tenebras spero
lucem” [Post tenebras spero lucem also in English], Atxaga’s characters
repeatedly try to transmit their narratives beyond the walls (emotional or
physical, individual or cultural) that surround them. With each attempt,
however, transmission fails: the recipient—the reader—proves unreach-
able, delayed or imaginary; or the story itself proves too charged to share.
In the already-mentioned short story “Método para plagiar,” Atxaga con-
nects this thwarted desire for narrative transmission directly to the Basque
literary scene. “Método para plagiar” is the account of a dream used by
the narrator to explain a new literary theory he has created. In this dream,
the narrator finds himself standing on an island in the middle of the sea:
“It was very small and there was no sign of life there” (Atxaga 2007, 260).
This is no ordinary island: as the narrator comes to realise, “Incredible
though it may seem, the geographical feature I was looking at was none
other than my own language” (Atxaga 2007, 261).
In choosing to depict Euskera as an isolated, deserted island, Atxaga
employs the same rhetoric of smallness he later uses paratextually in
“A modo de autobiografía”.6 This rhetoric, then, is an integral part of
Obabakoak in all its versions. Yet Atxaga’s construct here reveals his self-
awareness: rather than representing Euskera as an island to emphasise the
insularity and limitation of the language, it points out the limitations
of such emphasis. For accompanying the narrator is seventeenth-century
Basque author, Axular, and in the narrative Axular is keen to lay the blame
for the isolation of the island firmly with the Basque community. On a
ship approaching the island are some of those whom Axular condemns
[the] hypocrites … They talk at great length but as to actions, you’ll never
see them do a thing. … the baunasians … They know better than anyone
how to make a profit from the island … it suits them perfectly that the
island should remain just as it is, tiny and cramped … the “sad ones” …
they offer the island only their griefs, with which they merely make the
situation worse. (Atxaga 2007, 261–2)
Axular is clear that responsibility for the aridity of the island lies in
those who seek to emphasise its insularity, in projects which actively or
passively isolate the language and literature and prevent them from
connecting with other languages and literatures globally. Domínguez
suggests that such a rhetoric is the “the principal geo-mytheme of
Basque literary historiography: of the various modern literatures in the
Iberian Peninsula, Basque is assuredly the one that has applied the most
insistence and devotion to its self-definition as a small literature”
(Domínguez 2010, 108). The power and influence of these groups,
Axular suggests, has had a knock-on effect upon the literary culture of
the Basque country, inhibiting Basque writers from drawing upon other
texts and other languages in order to develop their own literary prac-
tices. As Axular tells the narrator,
Once this was a place of delights, whereas now it is dead and arid. …
Nevertheless, if as many books had been written in euskera as have been
written in French or in any other language for that matter, it would be as
rich and perfect as they are and if that is not the case it is the speakers of
euskera themselves who are to blame, not the island. (Atxaga 2007, 261)
This provocative quotation, which blames its speakers for the limitations
of Euskera, is drawn from Axular’s prologue to Gero (1643), in which
Axular legitimises his decision to write in Euskera (Axular 1976, 16).
Atxaga’s inclusion of this intertext in Obabakoak highlights the rheto-
ric of accusation and justification which has surrounded the Basque lan-
guage question since Axular was writing. Yet, Axular’s comment, the
conflict he creates between the insularity of the island and the richness of
the linguistic worlds which surround it, also emphasises the theme of the
continued tension at the heart of Basque literature explored in Obabakoak.
In “Método para plagiar,” Atxaga highlights the performative nature of
such self-definitions, the perpetual limitations they enact in order to
prove themselves right.
180 H. Hulme
If such limiting self-definitions are problematic, Atxaga’s Axular is clear

about the solution. Rather than maintaining the distinction between the
domestic and the foreign, he instructs the narrator to draw upon the for-
eign in order to inspire the domestic, to reinvigorate the Basque literary
culture by plagiarising texts from around the world. Initially, the narrator
is resistant: plagiarism, he notes, has extremely negative connotations:
“It’s considered as bad as stealing. Nowadays, the work of a writer has to
give the impression of being created out of nothing. In other words the
work has to be original” (Atxaga 2007, 264). The narrator’s perception
of plagiarism here reflects a hierarchical binary of original/simulacrum
which devalues forms of textual replication. Axular responds by upend-
ing the hierarchies of original and copy, suggesting that it is this desire for
absolute originality that has limited the creative potential of the island:
“The idea that it is theft is most unfortunate” (Atxaga 2007, 264). Axular
suggests that in devaluing the work of the plagiarist Basque authors
have deprived themselves of the literary ancestry to be found beyond
the boundaries of the island. He posits that plagiarism should be viewed
as a valuable literary tool that builds connections with other languages
and literatures and, by imitating these, seeks to create something entirely
new. Finally convinced, the narrator awakes and goes on to develop his
own “método para plagiar.” This method incorporates exploration and
experimentation: the desert island of Euskera, the narrator realises, will
be brought to life not by tracing the literary world within its borders or
externally, but by constructing collisions between those two worlds, map-
ping the relation between minor and major literary and linguistic systems
in transformative ways:
Let’s suppose that we have to plagiarise a story that takes place in Arabia or
in the Middle Ages and that its two protagonists—who are embroiled in an
argument over a camel—are Ibu al Farsi and Ali Rayol. Right, the plagiarist
should take the story in its entirety and set it—let’s say—in modern-day
England. So the protagonists become, for example, Anthony Northmore
and Philip Stevens and, instead of a camel, the cause of the argument
between them can be a car. As you can easily imagine, these changes will
bring in their train a thousand more so as to render the plot completely
unrecognisable to anyone. (Atxaga 2007, 268)
The narrator’s theory of plagiarism here hinges upon a domestication in

which a text is pulled from its original context and rewritten according to
the “values, beliefs and representations” (Venuti 2008, 18) of another.
The narrator’s example re-evaluates the potential of such domesticating
processes, suggesting that a text can, in fact, become original precisely by
appropriating, altering and adapting another pre-existing work. In fact,
the method of plagiarism the narrator offers also reframes the relation-
ship between minor and major literary cultures. In an ironic reference to
hierarchical perceptions of minor and major literary communities, he
directs the potential plagiarist away from “minority cultures where, since
there is little space, relations—especially literary ones—tend to be rife
with intrigue, malice and hatred” (Atxaga 2007, 269), instructing them
to head instead towards “Boulevard Balzac … Hardy Gardens … Hoffman
Strasse … Piazza Pirandello… in other words, he must choose his models
from amongst writers who are household names” (Atxaga 2007, 267).
The humorous dichotomy the narrator creates between major and minor
literatures becomes, in Atxaga’s case, an opportunity for a creative inter-
rogation and transformation of this dichotomy: Atxaga conforms to the
stereotype of the intriguing minor author by “stealing” stories from major
literatures and using these as the backbone for his stories from Obaba.
The most obvious of these is “Un grieta en la nieve helada” [The Crevasse],
a supposed plagiarism of a story by Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, “La
torture par espérance” [The Torture by Hope) (Villiers 2010) which fol-
lows directly after “Método para plagiar.” As Olaziregi notes, however,
much of Obabakoak’s narrative is based on texts by other authors
(Olaziregi 2005, 145, 141, 112). “En busca de la última palabra,” for
example, takes as its frame narrative Cortázar’s “Las babas del diablo”
(1990) [The Devil’s Dribble], converting the photo of an amorous French
couple at the heart of Cortázar’s text into a photo taken at a primary
school in Obaba. “Método para plagiar” begins with an excerpt adapted
from Dante’s Divina Commedia, transforming Virgil’s journey to the
underworld into the narrator’s journey to the island of Euskera. “Jóvenes
y verdes” (“Young and Green”) alludes to Dylan Thomas’s poem “Fern
Hill” (Thomas 1997), transposing the poetic lament for lost youth from
Thomas’s visits to his aunt’s farm in Wales to the narrator’s experience
growing up in Obaba.
182 H. Hulme
If the narrator’s theory of plagiarism reveals the creative power of

infusing the domestic into the foreign, Atxaga’s own use of intertextual-
ity within Obabakoak also reveals the transformative potential of infus-
ing the foreign into the domestic. The stories exceed the boundaries of
Obaba: drawing on influences from Borges to Michel Tournier, Atxaga
narrates tales set far beyond the Basque Country, transposing the reader
from Germany to China, Baghdad to Barcelona. In so doing, he dem-
onstrates that Obaba’s stories are, in fact, anything but insular: rather,
they are permeated with and derived from literary traditions developed
all over the world. As Parvati Nair notes, “whilst Atxaga has undoubtedly
put Basque literature on the world map, his narrative strategies reveal the
former to be a hybrid site of inter-connections” (Nair 2004, 62). This
hybridity extends beyond the literary into the linguistic: Obabakoak con-
tains words in multiple languages, including English, for example If lost
return to sender; very nice; Oh, my God! (Atxaga 2008b, 244, 247, 250);
the language of the Ashaninka tribe in the Amazon jungle, for example
huapapa, wankawi, carachupausa (Atxaga 2008b, 243); Arabic, for exam-
ple La ilaha ila Ala (Atxaga 2008b, 406); Latin, for example Finis coronat
opus, Ad maiorem literaturae gloriam (Atxaga 2008b, 282); and French,
for example an entire paragraph in French drawn from the French essay-
ist Joseph Joubert (Atxaga 2008b, 429). Whether written in Euskera or
Castilian, the stories exceed their initial focus upon the Basque com-
munity, to reveal Obaba and the text itself, to be teeming with multiple
languages, literatures and cultures.
The hybrid intertextuality within Obabakoak also reframes the para-
texts Atxaga added to his self-translation. Undoubtedly, in “A modo de
autobiografía,” Atxaga portrays the Basque literary and linguistic con-
text as isolated and the Basque bibliography as tiny. However, the stories
preceding this paratext disrupt these definitions, revealing that context
to be diverse and welcoming and that bibliography to be not small but
extensive, encompassing “the whole of the literary past, be it from Arabia,
China or Europe” (Atxaga 2007, 324). The Obaba described within the
text is anything but remote and voiceless: it sings with life and with its
connections to other worlds. The discrepancy between the world pre-
sented in the paratexts and that presented by the text itself highlights
the inadequacies of paratextual overviews. However, while attempts to
reduce the Basque culture to a paratextual summary fail, such paratexts—
when read with the text they accompany—have their own distinct power
and purpose. They become “more than a boundary or a sealed border …
rather, a threshold … a zone not only of transition but also of transaction”
(Genette 1997, 2). Atxaga’s paratext initiates a transaction between origi-
nal and translation, between the Basque and the Castilian text, between
expectations and reality, offering the reader a powerful opportunity to
confront the limitations of their own understanding.
It is through intertextuality that the debate between foreign and domes-
tic is reframed. On the one hand, Atxaga domesticates foreign texts, pull-
ing them into new cultural narratives and contexts which endow them
with fresh life. On the other, he foreignises the domestic, using these
appropriated, plagiarised, translated stories to reveal the permeable nature
of Basque literature and its hospitality to influences from beyond its own
boundaries. In so doing, Atxaga reframes the opposition between the for-
eign and domestic created by Venuti (following Schleiermacher) as an
interaction, a reflection of Ricœur’s ethical paradigm of linguistic hospital-
ity in translation: “where the pleasure of dwelling in the other’s language
is balanced by the pleasure of receiving the foreign word at home, in
one’s own welcoming house” (Ricœur 2006, 10). Atxaga’s invocation of
the power of plagiarism and translation transposes this welcome from the
linguistic to the literary, creating a textual world in Obabakoak in which
the pleasure of reading, of dwelling, in other texts, from other cultures, is
balanced by the pleasure of receiving and incorporating those other texts,
those other cultures, into Atxaga’s own.
Towards a Hospitable Translation

This chapter began by arguing that in altering his text for a new Castilian
readership, Atxaga’s self-translation appears to employ the second of
Schleiermacher’s two “methods of translating,” moving himself and his
text towards the Castilian reader through paratextual forms of cultural
and linguistic “domestication.” Reading Atxaga’s self-translation in this
way depends on maintaining a division between Atxaga’s two identities,
on seeing the Basque author and readership and the Castilian author and
readership as fundamentally different. However, Atxaga’s discussion of
the creative potential of plagiarism in Obabakoak, and his use of inter-
184 H. Hulme
texts drawn from around the world to create the narrative of the text,
suggests that these oppositions can be reductive: texts are often created
through a collision of different identities, languages, literatures and cul-
tures. Is there then another way to approach Atxaga’s self-translation?
While for Schleiermacher either the reader must come to the author or
the author to the reader, as “any attempt to combine them being certain
to produce a highly unreliable result and to carry with it the danger that
writer and reader might miss each other entirely” (Schleiermacher 2002,
49), for Ricœur the two methods can be combined: “Bringing the reader
to the author, bringing the author to the reader, at the risk of serving and
of betraying two masters: this is to practise what I like to call linguistic
hospitality” (Ricœur 2006, 23). For the latter, linguistic hospitality
inhabits a borderline between loyalty and disloyalty to the concerns of
author and reader. The changes Atxaga makes in his self-translation do,
undoubtedly, domesticate the text for its new readership. Yet in so doing
they also bring that readership to the Basque author, revealing to the
Castilian readership the complexity, the globality, of a Basque world nar-
rated through the fictional space of Obaba. Reading, as Atxaga discusses
in an interview published in the Spanish broadsheet El País in May 2014,
is a powerfully connective experience: “si perdemos la lectura y a algunos
no les importa, a lo mejor se va a perder conversación y, si se pierde con-
versación, la amistad, los amigos también van a ser difíciles de encontrar”
(Atxaga 2014) [If we lose reading and for some people it is not impor-
tant, maybe we will lose conversation, and if we lose conversation,
friendship, friends will also be difficult to find]. If friendship comes from
conversation and conversation from reading, the latter, in Atxaga’s case,
can be extended by translation, which has revealed Obabakoak and the
complex, nuanced Basque culture depicted in the text, to a readership all
around the world, from Japan to Finland, Romania to Portugal.
Translation is, inevitably, an encounter with another: it “is the mode
by which various discourses read each other, locate their commonalities,
and name their differences” (Brodzki 2007, 3). However, perceiving these
differences and commonalities need not be exclusively conceived as an
attempt to map the violence and erasures of translation: it can also be part
of an acceptance of those differences, an acknowledgement that without
these our own experience would be a little less rich. As Ricœur asks,
“without the test of the foreign, would we be sensitive to the strange-

ness of our own language? Finally, without that test, would we not be in
danger of shutting ourselves away in the sourness of a monologue, alone
with our books?” (Ricœur 2006, 29). Self-translation into Castilian is
a problematic method for engaging in the test of the foreign: not only
does it bring Atxaga into dialogue with the complex power dynamics
within the Basque diglossia, but it also foregrounds the nature of the
hegemonic/peripheral and major/minor pairing of Castilian and Euskera.
At the same time, this self-translation also brings the dual elements of
Atxaga’s cultural and linguistic identity into hospitable dialogue, reveal-
ing two different but equal identities of which either one, depending on
the circumstance, can prove itself the “primus inter pares.”
Notes
1. The Basque word for the language is “Euskara”; the Spanish version of this
term is “Euskera”: here the Spanish spelling, as employed by Margaret Jull
Costa in the English translation of Obabakoak, is used throughout.
However, other spellings are preserved in quotations, including Atxaga’s
own. In using the term “Basque Country” I refer to the Basque
Autonomous Community, Euskadi, a legal autonomous community in
Spain, as opposed to the culturally wider Basque Country, Euskal Herria,
which also includes four provinces in South-West France.
2. All translations into English are my own, unless the English translation is
referenced.
3. While Atxaga self-translated the text I engage with primarily in this chap-
ter, Obabakoak, his more recent texts have been translated either collab-
oratively with Asun Garikano or by Arantxa Sabán (Manterola 2011b,
132–33).
4. All quotations from El hijo del acordeonista are taken from the English
translation (Atxaga 2008a).
5. All quotations from Obabakoak are taken from the English translation
(Atxaga 2007).
6. I have explored the theme of the desert island in “Método para plagiar”
elsewhere (Hulme 2014), picking up several of the points made here
regarding the relationship between connection and separation in this text.
186 H. Hulme
References
Apalategui, Ur. 2000. La naissance de l’écrivain basque. L’évolution de la problé-
matique littéraire de Bernardo Atxaga. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Atxaga, Bernardo. 1988. Obabakoak. Donostia: Erein.
———. 1994. Mesa redonda, Bernardo Atxaga y sus traductores. Vasos comuni-
cantes 4: 53–64. http://revistavasoscomunicantes.blogspot.com.es/2011/03/
vasos-comunicantes-numero-4.html. Accessed 5 Aug 2015.
———. 2004. Preguntas desde Japón. http://www.atxaga.org/es/testuak-textos/
preguntas-desde-japon. Accessed 11 Sep 2015.
———. 2006a. El hijo del acordeonista. Trans. Asun Garikano and Bernardo
Atxaga. Madrid: Punto de lectura.
———. 2006b. Interview Howl. http://atxaga.org/testuak-textos/interview-
howl. Accessed 11 Sep 2015.
———. 2007. Obabakoak. Trans. Margaret Jull Costa. London: Vintage.
———. 2008a. The Accordionist’s Son. Trans. Margaret Jull Costa. London:
Vintage.
———. 2008b. Obabakoak. Trans. Bernardo Atxaga. Madrid: Punto de Lectura.
———. 2013. Un lugar llamado Obaba. Madrid: Alfaguara.
———. 2014. Si se pierde la lectura, se pierde la conversación. El País, 29 May.
http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2014/05/29/paisvasco/1401375747_833638.
html. Accessed 11 Sep 2015.
Axular, Pedro. 1976, Gero = Después. Trans. Luis Villasante. Oñati: Jakin.
Brodzki, Bella. 2007. Can These Bones Live? Translation, Survival, and Cultural
Memory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Clark, Robert P. 1979. The Basques, the Franco Years and Beyond. Reno: University
of Nevada Press.
Cortázar, Julio. 1990. Las babas del diablo. In Las armas secretas, 123–139.
Madrid: Cátedra.
Cronin, Michael. 1996. Translating Ireland: Translation, Languages, Cultures.
Cork: Cork University Press.
de Swaan, Abram. 2002. Words of the World: The Global Language System.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Domínguez, César. 2010. Historiography and the Geo-literary Imaginary. The
Iberian Peninsula: Between Lebensraum and espace vécu. In A Comparative
History of Literatures in the Iberian Peninsula, ed. Fernando Cabo, Anxo
Abuín, and César Domínguez, vol. 1, 53–132. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Etxeberria, Hasier. 2002. Cinco escritores vascos. Entrevistas de Hasier Etxeberria.
Irun: Alberdania.
Garzia, Juan. 1990. Atxagarekin Obabakoaken itzulpenaz. Senez 9: 13–24.

Genette, Gérard. 1997. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Trans. Jane
E. Lewin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Grutman, Rainier. 2009. Self-translation. In The Routledge Encyclopedia of
Translation Studies, ed. Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha, 2nd ed.,
257–260. London: Routledge.
and Theory of Literary Self-Translation. London: Routledge.
Hooper, John. 1995. The New Spaniards. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Hulme, Harriet. 2014. Creating anew, again: Deserted Islands and Textual
Inhabitations in ernardo Atxaga’s Obabakoak. Comparative Critical Studies 11
(2–3): 265–280.
Jull Costa, Margaret. 2013. Translation and Reading. Between the Lines, 11
September. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/multidisciplinary-and-intercultural-inquiry/
between-the-lines/between-the-lines-podcasts-publication/margaret-jull-
costa-translation. Accessed 13 Sep 2015.
———. 2014. Personal E-mail Correspondence with Harriet Hulme. March 9.
Kurlansky, Mark. 1999. The Basque History of the World. London: Vintage.
Lasagabaster, Jesús María. 1986. Introducción a la narrativa vasca actual. In
Antología de la narrativa vasca actual, ed. Jesús María Lasagabaster, 11–43.
Barcelona: Edicions de Mall.
———. 2012. Introduction: Basque Literary History. Trans. Amaia Gabantxo.
In Basque Literary History, ed. Mari Jose Olaziregi, 13–24. Reno: Center for
Basque Studies, University of Nevada Press.
Manterola Agirrezabalaga, Elizabete. 2011a. La traducción de la literatura vasca
a otras lenguas. mTm: minor Translating major – major Translating minor 3:
58–79.
———. 2011b. La autotraducción en la literatura vasca. In Aproximaciones a la
autotraducción, ed. Xosé Manuel Dasilva and Helena Tanqueiro, 111–140.
Vigo: Editorial Academia del Hispanismo.
Martín, Annabel. 2000. Modulations of the Basque Voice: An Interview with
Bernardo Atxaga. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 1 (2): 193–204.
Miletic, Tijana. 2008. European Literary Immigration into the French Language:
Readings of Gary, Kristof, Kundera and Semprún. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Nair, Parvati. 2004. Configuring Community: Theories, Narratives, and Practices
of Community Identities in Contemporary Spain. London: MHRA.
Olaziregi, Mari Jose. 2005. Waking the Hedgehog: The Literary Universe of
Bernardo Atxaga. Trans. Amaia Gabantxo. Reno: Center for Basque Studies,
University of Nevada Press.
188 H. Hulme
Ricœur, Paul. 2006. On Translation. Trans. Eileen Brennan. London: Routledge.

Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich. 2002. On the Different Methods of Translating.
Trans. Susan Bernofsky. In The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence
Venuti, 43–63. London: Routledge.
Sullivan, John. 1988. ETA and Basque Nationalism: The Fight for Euskadi,
1890–1986. London: Routledge.
Thomas, Dylan. 1997. Fern Hill: A Poem. Markham, ON: Red Deer College
Press.
Venuti, Lawrence. 1992. Introduction to Rethinking Translation: Discourse,
Subjectivity, Ideology, ed. Lawrence Venuti, 1–17. London: Routledge.
———. 1998. The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference.
London: Routledge.
———. 2008. The Translator’s Invisibility. A History of Translation. London:
Routledge.
Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, Auguste. 2010. The Torture by Hope. In Mystery and
Detective Stories, ed. Julian Hawthorne, 71–76. Bremen: Dogma.
Harriet Hulme completed her PhD in Comparative Literature from University

College London, UK, in 2016. She is preparing her first monograph for publica-
tion, entitled On Violence and Vision: Ethics and Aesthetics of Translation in the
Work of Kundera, Atxaga and Semprún. Previous publications include “Creating
Anew, Again: Deserted Islands and Textual Inhabitations” in Bernardo Atxaga’s
Obabakoak (Comparative Critical Studies) and “A Politics of Form: Fantasy and
Storytelling as Modes of Resistance in the Work of Atxaga and Kundera” in Fear
and Fantasy in a Global World (Rodopi, 2015).
Part III
Collaboration, Hybridisation and
Invisibility
Collaborative Self-Translation
in a Minority Language: Power
Implications in the Process, the Actors
and the Literary Systems Involved
Elizabete Manterola Agirrezabalaga
Within mainstream debates in translation studies, self-translation has

generally been considered an individual practice, derived from the bilin-
gual status of the self-translator. However the reality of that practice is
different, with many instances of self-translators assisted in their work by
other translating agents. This chapter will regard the self-translator as part
of a team, making a pioneering attempt to study collaborative self-
translation with a focus on the power implications involved in the trans-
lating process. It will begin by discussing the nature and the typology of
teamwork in the translating process. Further, it will demonstrate that
collaborative translating processes can be highly heterogeneous, thus
making the coinage of an all-encompassing general definition problem-
atic. The terminological gap in referring to the phenomenon could reflect
the scarcity of the in-depth research.
This chapter also seeks to identify and study the role played by each of
the actors involved in collaborative self-translation, taking into account
E. Manterola Agirrezabalaga (*)
University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Spain

192 E. Manterola Agirrezabalaga
the fact that the author and the allograph translator occupy different
positions. The relationship among the various participants in the process
is also examined, as it is my contention that close relationships in the
work team may have some particularities in terms of power dynamics
that need further investigation. Two examples of close collaborative self-
translations—that is, writer/spouse and writer/publisher—will serve to
address the power implications of this kind of relationship, which have
not received enough attention so far. Finally, this chapter draws attention
to the nature and the situation of the languages or cultures involved in
this type of literary exchange, since the power relations at play are reflected
in both the process and the final product. While self-translations are
widely produced in multilingual contexts across the globe, the reality of
a minority language coexisting with a hegemonic language offers a good
opportunity to reflect on the power implications that authors and trans-
lators face when accessing the major literary market in translating their
work from the minor literature. This chapter looks at the presence of
team self-translations in an asymmetrical language combination (Basque-
Spanish), which will serve as an example to illustrate the lack of visibility
of the practice of collaborative self-translation.
Defining Terminology
The study of collaborative self-translation is an emerging field with a
recent upsurge in interest. To date, approaches have come from either the
study of self-translation or the study of collaborative translation pro-
cesses. A number of recent conferences focusing on collaborative transla-
tion are indicative of this trend: La traduction collaborative. De l’Antiquité
à Internet (Paris, 2014), Translation as Collaboration: Translaboration?
(London, 2015), Researching Collaborative Translation (Hong Kong,
2016), Collaborative Translation and Self-Translation (Birmingham,
2016). All those events are conscious attempts to make the practice of
collaborative translation more visible and to highlight the nuances of the
phenomenon, as well as to define the activity as a subject of research and
introduce it in the academic field.
Collaborative Self-Translation in a Minority Language: Power... 193
Growing attention on teamwork translation processes (Vanderschelden

1998; Manterola 2014b; Dasilva 2016) derives from the understanding
that it differs from the individual activity. Put simply, the most obvious
difference between a collaborative and an individual translation is the
distribution of the workload. When working alone, all the steps of the
entire translating process are carried out by a single person, while in a
teamwork situation tasks are shared. Moreover, in a shared translating
process, there will inevitably exist an additional task to perform: to dis-
cuss and reach agreement on the process and the final product, concern-
ing the major decisions as well as the small details. Such decisions about
the process include the details regarding sharing the work among the
team members, the deadlines for different translating phases (first draft,
correction, proofreading, release), and the language or the tonality of the
text. The nature of each case of collaboration is different and depends on
the characteristics of the parties involved, the goal of the cooperative
work and the field of application. In a sense, it would probably be no
exaggeration to say that there are as many collaboration types as there are
collaboration teams.
The terminology applied to the joint work of an author and another
actor, or to that of two translators, is a challenge, with no consensus
reached on terminology for collaborative self-translation so far. The emer-
gence of new terms, discussed below, proves that the field is lively and
that different scholars want to make their own contributions. Nevertheless,
the need for appropriate terms is related to the lack of acknowledgement
of collaborative translation in the paratexts of books and makes the prac-
tice less invisible.
When analysing the existing terminology, I will begin by looking at
the broader concept of collaborative translation first, as sometimes col-
laborative self-translation might appear under generic terms. Current
encyclopaedias or manuals of translation studies (e.g., Baker and Saldanha
2009; Shuttleworth and Cowie 2014; Gambier and van Doorslaer 2014)
contain no terms referring to collaborative self-translation. The latter
includes a reference to collaborative translation, but only in the context
of computer-aided translation, machine translation and localisation envi-
ronments, networking and volunteer translators or teaching translation1
(Gambier and van Doorslaer 2014, 213). As such, literary translation

contexts are not taken into account and author-translator relationships
are even less so. Individual studies on various types of collaborative
translation processes suggest that there is no single, global term. Eugene
Nida, for example, used the denomination “team translation” in the Bible
translation context (1964). Nike Pokorn (2005) also used the same term
together with “collaboration” and “cooperation” when she analysed trans-
lation into a non-mother tongue. In her studies, she focused on those
cases where the translator of the source language does not have a suffi-
cient command of the target language, thus needing the help of a transla-
tor who does, but might not have an in-depth knowledge of the source
text. On the other hand, there is wider terminological variety when the
author participates in the process. Santoyo refers to “autotraducción indi-
vidual” [individual self-translation] in opposition to “autotraducción
compartida” [shared self-translation] (2012, 216), whereas Ramis uses
the terms “autotraducció directa” [direct self-translation] and “autotra-
ducció indirecta” [indirect self-translation] (2014, 103–104) to refer to
the same classification. Vanderschelden (1998) talks about “translation
collaboration,” and I have elsewhere suggested the general term “autotra-
ducción en colaboración” [collaborative self-translation] to refer to self-
translation by the author together with another translator or just
“collaboration,” which would include all kinds of team translations
(Manterola 2011, 2012, 2014a).
As will be argued in this chapter, there are multiple ways in which two
translators can work together, which call for more specific denomina-
tions. Anselmi, for instance, uses the term “editorial self-translations” in
order “to qualify translations resulting from a process of revision or super-
vision or retranslation on the part of the authors prompted by their dis-
satisfaction with the existing translations” (2012, 61), which may actually
go beyond “author-assisted translations” (Hermans 2007, 22). Considering
the heterogeneity of self-translation collaboration, Dasilva recently made
a detailed classification of authorial collaborations according to the degree
of the author’s involvement or participation (Dasilva 2015), distinguish-
ing between the “allograph translation with collaboration of the author”
and the “self-translation with allograph collaboration.” He proposed the
broad term “semiautotraducción” [semi-self-translation] for the latter.
The phenomenon of self-translation in collaboration includes five modal-

ities: “(i) self-translation in collaboration with an allograph translator; (ii)
self-translation revised by an allograph translator; (iii) allograph transla-
tion revised by the author; (iv) self-translation in collaboration with a
relative; and (v) allograph translation by a relative or a friend of the
author” (Dasilva 2016, 26).
he Nature and Typology of Teamwork

T
in Translating Process
Collaboration occurs at various levels and might refer to a varied range of
cooperative relations. As Toury argues, the translating process is not lim-
ited to the figure of the translator, as proofreaders or editors, for example,
also participate: “whatever the number, the common practice has been to
collapse all of them into one persona and have that conjoined entity
regarded as ‘the translator’” (1995, 183). In accepting this assumption,
we are acknowledging that paratexts fail to give an accurate image of the
work that has been done when creating, translating and publishing a
book. As such, reality is not reflected unmediated, but is adapted to con-
ventions that are in force in the publishing market.
In the first place, the translator is not confined within an isolated
space. In fact, he or she is given the task of translating a text by someone
(be it the author, the editor or a literary agent) who presumably negoti-
ates with the translator in defining the working conditions (deadline,
target audience, the style of the text, payment, etc.). Additionally, transla-
tors are also in contact with the layout designer, illustrator, proofreaders
and, if necessary, other translators who assist them in solving problems
derived from the translating process. Translators may also establish con-
tact with the actual author of the original text to resolve specific issues.
There are various situations in which the translator can work together
with some other agents. In those cases, which situations should be defined
as a simple, one-off contribution? And which ones should be considered
as going beyond that? At what point does a co-authorial relationship
begin, such that two parties are actually considered responsible for the
final text? It is hard to establish an arbitrary limit, a point where
the authorship of a work of translation goes from identifying a single

participant to recognising the product of teamwork activity.
Collaborative translations can differ in various types and levels, and it
can be difficult to assess the part played by each participant accurately.
Hence, the next section will discuss the relation between the author and
the translator to investigate how the power implications influence col-
laborative self-translation processes and products.
ower Relations between the Author

P
and the Translator
The author and the translator face the task of translation from different
starting points. As the actual author of the original text, the self-translator
comes from a process of creation to a recreation or an adaptation based
on his or her first text; the translator, on the other hand, has to read the
text, understand it, interpret it and work on it to arrive at a recreation of
the source text. In author-translator collaborations, the translator’s free-
dom to make decisions is much more limited than usual. At the same
time, the author and self-translator has to perform an exercise of self-
criticism in giving instructions on the interpretation of the text (Ivančić
2010, 18). Working hand in hand with a translator might make an author
feel that they are being judged or, as the Basque author Eider Rodriguez
describes it, that they are in an operating theatre where translators work
with surgical knifes and scissors deciding where to cut and where to add
elements—with no anaesthetic (Otegi 2013, 76). Authors might also feel
their creative ability is reduced because of the participation of the profes-
sional translator in the process.
For the translator, “the text is no longer the only reference to deal with
potential interpretation or ambiguity” (Vanderschelden 1998, 28).
Beyond the original text, the translator may receive explanations from the
author that help to interpret the source text, although authors’ explana-
tions may not always be helpful or make the work easier; this is some-
thing which will not be possible when there is no access to the author.
Consequently, in accepting the author’s assistance, the translation
becomes a shared process and the translator will have less scope to make
decisions. “In accepting active interference from the author, the t ranslator
reduces his [sic] own freedom and the potential for his [sic] own reading
of the source text” (Vanderschelden 1998, 28). On the other hand, when
discussing Groff’s experience translating the works of Grass, Zanotti
claims that
the translator working with the author has the opportunity to somehow
experience authorship: he or she is allowed (or even supposed) to ‘penetrate
authority to the point of merging and becoming confused with the author’s
intentions and linguistic objectives’. (Zanotti 2011, 85)
The role played by the author in the translating process, or the signifi-
cance that his or her name can have on the final translation and its pro-
motion, are elements to be taken into account when analysing collaborative
self-translations: “The notion of ‘authority’ conveys the power and legiti-
macy of the author in relation with the text. In this context, translation
collaboration can sometimes shift the decision process from translator to
author” (Vanderschelden 1998, 26). The power relation between the
author and the translator might sometimes be presented as a dialogue,
according to Zanotti, who comments on Ivančić’s research: “[Magris’]
participation in the translation of his [own] texts is regarded as dialogue
rather than intervention or imposition” (Zanotti 2011, 85).
When the draft version of a translated text needs modifications and the
author of the source text is participating in the process, it could be
assumed that the author has the final say as the final authority on the
original intent. Hence, the status of the author is considered decisive. In
this sense, the translator is “an element of subordination, due to a com-
mon assumption that the author knows best, associated with a natural
feeling of reverence toward the person of the author” (Vanderschelden
1998, 25), yet “still there is room for translators’ intervention and creativ-
ity” (Zanotti 2011, 87). According to the Spanish Copyright Law, it is
the translator (and not the author) who holds copyright over the text he
or she produces, that is, the translation. Therefore, in the case of transla-
tions signed by both parties as co-translators, it would be interesting to
observe to what extent the author has performed his or her authority. On
the other hand, there might be cases in which the final text is attributed
to a single translator, although he or she has worked together with the

author. In those covert collaborative self-translations, authors may also
act in a position of authority, although it is the translator who holds
copyright over the text. Dasilva (2016) classifies as semi-self-translations
allograph translations by a relative or friend of the author where the latter
intervenes without an explicit recognition of his or her responsibility over
the text; after all, the author makes his or her authority prevail, putting
the translator in a subordinate position.
Just as authors and translators do not share the same status in the liter-
ary field, nor do original and translated texts: “Our cultures give us a
translation form, and that form sets up an operative distinction between
translatorship and authorship” (Pym 2011, 41). Both notions are fre-
quently seen as opposing features. Compared to originals, translations
are traditionally regarded as secondary or derivative, but this is not always
the case with collaborative self-translations: “Some authorial authority is
transferred to the translation, which is thus lifted above the level of ordi-
nary translation and granted quasi-equivalence” (Anselmi 2012, 39). In
specific contexts in which the target language is dominant with respect
to the source language, this situation may be reversed: (collaborative)
self-translations might be considered superior to the original since trans-
lated versions into hegemonic languages gain prestige and may even be
presented as final and official versions. Additionally, they may work as
originals for translations into other languages. This is the case of many
Basque (as well as Catalan and Galician) books. For instance, after gain-
ing the Spanish Literary Award in 1989, Obabakoak (1988) by Bernardo
Atxaga was translated into more than 20 languages from the Spanish
version, and most of Atxaga’s subsequent books have also been translated
indirectly.2 Basque authors might even be seen as Spanish authors, like
any other author who writes directly in Spanish, hiding their cultural
identity behind the hegemonic label and making the minority literature
invisible.
Basque literature shares its geographical sphere with Spanish literature
(and also with French literature in the French Basque Country), and
there is a strong tendency to create all kind of cultural products in the
hegemonic language. Translation into Basque has traditionally and most
frequently been done from Spanish, and it is also unsurprising that
Spanish is the main target language of Basque translations, as authors are

bilingual and able to translate their own work into that language.
Moreover, Spanish literature exercises a centripetal force over minority
literatures within Spain, that is, Basque, Catalan and Galician literatures,
privileging the use of Spanish as literary language (Dasilva 2009, 146).
The study of self-translation in asymmetrical realities generally shows that
power relations between major-minor languages differ from those exist-
ing in exchanges between major languages.
Close Relationships Case Studies

Bilingual or multilingual authors who try self-translation, be it individu-
ally or in collaboration, end up opting for the method that best suits
them. Some decide that a collaborative self-translation process is not for
them or find that collaboration is not as easy as they first thought: “As for
most bilingual writers, Beckett’s one experience with another translator
(Patrick Bowles ‘in collaboration with the author’ for Molloy) was not
repeated” (Hokenson and Munson 2007, 189). While Hokenson and
Munson suggest that one attempt at collaborating with a translator is
enough to put authors off the experience, there is plenty of evidence in
various language combinations and different countries to suggest
otherwise.
Actors participating in collaborative self-translations have to rely on
one another, so it is not surprising to find examples of very close relation-
ships. The author and the translator might have a good professional rela-
tionship, be they close friends or even relatives. This section examines two
cases of close relationships: writer-publisher and writer-spouse. The first
involves Anjel Lertxundi, a prize-winning contemporary writer in Basque
literature, and the second is the case of the well-known author Bernardo
Atxaga, the most translated Basque writer.
Anjel Lertxundi is a key contemporary Basque writer who began writ-
ing in the 1970s and has had a productive career ever since. He has writ-
ten novels, short stories and essays, as well as numerous fiction books for
children and young adults. Lertxundi has received multiple awards
throughout his long career, for example the Critics Award in 1981 and
1983, the Euskadi Literary Prize 1999 or the Spanish Literary Award in
the Essay section in 2010.
Some of his books have been translated into Spanish. In Lertxundi’s
words, his first translating experiences were not completely satisfactory.
The book for children Tristeak kontsolatzeko makina (1981; La máquina
de la felicidad in the Spanish edition, 1988) was translated by one of
Lertxundi’s students. This student did not have much experience in trans-
lation and neither did the writer in being translated and proofreading the
work done by a translator (Egia 1999, 113). In addition, Lertxundi has
had a single experience in self-translating his own work when translating
into Spanish his short story Lur hotz hau ez da Santo Domingo (Egia
1999, 113). He has stated that once he finished the translation he became
aware of the big problem he had with the text. That is, the texts in Basque
and in Spanish are different, and the Spanish text was a work in progress
of the Basque original (Egia 1999, 114). Lertxundi thinks it is legitimate
to modify the text as it belongs to him, but the problem in that case was
that the Spanish text was presented as a translation, rather than an adap-
tation. After some time, and comparing both texts, Lertxundi decided he
did not want to translate his own work any more, mentioning being
faithful to the original as the main reason behind that decision (Egia
1999, 114). It is now his publisher, Jorge Gimenez Bech, who has become
his translator into Spanish. Gimenez Bech has undertaken all the Spanish
translations of Lertxundi’s 11 books since 1991.3 As the Spanish transla-
tions are ascribed to Gimenez Bech alone, this case could seem a typical
example of non-authorial translation, but many aspects make it possible
to categorise the process as an example of collaborative self-translation.
To begin with, the writer-translator cooperation begins at the stage of
creation, that is, prior to the translating process. In Lertxundi’s words
(Egia 1999, 211), his translator not only knows his literary work from the
inside, but also shares in the creative process while the author is writing
in Basque. As a result, Lertxundi gives Gimenez Bech autonomy to mod-
ify his voice as much as the latter feels is needed or possible for the trans-
lation into Spanish (Egia 1999, 121). Later, in the translating process, the
writer himself is somehow there to answer the questions that the transla-
tor might have:
Kontu literario asko literarioki eztabaidatuak ditugu itzulpenari ekin aur-

retik. Horrek esan nahi du, behintzat literario diren arazoak konponduta
ditugula ordurako, eta bakar-bakarrik itzulpenaren arazo teknikoak geldit-
zen direla: doinuarekin asmatzea, batez ere. Nire ustez, itzulpenaren kali-
tate neurria doinu egokiak ematen du. (Egia 1999, 124)
[Many literary issues have been discussed before the translation hap-
pens. That means that when the translation starts at least the literary prob-
lems have been solved and there only remain technical problems concerning
the translating process, mainly finding the adequate tone. In my opinion,
quality in a translation comes with an adequate tone.]4
The Lertxundi-Gimenez Bech case goes beyond the ordinary author-

translator relationship. The translator (commonly seen as inferior to the
writer) happens to be the publisher, who is an important figure in the
edition and publication of any book. The subordination of the transla-
tor’s position is neutralised as the power of the publisher may prevail. In
this particular case, moreover, the publisher/translator not only partici-
pates in the translating process but also closely follows the development
of the text from the writing phase in Basque.
Gimenez Bech’s translations are presented as allograph translations in
the credit pages of the books, but, as we see, this is not just an authorised
or exclusive allograph translation (Dasilva 2016). I consider it a case of
semi-self-translation, as the author proofreads and controls the Spanish
texts, working hand in hand with the translator before they are published.
The second case under study in this section focuses on the author
Bernardo Atxaga and his wife Asun Garikano. The well-known Basque
author won the Spanish Literary Award in 1989 with Obabakoak (1988),
and his books have been translated into numerous languages ever since.
Atxaga is the most exported author of contemporary Basque literature
and has been awarded with the Euskadi Literary Prize (1989, 1997, 1999,
2014), the Spanish Literary Prize (1989), the Milepages Prize (1991), the
Cesare Pavese Poetry Prize (2003), the Grinzane Cavour Prize (2008) and
the Marsh Award (2015).
As I have stated elsewhere (Manterola 2012, 2014a), Atxaga has played
an active role in his Spanish translations, as he considers it vital for a
bilingual writer to do so. Throughout his career, Atxaga has participated

in the translation process of his own works in different ways. He has self-
translated some of his books individually (e.g., Dos hermanos 1995; Un
espía llamado Sara 1996a) and worked in collaboration with a translator
on other occasions. For instance, he acted as a proofreader of the draft
version of Obabakoak, hiring several translators to adapt the novel into
Spanish in order to submit the text in time for the Spanish National
Award. Due to time constraints and the impossibility of self-translating
the novel on his own, Atxaga divided the book into three parts that were
translated by three different translators. Before submitting the text to the
jury, Atxaga himself proofread and made a coherent version out of the
various parts produced by each translator (Garzia 2002, 54). Thus, the
translation of the first draft of the novel was made specifically for the jury
of the Spanish Literary Award. However, the publication of the Spanish
text came after the prize, after Atxaga had proofread in depth and rewrit-
ten the whole text on his own (Garzia 2002, 55). Consequently, Atxaga
is the only one credited with the translation in the published version of
the book, although he explicitly recognises his gratitude to the three
translator-collaborators in the paratexts.
Besides that case, Atxaga has worked hand in hand with Arantza Sabán
in the translation of some of his books, like El hombre solo (1994b) and
Memorias de una vaca (1992) (although there is no explicit mention of
the participation of the author in the paratexts of the latter). As I have
shown elsewhere, Atxaga has always been part of the translation process
of his books into Spanish, and that is why these translations cannot be
considered allograph translations sensu stricto (Manterola 2014a, 66).
The translating experience between Atxaga and Sabán consisted in her
writing the first draft, as a blueprint for Atxaga to proofread, modify or
even rewrite to come up with the final text (Atxaga 1994a, 59). Sabán
raises an interesting question:
Escribe en euskera [Atxaga], muy bien, pero ¿por qué no se traduce él

mismo al castellano? Ya que sabe, podía traducirse él. Voy a aprovechar, ya
que estamos en público, para ver si consigo que me lo explique. Que me dé
una justificación de qué pinto yo en esta transmisión de los textos. (Atxaga
1994a, 58–59)
[He [Atxaga] writes in Basque, fine, but why doesn’t he self-translate his
work into Spanish? Since he speaks Spanish, he could translate himself.
Since we’re in public, I’m going to take this opportunity to see if I can get
an answer out of him. If he can tell me just what on earth I’m doing in the
transfer of these texts.]
Sabán’s comments reflect a view that Basque writers are supposed to

undertake the translation of their own work, which seems to be an expec-
tation projected on a bilingual writer of a diglossic literature.
After collaborating with Sabán, Atxaga began to work together with
the professional translator Asun Garikano from 1995 onwards, with the
book Esos cielos, and they have team translated a number of books such as
El hijo del acordeonista (2004), Siete casas en Francia (2009) and Días de
Nevada (2014). After many years of experience in exporting Basque lit-
erature into other languages, Atxaga has found a way of working on the
Spanish translation that best suits him. He participates in the translating
process together with Garikano, who happens to be his wife. They worked
in a simultaneous writing/translating process when translating the novel
Zazpi etxe Frantzian (Seven Houses in France, in the English version) into
Spanish. First, the author finished the draft in Basque and then the trans-
lator read it and made some preliminary notes, in order to prepare the
material to be translated. Those notes were revised by Atxaga. Finally, the
translator began the translation into Spanish (Atxaga 2008). During the
translating process the translator went back to the author in order to pose
questions whenever it was needed:
Orduan sortzen da, nire ustez, ideala dena gure kasuan; sortzen da halako
zirkuitu bat bezala, etengabe dago korronte bat; itzulpenetik jatorrizko tes-
tura eta jatorrizko testutik itzulpenera. (Atxaga 2008)
[Then I would say a circuit is created, which is ideal in our case, a circuit
where there is a continuous flow, from the translation to the original and
from the original to the translation.]
In the same interview, Atxaga refers to their way of working as a circuit,

which can be illustrated by means of a helix. The work begins in Basque
and is transferred into Spanish, which goes back to the writer, who makes
the appropriate modifications in Basque if necessary (e.g., correcting syn-

tactic, typographic, formal-linguistic, semantic and stylistic problems),
and once again these are transferred to the Spanish text. This happens
continuously, at any point or for any detail they consider necessary. Their
joint working system is made up of various stages: modifications to the
original, translation, proofreading the text and the final revision. So, in
some way, the Spanish translation is used to improve, modify or update
the “original” text in Basque.
The starting point is always the text in Basque, from which the Spanish
version is created. The translation process in turn involves some modifi-
cations and corrections to the source text, similar to proofreading a draft
of a novel. To a certain extent, the process makes both versions dependent
on each other to the point where it is impossible to identify a single origi-
nal. Nevertheless, the definitive Spanish version always comes after the
last Basque version.
Atxaga and Garikano’s work is yet another example of women translat-
ing alongside their husbands for centuries, often unacknowledged (Wolf
2005). However, the case of Atxaga and Garikano is different in this
respect, as there is explicit recognition of both author’s and translator’s
participation in the translation process. The formula “Traducción de
Asun Garikano y Bernardo Atxaga” [Translated by Asun Garikano and
Bernardo Atxaga] seems to give both co-translators equal or similar
responsibility for the text. However, it would be interesting to see to what
extent the fact that the translator (as noted earlier commonly seen as
inferior to the writer) here is the wife (commonly seen as inferior to the
man/husband)5 of the writer reinforces the traditional hierarchies of the
writer-translator relationship.
Moreover, the asymmetrical status of the combination of languages
involved pushes the author to control the output of the translation pro-
cess. A minority writer knows that there are issues that have to be adapted
in order to address a hegemonic readership due to ideological or political
factors. He or she also knows that if the text is to be translated into a third
language it will probably be translated from Spanish, as there are not
many translators able to translate from Basque. It is then important for a
Basque writer to come up with a target text that will subsequently serve
as an original. As Atxaga’s works have been translated into more than 30
languages and all his books are likely to be translated, he controls the text
in Spanish to the same extent as the Basque text, and originality is shared
by both texts in some way.
The power relation between the Basque text and the Spanish text must
be considered by also taking into account the position each version occu-
pies in the literary market. Within Basque Country, both books share the
same geographical and cultural sphere, so the sales numbers and the suc-
cess of each version of a literary work might influence the other. On the
one hand, they can complement each other, as the Spanish translation
offers the non-Basque-speaking readership within the territory the option
to read a literary work written originally in Basque. On the other hand,
there is also the risk for the Basque version to lose readers, as there are a
considerable number of bilingual readers who are more accustomed to
reading literature in Spanish rather than in Basque.
The publication date of the Spanish translation is another important
factor to measure the status of each version. As I have pointed out previ-
ously (Manterola 2014b, 197), there is a growing tendency in the transla-
tion of Basque literature to publish Basque and Spanish versions
simultaneously. In 2009, for example, Bernardo Atxaga published the
Spanish, Catalan and Galician translations of his novel Zazpi etxe
Frantzian (also in English as Seven Houses in France) only two weeks after
the original appeared. In the words of the author, no one can imagine
how difficult the whole process was (Montaño 2010). Atxaga considered
it important to publish the book in the four official languages of Spain,
but it failed to produce the expected impact (Montaño 2010). Lertxundi
also published one of his latest novels, Etxeko hautsa (2011a), at the same
time as the Spanish version Los trapos sucios (2011b) [Dirty Laundry]. In
his words, the simultaneous publication of the original and the transla-
tion has been beneficial for him, since the process of translation may
improve the source text.
Itzultzailea da idazle baten irakurlerik onena, hartzen duen denbora eta

jartzen duen arreta dela eta. Niri itzultzaileak kontuan hartzeko moduko
ohar asko egin dizkit, jatorrizkoa hobetzeko baliagarriak izan zaizkidanak.
Itzultzailea euskarazko bertsioa kaleratu eta gero hasi balitz lanean, beran-
duegi jasoko nituen ohar horiek. (Zabala 2011, 33)
[The translator is the best reader of a text, because of the time he or she
spends on it and the attention he or she pays to the text. My translator
alerted me to a lot of things that I should take into account, and this
allowed me to improve the original. If the translator had begun to work
after the Basque version had gone to press, I would have received those
remarks too late.]
As translating a text offers the opportunity to make errors or mistakes

visible, some writers prefer having the chance of correcting them. This is
one reason why some authors decide to publish both versions simultane-
ously, or at least to begin the translation before putting the source text in
print. Publishing a translation simultaneously with its original does not
necessarily mean that they were written at the same time, but it might be
an attempt to create two very close versions. Some authors see it as an
opportunity to improve the original text. In the case of Mariasun Landa,
she began her self-translating experience writing her work in Basque first
and rewriting the text in Spanish later. As she states, she used to be faith-
ful to the original text, in a way that she nowadays considers somewhat
rigid (Landa 2009, 73). After an extended experience in translating her
own works, the way in which she works has evolved:
Later on, I gained more freedom, until arriving at a point now where, as I
publish my books almost simultaneously in the two languages, I often
return to the original to correct it, to enrich it, or to introduce nuances. In
reality, this experience of self-translation or rewriting has increased within
me an awareness of authorship. (Landa 2009, 73)
Hence, if the first text is not yet published, writers do modify the Basque
original when working on the Spanish version, be it individually or in
collaboration with another translator, which makes the creation process a
bilingual act. That is, in the creation phase writers are already conscious
of their work’s future translation.
In both Lertxundi’s and Atxaga’s cases, their translators are an impor-
tant part of the authors’ lives, which establishes a very personal collabora-
tion. In Lertxundi’s case, Gimenez Bech is also the publisher of the source
and target books, which makes him an important figure for the author, as
he is not just the translator, but also responsible for the Spanish edition.
In Atxaga’s case, Garikano is his wife and his co-translator. Both Gimenez
Bech and Garikano have detailed knowledge of the text they are going to
translate from the very beginning, from the creation phase in Basque.
Nevertheless, Atxaga participates more actively in the translation process,
working side by side with Garikano. Atxaga wants to control the out-
come in Spanish, as that is generally the source text for translations into
other languages. Lertxundi gives autonomy to his co-translator, as they
have already discussed stylistic issues in the writing process, but he also
proofreads the Spanish text, as it is his other literary language.
ecognition of Collaboration and Power

R
Dynamics
Solo self-translators can be located at one end of the spectrum, while
authors who do not participate at all in the translation of their original
works are at the other end (Manterola 2014a, 93). Even in cases where a
professional translator is responsible for transferring a text into another
language, bilingual or multilingual authors may be able to read and
authorise the translation. The translator Bego Montorio has translated
multiple works by Basque authors into Spanish. She states that her expe-
rience varies significantly from one author to another, as some like to
control the outcome in Spanish while others wholly rely on her, showing
little interest in proofreading the text (Arrula 2012). In the case of minor-
ity language literatures, writers who choose not to self-translate, be it
individually or collaboratively, are viewed negatively by hegemonic liter-
ary systems, as if those authors did not really care about their work, or it
can also be considered as if they were reclaiming their own cultural iden-
tity (Dasilva 2009, 147). In fact, in the context of asymmetrical language
combinations, publishing houses pressure writers to translate their own
books if they have the necessary linguistic proficiency (Dasilva 2016).
Nevertheless, the translation into a hegemonic language that a minority
writer is proficient in may differ from a translation into any third lan-
guage that a writer may master. Apart from the language skills needed for
translation, the writer’s extensive knowledge of the hegemonic culture
and of political and ideological factors will influence the outcome.
Authors are also aware of the impact the translation will have on their
position in the literary system.
Hegemonic cultures tend to appropriate minority language writers and
works (Dasilva 2009, 146), concealing the fact that they were originally
published in the minority language, or, in case of simultaneous publica-
tions, as seen above, without taking into account that the text was first
written in the minority language. There is a preference for translated books
to be presented as the actual originals, eliminating all information about
the (self-)translation process. For example, the novel Esos cielos (1996b)
[The Lone Woman] by Bernardo Atxaga was published as an original in
Spanish, as it did not contain any mention of translation activities. The
publishing house made the decision not to include any reference to the
translation, contrary to what the author and the translator would have
wished (Atxaga 2008). Publishers are aware that translations from minor-
ity languages are generally harder to sell, hence presenting a self-translated
book appears to have more authority than an allograph translation, as it
seems closer to the original rather than to the translation. That might be a
reason why Spanish publishers prefer the actual author to be the translator.
Dasilva mentions economic reasons, as there is no need to hire a translator,
and prestige, as a self-translated book presents the writer as the author of
the final product (2016). If an author decides not to self-translate, pub-
lishers will want them to be somehow present in the paratexts to demon-
strate that it is an authorised version. Therefore, one might assume that
(collaborative) self-translations are preferred with respect to non-authorial
translations when going from a minority to a dominant language.
If defining the degree of collaboration might be difficult, it is no less so
to put it down in words and to adequately acknowledge it in a publica-
tion. Desirably, paratexts should provide reliable information about the
book as they can play an important role in visualising a minority lan-
guage (Manterola 2014a, 242). However, a series of questions might
arise: If there is more than one translator, should all names be included?
If a publisher prefers to refer to a single translator, which one should
appear in the paratext? Who has been responsible for the translation?
Who decides which name(s) to include? Some collaborative self-
translations are presented as the work of a single translator, without rec-
ognising the work carried out by the whole team and hiding the real
authorship of the translation. That is the case of Atxaga: throughout his

career his books translated into Spanish have been presented in paratexts
as allograph translations, as collaborative self-translations or individual
self-translation, but in fact he has always participated in the translation
process (Manterola 2014a, 218).
Some paratexts mention a single name, whereas others refer to collabo-
ration in different ways. The blurred boundaries between an allograph
translation with the author’s collaboration, a collaborative self-translation
or semi-self-translation and a self-translation with allograph collabora-
tion give rise to great variety when ascribing a translation. How each
party is presented is reflective of the degree in which translation is
acknowledged. Authors, for instance, might appear as proofreaders. The
novel Martutene (2012) by Ramon Saizarbitoria was translated by
Madalen Saizarbitoria, the author’s daughter, and proofread by him, as
noted in the paratexts. The fact that there is a close relationship between
them suggests that the joint work might go beyond an ordinary “allo-
graph translation revised by the author.” The author recognised in a tele-
vision interview that “como vulgarmente se dice, le he metido bastante
mano y he cambiado algunas cosas que no estaban suficientemente claras”
[I tinkered with it a fair deal and have changed some things that were not
sufficiently clear] (Teleberri 2013). He prefers to proofread the translation
instead of translating it himself because with a self-translation he could
have rewritten a new novel from the original (Teleberri 2013). Further
study of the author-translator process dynamics in the context of the
father/daughter relationship could suggest its implications.
There are also cases where the self-translator’s name appears first, pre-
ceding the translator’s: the translation into Spanish of Babilonia [Babylon]
by Irigoien, for instance, specifically states that it has been translated from
Basque by Joan Mari Irigoien, with the collaboration of Mikel Lasa, Paco
Sagarzazu, Lourdes Ortiz and Begoña Alkiza (Irigoien 1998). On the
other hand, the allograph translator may also receive as much recognition
as the self-translator, giving the impression that they have worked side by
side. This is the case of the Spanish translations of El hijo del acordeonista
(Atxaga 2004) and Siete casas en Francia (Atxaga 2009), whose paratexts
included the formulation “Traducción de Asun Garikano y Bernardo
Atxaga” [translated by Asun Garikano and Bernardo Atxaga].
Each form gives more or less detail about the extent to which each
party has participated in the process. In the case of Bernardo Atxaga, col-
laboration is shown in a systematic manner. Thus, the information pre-
sented in paratexts does not always reflect the nuances of the collaborative
self-translation processes.
Going beyond the minor–major relationship, there may also be col-
laborative self-translations between minor literatures. In O pelo de Van’t
Hoff(2004), the Galician translation of Van’t Hoffen ilea (2003) [Van’t
Hoff’s Hair] by the Basque author Unai Elorriaga, the credits indicate that
the author himself proofread the translation done by Xesús Carballo
Soliño. Coincidentally, on the publishers’ website, in some catalogues,
and online bookstores Elorriaga appears as the co-translator of the
Galician text. However, although Elorriaga has a good command of the
language and has translated a couple of books from Galician, he has not
written anything in Galician. His contribution consisted of proofreading
the text before publication. Does this qualify him as a co-translator? The
appearance of the author’s name seems out of place in this case. Due to
the similarity in status of both minority languages, it is plausible that the
Galician publisher wanted to demonstrate that the author had taken care
of the target publication. In this case, the minor–minor relationship
might explain the intention of creating an illusion of the author’s proxim-
ity to the target readership.
Conclusion
Self-translation has attracted much attention lately. In this chapter, I
have tried to broaden the perspective by analysing specific cases in
which authors translate their own work not individually, but with the
help of others, focusing on close relationships, such as writer/publisher
and writer/spouse. This has only been a first attempt in examining the
joint work of an author and an allograph translator, and there is no
doubt that it will be a productive research field within translation
studies.
To conclude, translations carried out in pairs cannot be classified in a
single category or form a homogeneous phenomenon as many factors
influence the translating process. They include the number of people

involved, the relationship of both author and translator to the original
text, with each other and with each of the languages and cultures taking
part in the transfer. Apart from these, the role or the task to be performed
by each member of the team within the translation process is also rele-
vant, as each process of co-translation will give a different outcome
depending on the collaboration specifics.
Through the study of close collaborative self-translations, both between
a writer and his wife and a writer and his publisher, this chapter has high-
lighted the power implications that influence the translating process
between the self-translator and the allograph translator. The particular
role played by each participant may depend not only on the professional
status but also on the personal relationship. The information given in
paratexts helps visualise the role played by each party in a collaborative
self-translation. The study of some examples of Basque works translated
into Spanish show that it is difficult to reflect accurately the degree of
involvement of the self-translator and the co-translator.
In terms of language combinations engaged in collaborative self-
translation, this chapter has shown that authors in minority languages are
often encouraged to self-translate their own works into the hegemonic
language, as it makes possible to present them as authors in the major
language too. Those who do not want to go back to their work and trans-
late it themselves do find collaboration with a translator a preferable way
of working, as they are able to proofread and somehow control the
outcome.
Notes
1. Beyond the literary field, ‘collaborative translation’, or ‘team translation’,
are common terms used in software translation, where the concept is
expanding as technology develops. Teamwork can also occur in other
fields and at other levels, such as in advertising and marketing. Outside
the field of literature, the authorship of the source text does not seem so
important, and, as a result, different collaborative translation processes are
encountered.
2. For a detailed analysis of Atxaga’s self-translation of Obabakoak see Harriet

Hulme’s “Self-Translating between Minor and Major Languages: a
Hospitable Approach in Bernardo Atxaga’s Obabakoak” in this volume.
3. The last book written by Lertxundi was not translated by Gimenez Bech,
but by Gerardo Markuleta. At that time, and until January 2017, Gimenez
Bech was the director of the Department for Linguistic Research and
Coordination in the Basque Government.
4. Unless otherwise stated, all translations from Basque are my own.
5. See Lori Chamberlain (1988) for a discussion on how men do the produc-
tive work of writing and women do the reproductive work of translation.
References
Anselmi, Simona. 2012. On Self-Translation. An Exploration in Self-Translator’s
Teloi and Strategies. Milano: Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia
Diritto.
Arrula, Garazi. 2012. Itzultzaileak Mintzo: Bego Montorio. Elearazi Blog,
November 5. http://elearazi.eizie.eus/2012/11/05/itzultzaileak-mintzo-bego-
montorio/. Accessed 28 Dec 2016.
Atxaga, Bernardo. 1988. Obabakoak. Donostia: Erein (Basque version).
———. 1989. Obabakoak. Barcelona: Ediciones B (Spanish version).
———. 1992. Memorias de una vaca. Madrid: SM.
———. 1994a. Mesa redonda: Bernardo Atxaga y sus traductores. Vasos comu-
nicantes 4: 53–64. http://revistavasoscomunicantes.blogspot.com.
es/2011/03/vasos-comunicantes-numero-4.html. Accessed 6 Sep 2016.
———. 1994b. El hombre solo. Barcelona: Ediciones B.
———. 1995. Dos hermanos. Madrid: Ollero & Ramos.
———. 1996a. Un espía llamado Sara. Madrid: SM.
———. 1996b. Esos cielos. Barcelona: Ediciones B.
———. 2004. El hijo del acordeonista. Madrid: Alfaguara.
———. 2008. Unpublished Interview with Elizabete Manterola. November 24,
Vitoria-Gasteiz.
———. 2009. Siete casas en Francia. Madrid: Alfaguara.
———. 2014. Días de Nevada. Madrid: Alfaguara.
Baker, Mona, and Gabriela Saldanha. 2009. Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation
Studies. London: Routledge.
Chamberlain, Lori. 1988. Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation. Signs 13
(3): 454–472.
Collaborative Translation and Self-Translation. 2016. One day symposium held

in Birmingham, January 23, University of Birmingham. http://www.bir-
mingham.ac.uk/research/activity/bct/events/2016/collaborative-translation-
self-translation-workshop.aspx. Accessed 1 June 2016.
Dasilva, Xosé Manuel. 2009. Autotraducirse en Galicia: ¿bilingüismo o diglosia?
Quaderns 16: 143–156.
———. 2015. El fenómeno de la autotraducción. La tipología de la autotraduc-
ción. Paper presented at the symposium Self-Translation: Global and Local,
Vitoria-Gasteiz, February 26–27.
———. 2016. En torno al concepto de semiautotraducción. Quaderns 23: 15–35.
Egia, Gotzon. 1999. Anjel Lertxundi eta Jorge Giménez Bech: idazlea eta bere
itzultzailea. Senez 21: 113–131.
Elorriaga, Unai. 2003. Van’t Hoffen ilea. Donostia: Elkarlanean.
———. 2004. O pelo de Van’t Hoff. Vigo: Galaxia.
Gambier, Yves, and Luc van Doorslaer, eds. 2014. Handbook of Translation
Studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Garzia, Juan. 2002. Bernardo Atxaga. Sobre la traducción de Obabakoak.
Quimera 210: 53–57.
Hermans, Theo. 2007. The Conference of the Tongues. Manchester: St. Jerome.
Hokenson, Jan, and Marcella Munson. 2007. The Bilingual Text. History and
Theory of Literary Self-Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome.
Irigoien, Joan Mari. 1998. Babilonia. Madrid: Acento.
Ivančić, Barbara. 2010. Il dialogo tra autori e traduttori. L’esempio di Claudio
Magris. Bologna: Quaderni del Centro di Studi Linguistico-Culturali
(CeSLiC). http://amsacta.unibo.it/2855/1/Autori_e_traduttori_B.Ivancic_
PDF.pdf. Accessed 10 Sep 2016.
La traduction collaborative. De l’Antiquité à Internet. 2014. Conference held in
Paris, June 5–7. http://collaborativetranslation.labex-arts-h2h.fr. Accessed 1
June 2016.
Landa, Mariasun. 2009. Identity, Language, Creation. (An Authobiographical
Vision). In Writers in Between Languages: Minority Languages in the Global
Scene, ed. Mari Jose Olaziregi, 65–74. Reno: University of Nevada Press.
Lertxundi, Anjel. 1981. Tristeak kontsolatzeko makina. Donostia: Erein.
———. 1988. La máquina de la felicidad. Madrid: Alborada.
———. 2011a. Etxeko hautsa. Irun: Alberdania.
———. 2011b. Los trapos sucios. Irun: Alberdania.
Manterola, Elizabete. 2011. La autotraducción en la literatura vasca. In
———. 2012. Euskal literatura beste hizkuntza batzuetara itzulia. Bernardo

Atxagaren lanen itzulpen moten arteko alderaketa. Bilbao: Servicio Editorial de
la UPV/EHU.
———. 2014a. Literatura vasca traducida. Bern: Peter Lang.
———. 2014b. Una mirada hacia la traducción literaria del euskera al castel-
lano. Hermeneus 16: 177–208.
Montaño, Ericka. 2010. Busco un lenguaje que nos aleje de lo confortable, dice
Atxaga. La Jornada, April 27. http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/04/27/
cultura/a04n1cul. Accessed 7 Sep 2016.
Nida, Eugene. 1964. Toward a Science of Translating, with Special Reference to
Principles and Procedures Involved in Bible Translating. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Otegi, Itziar. 2013. Pizti-jendea: katuak, itzultzaileak eta idazleak. Senez 44:
61–77.
Pokorn, Nike. 2005. Challenging the Traditional Axioms. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Pym, Anthony. 2011. The Translator as Non-author, and I am Sorry About that.
In The Translator as Author. Perspectives on Literary Translation, ed. Claudia
Buffagni, Beatrice Garzelli, and Serenella Zanotti, 31–43. Münster: LIT
Verlag.
Ramis, Josep Miquel. 2014. Autotraducció. De la teoria a la pràctica. Barcelona:
Eumo Editorial.
Researching Collaborative Translation: An International Symposium. 2016. Symposium
held in Hong Kong, 7–8 April, Hong Kong Baptist University. https://artisini-
tiative.org/2015/06/03/artishongkong2016/. Accessed 1 June 2016.
Saizarbitoria, Ramon. 2012. Martutene. Donostia: Erein.
Santoyo, Julio César. 2012. Autotraducciones: ensayo de tipología. In Al human-
ista, traductor y maestro Miguel Ángel Vega Cernuda, ed. Pilar Martino Alba,
Juan A. Albaladejo Martínez, and Martha Pulido, 205–222. Madrid: Editorial
DYKINSON.
Shuttleworth, Mark, and Moira Cowie. 2014. Dictionary of Translation Studies.
London: Routledge.
Teleberri. 2013. Martutene, de Saizarbitoria, cuenta con su versión en castellano.
ETB 2, May 7. http://www.eitb.eus/es/videos/detalle/1334262/video-
martutene-ramon-saizarbitoria-version-castellano/. Accessed 1 July 2016.
Toury, Gideon. 1995. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.
Translation as Collaboration: Translaboration? 2015. One day symposium held in
London, June 18, University of Westminster. https://www.westminster.ac.
uk/news-and-events/events/translation-as-collaboration-translaboration-
one-day-symposium. Accessed 1 June 2016.
Vanderschelden, Isabelle. 1998. Authority in Literary Translation. Collaborating

with the Author. Translation Review 56: 22–31.
Wolf, Michaela. 2005. The Creation of A ‘Room of One’s Own’: Feminist
Translators as Mediators Between Cultures and Genders. In Gender, Sex and
Translation. The Manipulation of Identities, ed. José Santaemilia, 15–25.
Manchester: St. Jerome.
Zabala, Juan Luis. 2011. Gure literaturan, esan gabekoak gehiago esan du gataz-
kaz esandakoak baino. Berria, June 23. http://paperekoa.berria.info/
plaza/2011-06-23/032/001/gure_literaturan_esan_gabekoak_gehiago_
esan_du_gatazkaz_esandakoak_baino.htm. Accessed 15 Sep 2016.
Zanotti, Serenella. 2011. The Translator and the Author: Two of a Kind? In The
Translator as Author. Perspectives on Literary Translation, ed. Claudia Buffagni,
Beatrice Garzelli, and Serenella Zanotti, 79–89. Münster: LIT Verlag.
Elizabete Manterola Agirrezabalaga is Lecturer in Translation and Interpreting

at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain. She works on
translated Basque literature and is the author of the book La literatura vasca
traducida (Peter Lang, 2014). She has also written various articles and book
chapters on self-translation in Basque literature and outward translation from
Basque, observing mainly works by Bernardo Atxaga. Other research interests
include translation within minority language contexts, outward translation,
indirect translation and corpus-based translation studies.
Collaborative Self-Translation
as a Catastrophe: The Case of Vadim
Kozovoï in French
Julia Holter
In 1977, the Russian poet and translator of French poetry into Russian,
Vadim Kozovoï (1937–1999), wrote to Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev in Le
Monde on July 9: “Je vous demande, très respecté Leonid Illitch,
d’ordonner un nouvel examen de la dernière demande de passeport pour
me rendre en France. Cela fait quatorze ans que je m’occupe de littérature
française” [I am asking you, respected Leonid Ilyich, to order a new exam-
ination of my last request for a passport to go to France. It’s been fourteen
years that I’ve been taking care of French literature] (Zand 1984, 17).1
Kozovoï started “taking care” of French literature while learning French in
the Gulag, the Soviet forced labour camps, where he was a political pris-
oner between 1957 and 1963. In 1967, he managed to translate Henri
Michaux, and in 1973 René Char (Kozovoï 1973), while engaging in a
correspondence with both—first as an admirer, soon as an equal.
The Soviet canon of French poetry, which was limited to the politically
compatible figures, inevitably excluded a number of important authors.2
J. Holter (*)
Centre national de la recherche scientifique CNRS/ENS, Paris, France

218 J. Holter
When Kozovoï published selected poems by Lautréamont, Rimbaud and

Mallarmé in 1980, their works were largely unknown to Russian readers.
With respect to contemporary literature, authorised translations were
mainly restricted to authors known to be pro-communist, such as Henri
Barbusse, Romain Rolland, André Stil, Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard.
But Kozovoï managed to slide into the translations of anthologies of Paul
Claudel, Léon-Paul Fargue, René Char, Henri Michaux, Michel Deguy
and Jacques Dupin, some of them under the cover of their participation
in Soprotivlenie, the Resistance movement.3
In the context of the Soviet cultural underground, where each pub-
lished translation of “uncensored” French poetry was a revelation and a
victory against official Soviet culture, Kozovoï’s work undoubtedly repre-
sented an important cultural development and a type of resistance. Hence
his reputation among the French intellectuals as a courier of French cul-
ture to Russia. However, a question arises: Could Kozovoï’s cultural
smuggling work in the other direction? Could he contribute something
new to the understanding of Russian culture by the French literary world?
In 1981, after an official letter of support from seven French writers
and a petition from Kozovoï announced in Figaro in August 1980, he was
finally able to go to France (Figaro 1980). He was allowed to take his
autistic son Boris with him, so that he could receive medical treatment.
However, his wife Irina Emelianova and his second son Andrei were not
allowed to leave the USSR, and they would only join their family in
1985.
Kozovoï was determined to restart his literary career in France. The
first dilemma he faced was the choice of language he should use for writ-
ing and translating. In 1982, he published a collection of his poetry in
Russian entitled Прочь от холма [lit. Away from the Hill] through a
Parisian publisher, Syntaxis (Kozovoï 1982). The pleasure of seeing the
book published was spoiled by the knowledge that in France there could
be no reader for it, as he writes in a letter to his wife:
Все эти люди, даже публикующие русские издания, не случайно

покинули Московию […] Не звенит у них в ушах русское слово и
тихо-тайно песня русская не дребезжит. (Kozovoï 2005, 176)
Collaborative Self-Translation as a Catastrophe: The Case... 219
[All these people, even those publishing Russian books, did not flee
Muscovy by accident […]. The Russian word does not ring and the Russian
song does not secretly and quietly rattle in their ears.]
His French friends encouraged him to translate his poetry into French
and offered their help. The idea of collaborative self-translation comes as
a testing ground, an unavoidable step on the road towards a new literary
self in France. This idea would finally materialise in 1984, with the pub-
lication of the bilingual poetry book Hors de la colline/Прочь от холма by
the Parisian publisher Hermann (Kosovoï 1984), self-translated in col-
laboration with his French friends and poets Jacques Dupin and Michel
Deguy.
As I will argue later in this chapter, this task was especially challenging
in Kozovoï’s case, as his most original contribution comes from his inno-
vative Russian versification, a revolution he tried to achieve in rhythm
and intonation, rupturing the verse in order to “extraire de la rupture et
de l’engouffrement un rythme inassimilable, une scansion hoquetante”
[extract from its breaking and engulfing an inassimilable rhythm and a
hiccupping scansion] (Dupin 2000, 4), or in order to link “terreur et
parole” [word to terror] (Nivat 2004). While struggling with translating
this innovation into French, Kozovoï also had to overcome all the obsta-
cles associated with changing his working and living environment. On
the one hand, he was dealing with the inherent difficulty of taking an
innovation in versification from one language and poetic tradition into
another. On the other, he was facing the problem of trying to find his
place in French society as a foreigner. These two very different problems
function separately: the social success does not automatically make a
poetic translation any easier, although a good social integration might
have helped him find good poetic solutions. At the same time, in order to
be “adopted” by the French literary system, he had to integrate as a for-
eigner, although to successfully self-translate his Russian innovative
poetry and the strangeness of his verse, he also had to preserve his for-
eignness. In both cases, his exoticism had to become his strength. To
thrive, he had to learn the new codes while cultivating his difference,
while remaining true to his Russian identity.
220 J. Holter
Bearing all this in mind, in this chapter I shall explore how Kozovoï
tries to achieve this self-translation, understood here in the broad sense of
transcending the textual level to incorporate the translation of his skills
and personality, the process in which he had to rely on his immediate or
extended collaborators. I will focus on Kozovoï’s experience of self-
translating a selection of his poems for his most important bilingual pub-
lication Hors de la colline/Прочь от холма (1984), comparing his
experience to that of other authors with a similar trajectory. My aim is to
show that this collaborative self-translation might be only a small part of
Kozovoï’s total transfer of experience and not a sine qua non condition of
its success. Before doing that, an overview of Kozovoï’s personal and liter-
ary experience in France between 1981 and 1984 is needed.
issidence, French Professional Solidarity

D
and Collaborative Self-Translation as Give
and Take
Among the group of French intellectuals who interceded on Kozovoï’s
behalf to allow him to migrate to France was the highly influential phi-
losopher and literary theorist Maurice Blanchot. Before leaving the
USSR, Kozovoï was actively corresponding with him and showed sup-
port and admiration for Blanchot’s orphic vision of poetry. Blanchot, for
his part, was flattered to find a fervent admirer and follower in the cultur-
ally remote USSR, someone who could potentially be useful for his pro-
fessional agenda. His letters are equally flattering. He writes, for example:
“Votre poème est. l’un des plus forts que l’aie lus, et je suis heureux du
don que vous me faites dans l’amitié qui nous unira toujours” [Your poem
is one of the strongest I have ever read, and I am happy of your gift of
friendship that will always unite us] (Blanchot 2009, 81). Blanchot’s let-
ters encourage Kozovoï to persevere in his work, and they promise sup-
port and a warm welcome in France. One from 1977 reads:
Je viens d’écrire à René Char … Soyez assuré que sont proches de vous,
dans les circonstances présentes, les plus grands écrivains et intellectuels
français … Ils savent qu’ils vous doivent beaucoup; ils souhaitent
a rdemment que vous puissiez venir en France pour les rencontrer. Vous
n’êtes pas seul, sachez-le et qu’on le sache autour de vous. Nous sommes
tous solidaires de votre destin. (Blanchot 2009, 34)
[I have just written to René Char. … Be assured that the greatest writers
and French intellectuals are behind you. They know that they owe you a
lot; they wish passionately that you would continue your work as poet and
translator, as they wish that you could come to France to meet them. You
are not alone. Do know this and make it known to others as well. We are
all in solidarity with your destiny.]
When Kozovoï, encouraged in this way, finally arrived in France in 1981,

a number of well-known French writers, including Blanchot, Julien
Gracq, Jean Cassou and Julien Green, received him warmly in Paris,
offered their friendship, helped financially and interceded on his behalf
with the French authorities for employment and accommodation.
This enthusiastic welcome occurred in the context of what Cécile
Vassié (2012) describes as the “shock” associated with the publication of
The Gulag Archipelago in June 1974, when French intellectuals were
finally forced to acknowledge the direct link between Soviet communism
and repression (Vaissié 2012, 372–376). In fact, the passion for dissi-
dents and the professional solidarity of the 1970s and 1980s were in
many ways the result of a belated desire for justice vis-à-vis the repressed.
While this highly politicised climate explains part of the interest that
some of the leading French literary figures had in Kozovoï’s life and work,
other personal reasons were at work as well. The welcome that Kozovoï
enjoyed was conditioned by personal needs and cultural agendas. The
hosts expected their efforts for Kozovoï to be rewarded by loyalty and
respect. They wanted to see exciting original work that would enrich their
understanding of Russian culture and, very importantly, would build on
and show the significance of their own work. Kozovoï had initiated the
relationship with them when he translated their poetry and engaged in an
exchange of letters. They reciprocated by helping him to get out of the
USSR and then assisting him with his self-translation. It was his turn again
to contribute in order to further this collaboration. In this regard, transla-
tion functions, just as other literary collaboration and research, as a give
and take. Kozovoï’s French friends became his patrons in effect and like
every protégé, he was expected to show talent, enthusiasm and hard work.
222 J. Holter
The promising intelligence and perspicacity indicated in Kozovoï’s let-

ters were put to the test. Literary work in France is demanding and com-
petitive. Kozovoï had to adjust to new living conditions as well: the
dormitory for art students, where Kozovoï was fortunate to be hosted free
of charge on Ile Saint-Louis, was noisy and unsuited to the needs of a
family man. He spent 1982 wandering between apartments and various
translation and writing jobs. In the same year, Kozovoï’s translation into
French of Chekhov’s Three Sisters (commissioned by a theatre in Grenoble)
was rejected. Kozovoï, crushed, narrated this failure in a letter to Blanchot,
who answered patiently, reassuring him: “Je suis bouleversé par l’expression
de votre désespoir après la réponse de gens de Grenoble … Les gens de
théâtre sont souvent très incultes” [I am distressed by the expression of
your despair after the refusal in Grenoble. … Theatre people are often
very uncultivated] (Blanchot 2009, 80).
What I find striking is not only that the Soviet regime had not immun-
ised Kozovoï against intellectual rejection (as well as rejections from the
French administration, such as rather typical difficulties in extending a
French visa), but that it also seems to have made him unrealistically
demanding. From his letters I get the impression that he expected to be
fed, housed and published, as an officially acknowledged writer in the
USSR would be. Without ever admitting it, he considered that this spe-
cial attention was the right of a poète maudit [cursed poet], as someone
who had a hard time taking care of himself. He described to his wife his
installation in France as similarly dire. From his letters to his wife (Kozovoï
2003, 2005) we learn that he suffered from insomnia due to heavy smok-
ing and too much coffee, as well as attacks of tuberculosis, and he felt
nostalgic, particularly missing his native language: “Для живущего
русским словом … да с нашей усталостью … устраиваться
заново в этих чужих краях—задача страшная” [For someone who
lives and breathes the Russian word … with the fatigue that we have …
getting resettled in this foreign land is an atrocious task] (Kozovoï 2005,
168). In France, every loss or failure, real or imagined, was experienced
by Kozovoï as a personal catastrophe, to the extent that the word
“catastrophe” occurred in almost every letter to his wife. A “catastrophe
consciousness” is also cultivated by Kozovoï when he argues that “Надо
обладать изрядной дозой катастрофического сознания, чтобы
осознать [эту страну]” [one needs to have a high dose of catastrophe

consciousness in order to really grasp [this country]] (Kozovoï 2005, 53).
In order to get the maximum result for his efforts, Kozovoï’s strategy
consistently involved addressing those with most power. In this regard,
Kozovoï wanted to meet the president of France, François Mitterrand.
Jean Cassou, a poet known for his important role in Resistance, with
access to the upper echelons of power, organised an audience for him
with Mitterrand at the Elysée Palace. The president inquired about the
health of Kozovoï’s autistic son and his other family members, his work
and his living conditions: “конкретные вопросы задал САМ, с
абсолютной точностью (досье было подготовлено). Обещал
твердо заняться каждым вопросом” [He asked the concrete ques-
tions HIMSELF (the file was prepared). Promised surely to take care of
everything] (2003, 442, emphasis in original) —as he writes in a letter to
his wife Irina in June 1983.
The couple Nichole Zand and Jacques Amalric, both journalists work-
ing for Le Monde, became two important media allies. Amalric was a
correspondent working in Moscow for Le Monde and Zand covered lit-
erature for the same newspaper, following Kozovoï’s arrival and first pub-
lications closely. The attention from powerful institutions and members
of the cultural elite bore fruit. In 1983, Kozovoï was granted a temporary
job at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), which
was later converted into a permanent position as a research director work-
ing on Boris Pasternak in 1988. Kozovoï published his collaborative self-
translation Hors de la colline/ Прочь от холма in 1984 while working at
the CNRS. A luxury edition of 120 numbered volumes illustrated by 15
original lithographs by Henri Michaux and a more modest paperback
edition were printed and received an exalted review from Georges Nivat
in the pages of Le Monde (Nivat 1984).
When Kozovoï’s wife was finally permitted to come to Paris with their
second son Andrei in 1985, she was given a job as a Russian instructor at
the prestigious Université de la Sorbonne. The family was given an apart-
ment in the Latin Quarter. This was only possible thanks to the support
campaign organised for him in France. Kozovoï recognises, indeed, this
support, although he realises it has a twofold motivation: first, the politi-
cal tension in place, since by welcoming cultural refugees like himself,
224 J. Holter
France signals its condemnation of the lack of political freedoms and the
violation of human rights in the USSR; second, a sense of debt on the
part of his French literary friends. As Dupin puts it:
Il a traduit nos poètes, il est imprégné des siens. Il nous touche, et c’est
une dette envers lui, il nous touche d’avoir touché, pénétré, traduit dans
sa langue, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Valéry, Michaux, Char, Gracq, Ponge,
Deguy, Blanchot, une constellation souveraine. L’aider à se traduire en
français n’était que rembourser de quelques sous notre dette. (Dupin
2000, 11)
[He translated our poets, he carries in him Russian poetry. … He touches
us, and we are indebted to him because he has touched, penetrated and
translated into his language Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Valéry, Michaux, Char,
Gracq, Ponge, Deguy, Blanchot, a sovereign constellation. To help him
translate himself into French was only a small way to pay this debt.]
He also knew that neither of these reasons amounted to an instant pro-

motion to the upper echelons of literary society. Therefore, his intellec-
tual contribution in a fruitful exchange should match the extensive
assistance he had been receiving. At that time, France was notoriously
slow to translate from distant literatures and was ignorant of Eastern
European and Russian poetry and prose as one of the less-receptive mem-
bers in the republic of letters (Casanova 2004). The interest in Russian
literature was driven by a feeling of being behind in regard to not only the
latest contemporary literature but also the “Silver Age” and even the
classics.
To bridge this gap, Kozovoï was encouraged to take on a role as a com-
mentator of Marina Tsvetaeva and Boris Pasternak and to become a type
of cultural propagandist for Russian authors in general. At times, he com-
ments on these and other literary issues in writings published in journals
(such as Deguy’s journal Po&sie); but most often he prefers to reflect on
this in personal multiple-page letters sent to his wife. He seems aware of
the value that these letters may have, as he advised his wife to keep his
letters: “[C]охрани эти письма! Думаю, стоит” [Do keep my letters!
I think they are worth keeping] (Kozovoï 2005, 197).
elf-Translating Personal Catastrophe in Hors

S
de la colline
As evidenced in the correspondence between Kozovoï and Blanchot
(Blanchot 2009), the French literary theorist had been encouraging the
Russian author to self-translate some of his poetry into French for a
number of years. Kozovoï finally undertakes this project. Self-translating
into French, getting himself published in France, amounts to a complex
psychological revenge against the Soviet regime for having refused his
poetic talent and for putting him in the Gulag. “Как будто головой
пробиваю стену тюремной камеры” [It feels like punching a hole
with my head in a prison’s wall] (Kozovoï 2005, 188). This self-transla-
tion became a collaborative project when Michel Deguy and Jacques
Dupin, two of the most important figures in French contemporary
poetry, agreed to assist Kozovoï as co-translators. The collaborators’ will-
ingness and aptitude to take action defined their agency and showed its
intrinsic relation to power (Kinnunen and Koskinen 2010, 6–7). Deguy
and Dupin volunteered their experience and professional connections,
which facilitated publicising the project, finding a publisher and organis-
ing a public reading for 300 people on 12 January 1983, in the Modern
Art Museum, with numerous literary and some political dignitaries pres-
ent in the audience.
The collaborators were, of course, expert target-language writers, guid-
ing the process from the native speaker’s perspective and helping to respect
the conventions of the local habitus (Milton and Bandia 2009). With an
expert source-language reader (the bilingual author himself ), they formed
what could seem a perfect translation team. However, the fact that all
three of them are authors themselves does not necessarily make them
good at translating as part of a team. Authoring, as Peter Flynn reminds
us while citing Anthony Pym, is not at all “contiguous with translating
even when carried out by the same person” (Flynn 2013, 14).
Kozovoï brought in nicely handwritten first drafts, as Deguy con-
firmed in a personal interview (Deguy 2014). His oddly uniform and
Soviet-style handwriting surprises the French poets, also astonished by
his manners and working habits.4 Kozovoï felt he needed to be in a spe-
226 J. Holter
cial stage of excitement to create. In order to “overexcite” the poetry, he

himself needed to be overexcited—indeed, “overexcitement” (in Russian
“взвинченность”) is how he often described what he was trying to
achieve in poetry. The approach of his French friends was more reserved
and pragmatic. While Kozovoï was trying to channel a Russian sound
into the resisting French, they were reasoning in terms of transparency,
clarity and correctness of the French sentence structure.
Tymoczko and Gentzler (2002, xix) speak of double agents and their
‘slippery’ mission to represent both the institution in power and the
author seeking empowerment. This “divided allegiance” maintains the
linguistic status quo while allowing certain avant-garde forms of represen-
tation in order to match the innovation in the initial text. Such was the
role of Kozovoï’s collaborators, who negotiated between readability and
creativity when submitting their propositions to the author. Their task
was not easy, given that Kozovoï’s poetry functioned as a secret weapon or
a parable. It featured a collage of linguistic elements that are distorted—
turned inside out—in order to reflect what Kozovoï calls a catastrophe. A
catastrophe encompasses the problem of expressing in literature the inex-
pressible, what cannot be named or even spoken about (in this he follows
Blanchot closely). Only intonation, or what Kozovoï calls, “поэтическая
интонация и искусство дисконтинуума” [poetic intonation and the
art of discontinuity], touches upon it (1994, 16).
Maximising the already-flexible word order of Russian, Kozovoï dis-
mantled linguistic units by either removing certain parts of them entirely
or dispersing them as widely as their inflections allow for. The reader is
almost surprised at being able to reconstitute the sense of what at first
seem to be fragments and nonsense. In fact, what assures the unity of
Kozovoï’s poetry is not its syntax, but the shared cultural imagination of
the writer and his readers, created out of folk songs, magic spells, chants
and cries of suffering. Thus, his “ode” to freedom through the evocation
of a common cultural history “locked up” or encoded in the Russian
language (an inner linguistic freedom within the real external political
terror) cannot easily carry its special power into French.
Kozovoï would seem to have had at his disposal the means to transcend
the language barrier: his mastery of French was excellent, and the help he
had was remarkably skilled. Both Deguy and Dupin were there to capture,
with the author’s help, Kozovoï’s unusual and original approach to poetry.
However, in order to get a readable French version, what would appeal to
the French ear as a “sound” familiar to everyone (assuming one exists),
they would have had to rewrite the Russian entirely. This could have
resembled something that Douglas Robinson calls “radical domestication”
(Robinson 1997, cited in Emmerich 2013, 202). The author resisted by
forcing the rules of French language and advocating instead foreignisation
strategies. Just as the negotiation between domestication and foreignisa-
tion has been in the centre of theoretical debates in translation studies
(Venuti 1995, Myskja 2013), a similar debate was taking place between
Kozovoï and his collaborators. The author was using his authority against
what he saw as simplification and a smoothing out of the strangeness of
his verse. Meanwhile, Deguy and Dupin, each one frustrated in his corner
(they worked separately with Kozovoï and almost never both on the same
poem), were getting quite discouraged by Kozovoï’s unrealistic demands
and criticisms. This is how Deguy describes the “main obstacle” to getting
the French version to be more readable than it ended up being:
Il voulait qu’on reconnaisse son génie … Il était très entêté, à la russe. Lors
des séances, ça donnait un type très acharné. On proposait des solutions,
qu’il refusait toutes. Il avait sa propre diction en français que je n’ai jamais
trouvé convaincante. Il cherchait une certaine oralité en français qui puisse
correspondre à celle du russe. Il ajoutait des apocopes et des élisions au
nom de cette oralité. On peut faire beaucoup avec le français, mais pas tout
ce qu’on veut. (Deguy 2014)
[He wanted his genius to be known. … He had his Russian stubborn
head. That created a very determined man in work sessions. We proposed
solutions, which he refused one after another. He had his own diction in
French that I never found completely convincing. He was looking for a
certain orality in French that could convey the Russian one. He added
apocopes and elisions in the name of this orality. One can do a lot with
French, but one cannot do everything one wants with it.]
When Deguy pointed out that his use of these techniques was not work-
ing in French, Kozovoï’s would become furious because “Il entendait le
français de cette façon” [he heard the French in this certain way] (Deguy
2014). Kozovoï’s favourite punctuation mark was the exclamation point
228 J. Holter
and he refused to accept that their accumulation does not translate well
into French (Deguy 2014). Grutman talks about the notorious reluc-
tance of many authors to self-translate: a dull rewriting can indeed be
boring and time consuming (2007, 220–221). However, Kozovoï seems
to take the “dull” rewriting process to a different level of excitement when
he tried to revolutionise the target language itself in order to make it
sound right to his ear.
Discussing Kozovoï’s theoretical writings, which he published on vari-
ous occasions in his literary journal Po&sie, Deguy described the author
as being “pas philosophe. Il ne savait rien sur un tas de choses, bien qu’il
ne fût pas sans prétention” [not a philosopher; unfamiliar with a lot of
things, but not without pretention] (Deguy 2014). Kozovoï was indeed
not very familiar with German philosophy, much in vogue in France, and
especially dear to Deguy. However, he was extremely well versed in
Russian literature and philosophy and had his own poetic theories based
on his extensive knowledge. His unfamiliar references, however, func-
tioned as a foreign language to Parisian literary circles. Kozovoï’s preten-
sion and strong sense of righteousness guided him through insisting on
his own solutions, fighting essentially to keep “catastrophe” alive in the
French version of his poetry and in every essay he published. The transla-
tion solutions in “proper French” that Deguy and Dupin offered felt
washed out to him, as they seemed to betray completely his method of
violent cutting into the flesh of the word:
И как объяснить … что это такое по-русски? Французское

нерасщепляемое слово—и не кирпич даже, а просто
бессмысленная пень-колода. Только в грамматически
построенной фразе приобретает смысл, но отдельно уже не
слышится. Тут гений—синтаксис. (Kozovoï 2005, 149)
[How to explain what [my poetry] does in Russian? A French word is
unsplittable—not even a brick but a senseless stump. It finds its sense only
in a grammatically built sentence, but can no longer be heard when taken
separately. The genius here is syntax.]
Looking at the final results of his work with Deguy and Dupin, he con-
cludes: “Что бы [Мишо] ни говорил, знаю, что в переводах ничего
ровным счетом от меня не осталось” [No matter what [Michaux]
says, I know that in the translations there is nothing left from me]
(Kozovoï 2005, 263).
It seems logical to speak of a conflict when comparing what might
have been pleasing to French readers according to Depuy and Dupin,
and what might have been pleasing to Kozovoï himself. In this regard,
what could be seen as a catastrophic translation for readers could perhaps
be seen as success for Kozovoï. Yet, in that case, could the translation
really be judged as catastrophic? Whose judgement would ultimately
matter in Kozovoï’s case? Literature was construed as a spiritual search for
him and, ultimately, the only opinion that counted to the writer himself
was his own. However, if we are to take the position of the readers and
critics—for a published work of literature is necessarily addressed to oth-
ers, not to the author alone—what could be said about the functional
adequacy of this collaborative self-translation?
The following example (see Figs. 1 and 2) from the bilingual edition
Hors de la colline/Прочь от холма illustrates how despite being exces-
Original in Russian (1984, 40) Original shown in Roman Example of English gloss of
alphabet Russian
Себя ли ради ? Sebya li radi? Is it for my own sake?
Гор-ли-дыня Gor-li-dinya Melon [in] throat/ pride is it?
летательно letatel’no flyingly
или только летально ili tol’ko letal’no or just lethally
а с веток a s vetok from the branches
швыряет финики добра и зла shviryaet finiki dobra i zla castes the dates of good and evil
не шуми лист-другой ne shumi list-drugoi don’t murmur, leaf, another leaf
отцвела гряда otsvela gryada garden bed finished blooming
то-то тянет-мм-гла to-to tyanet-mm-gla that’s why this h-h-haze persist
долго ль холодно dolgo l’ holodno how long it’s cold
Fig. 1 Kozovoï’s poem “Себя ли ради?”, original and English gloss

230 J. Holter
French translation (1984, 41) English oral transcription of French translation

(the nasals are indicated in IPA)
GLO-RI-EUX ? Gloh-ri-yeu?
virevoltant virvoltã
ou de l’aile haletant ooh de lel aletã

˷
mais qui jette des branches les amandes du bien et me ki jett de brãsh lezamãd duh bj ɛ eh duh mal
du mal
ne bruis pas feuille ou l’autre ne broui pah fey ooh lotre
défleurie votre haie defleri votre a
ce que trainne-la-bruinne say ke tren-la-bruin

˷
que c’est long si frais ke say lɔ si fray
Fig. 2 French translation of Kozovoï’s poem “Себя ли ради?” and English oral
transcription
sively close to the Russian source; his poetry does not flow sonorously in
French in the same way as it does in Russian.
In the original, the interrogative particle li (cf. is it) is inserted in the
middle of the word “pride”, creating a curious mix of [v] gorli dinja
(melon in the throat), which, at the same time, alludes to the feeling of
being choked and a question gordinya li (is it pride?) Letatel’no/letal’no is
a word play “flyingly/lethally”, with an alliteration of two dentals. It must
be noted that “flyingly”, meaning “while flying”, is a neologism also in
Russian. The last quatrain resembles a folk song (i.e., –mm–). Dolgo l’
holodno—a “deconstructed” set expression “dolgo li korotko”, from the
fairy tales—is somewhat similar to “once upon a time”. The description
below (see Fig. 2) is illustrative:
In the French translation, the losses clearly outnumber the gains: first,
the word play is entirely lost in “GLO-RI-EUX?/virevoltant”, due to the
insertion of the interrogative particle “li”; only a compensatory allitera-
tion shows up in “virevoltant, l’aile haletant” [twirling, breathless wing,

in a free translation trying to keep the alliteration in English] but the
solution lacks the freshness of the Russian counterpart Letatel’no/letal’no.
Secondly, in the original, a bird does not “throw the almonds” but casts
the dates of good and evil (see also Fig. 1); however, the French muddles
the comical effect of the Russian “castes the dates”. Thirdly, nothing lets
the reader hear the Russian folk song in French, despite a rhyme “haie-
frais”, a clear attempt to give this passage the feeling of a song. Finally, at
the very end, the grammatically incorrect Russian Dolgo l’holodno (the
long and the cold of it), a paronomastic pun on a fairy-tale set expression
Dolgo li korotko (the long and the short of it), is lost.
This example demonstrates Kozovoï’s verbal exploits in Russian. His
search for dazzling linguistic effects comes through in French as an
obscure, post-surrealist parody of René Char; a dense pile of starkly dis-
similar metaphors and images juxtaposed in parataxis; a string of frag-
ments without clear connection. In Russian, continuity from verse to
verse is supported by sonority, intonation and rhythm. This obscure
music, a form of free jazz played in language, is absent in French. Even
the very positive review of Kozovoï’s bilingual book in Le Monde, written
by the Russian-speaking family friend Georges Nivat (1984), hints at the
split between the two sides of the diptych: “A vrai dire, le panneau russe
joue davantage avec les attelages enfantins ou proverbiaux de mots, les
faisant dérailler d’une pichenette. Sur le panneau français, en regard,
apparaissent d’autres images, sans doute apportées par la chaîne eupho-
nique” [To tell the truth, the Russian side plays much more with the
words of nursery rhymes and proverbs by derailing them a bit. On the
French side, very different images appear, possibly due to euphonious
effects] (Nivat 1984). The confession “to tell the truth” is evocative of a
certain reluctance balanced by much goodwill. Nivat, like Blanchot and
Michaux, is very eager to see their friend published and recognised in
France and treats the translation with understandable indulgence, speak-
ing politely of the difficulty of the translation task and not of its failure.
Could anything have been done to present Kozovoï’s prosody better in
French? I believe that superior translation choices could have been made,
but they would have required an unrealistic time investment and an out-
standing communicative team effort. This power dynamics inherently
232 J. Holter
involved in Kozovoï’s self-translation meant that the domesticating solu-

tions proposed by Deguy and Dupin (vetoed by the author) would have
been much more readable and potentially also more successful. On the
other hand, the target text probably would not have been a “truer” repre-
sentation of Kozovoï’s work.
The issue of translatability, which is at stake here, amounts to the dif-
ficulty of representing the foreign. If the foreign is no longer really for-
eign, after having been simply domesticated and assimilated into the
existing literary system, what value can it have in the French target sys-
tem? Would it not have been equally catastrophic (or perhaps much more
so, truly catastrophic) if Kozovoï’s difficult Russian verse had been made
into more readable and acceptable French?
The Hermann publishing house took a risk in publishing, as Dupin
puts it, an “inedible” translation (2000, 6). Despite being considered
unreadable, this bilingual edition of Kosovoï’s poems had other attractive
features, such as Michaux’s lithographs or a cover with the names of well-
known literary figures such as Deguy and Dupin. Interestingly, for
Kosovoï himself, this collaborative self-translation was a triumph, at least
temporarily:
Устал. Но доволен. До часу ночи переводил вместе с Жаком—

каркас подготовил сам. Говорю ему: “Вот стало на душе легче. А
казалось бы: трудцать-сорок пустяковых строчек, которые и пять
сантимов не стоят” … Доказал—в последние 2-3 месяца,—что
можно переводить сильно и на французский. Так здесь, мне
кажется, еще никто не переводил. (Kozovoï 2005, 80–81)
[Tired but happy. Translated until one in the morning with Jacques
[Dupin]—I prepared the outline myself. ‘Now I feel liberated, and all
because of some thirty or forty petty lines that are not even worth five cen-
times’, I told him. … In these last two or three months, I have proven that
it is possible to translate powerfully and into French. I think no one here
has translated like that before.]
It is also possible to regard the book as the memorial of both a collabora-

tive effort and the time when a “minor” foreign poet trying to revolutio-
nise versification could still get attention from established poets,
publishers and politicians alike.
elf-Translation as Engagement in Social Life

S
and Discussions
From the start, it would seem unlikely that French literary culture, with
its own ideologies and trends driven by the pragmatics of the publishing
market, could be receptive to Kozovoï’s hermetic work written primarily
in Russian. Indeed, one of Kozovoï’s problems comes from the exclusive-
ness of his poetry, especially in the contemporary context (already in
place in the 1980s) in which the gap between the “big books” that sell
well and the “great works” that do something original, often at the price
of reducing readership, has all but disappeared. In order to exist, the orig-
inal work must come closer to the “big books”; they can no longer be too
difficult to read for non-initiated readers.
André Lefevere (1992) discusses the split between “high” and “low”
literatures dating to the middle of the nineteenth century (and a con-
comitant split between “high” and “low” rewriting/translation) and
points out something important for Kozovoï’s case. He remarks that non-
professional readers, who constitute the vast majority, are always content
to read about literature and/or read rewrites (1992, 2–5, my emphasis).
That means that the difficulty of some poetry and its “untranslatability”
is not going to bother professional and non-professional readers alike. In
fact, it is a rather common attribute of poetry, which does not amount to
its failure.
Power, cultural and political can function as a lever to “lift” or to sud-
denly increase the value of an artistic project. It is my contention that in
the 1980s taking full advantage of the political situation could have
helped Kozovoï in restarting his career and empowering him while the
translation project of his poems was actually lacking power.
Hélène Buzelin reminds us, citing recent case studies (such as Bastin,
Tahir-Gürçaglar and Uchiyama), that “translation is an engagement in
social life and debates, a way to express one’s own agency” (2011, 9). This
enlarges the definition of translation agency to a public place, to the cur-
rent political and cultural climate. The current climate in Kozovoï’s time,
with the weakening of the communist influence, coincides, in my opin-
ion, with a new ideological trade-off. This strong trade-off does not allow
234 J. Holter
the use of “depoliticisation”, as Iona Popa (2010) suggests, when she pos-
its a progressive depolitisation of literary transfers during the late 1960s
and 1970s. Yet she is careful not to dismiss the ideological residue influ-
encing the publication of dissident literature (2010, 389). Indeed, the
widely practised labelling of literature as dissident due to the rise of the
human rights movement presents itself as ideology.5
Such misevaluations remained commonplace in the 1970s and 1980s,
suggesting the continuing possibility of converting repression and perse-
cution into profit. I would argue that authors coming from the Soviet
bloc with a highly politicised agenda immediately received the dissident
label and could benefit from translation, independently of the quality of
their writing, as a back door to an exclusive club reserved for French
authors.
By the end of 1970s, France was beginning to overcome its notorious
neglect of translation: translation was in vogue and accounted for 45%
of all literary production (Sapiro 2012, 208). Between the 1980s and
2000, France even became a world leader in translation (Sapiro 2008,
66). A number of publishing houses specialising in importing foreign
literatures (e.g., Actes Sud, Verdier, Métailié) were founded in the same
period in which Kozovoï self-translated his work. Yet translations from
Russian had only a marginal literary presence, because Russian language
is not one of the “transporting” languages, unlike English, French,
German and Spanish (Sapiro 2008). Peripheral or semi-peripheral,
Russian translations are typically reserved to smaller publishing houses
(Sapiro 2012, 42).
Irrespective of quality, Kozovoï’s translations were just as unlikely to
surpass the level of symbolic capital. In the 1960s, the immense popular-
ity of René Char, Louis Aragon or Paul Eluard was built on powerful
supporting elements—both political (French Communist party, partici-
pation in the Resistance) and cultural (the singing of Léo Ferré or the
films of Yves Montand). In the 1980s, these elements disappeared, giving
way to more hermetic options, in the tradition of Mallarmé, as repre-
sented by Ponge, Michaux, Bonnefoy, Dupin, Deguy and others, and
featuring a more confidential, often philosophical, take on poetry.
Poetry became a difficult art endorsed by the universities during the
time of the novel triumph. For Kozovoï, this was a change from the
USSR, where poetry readings filled up stadiums in the 1960s or at least

kitchens in 1980s. What really counts in France is making literature
(prose and poetry) a centre of public debate, in other words appealing to
a non-professional reader that reads about and reads the rewrites. Thus,
Kozovoï could have joined the academic community, which continued to
write on poetry while bringing it out of its ivory tower of exclusiveness
and difficulty.
If this sort of “customer service” did not entice him, he could have
tried defending his ground as an independent thinker and poet. For that,
he would have needed to become a kind of a Russian cultural ambassador
akin to Joseph Brodsky in the USA, publishing clearly written, pedagogi-
cally useful essays on Russian poetry and prose, appealing both to unini-
tiated and initiated readers. In this regard, power does not divide the
agents involved into powerful and powerless, neither does it “open out
into a black-and-white thinking, an absolutist and dichotomous under-
standing of translation” (Fischer and Jensen 2012, 11).
Kozovoï could have very easily participated in debates and defended
the causes relevant to political freedom—for instance, Kundera’s political
and cultural writing in the 1970s and 1980s, his texts defending Czech
authors and commenting on the political situation in Czechoslovakia, as
well as his writings on kitsch, image and speed, are all subjects of com-
mon interest. In short, Kozovoï needed to convert himself from an
“untranslatable” Russian poet into a visible public figure, whose writing
reaches beyond the framework of Russian literature. Of course, not all
dissident writers are capable of this. Most of them see their exile as
temporary and do not want to invest in it (Popa 2010, 518), while their
hosts are eager to rush their assimilation while attaching labels that help
situate newcomers in relation to the familiar—for example, Kundera as a
Soviet Flaubert or as a Scott Fitzgerald of the East (Popa 2010, 520).
Kozovoï would never be labelled a “Soviet Rimbaud” for reasons that
go beyond the failure of the collaborative self-translation of his poetry
into French. More important for his success is whether or not his work,
the total output of his intellectual activity, was relevant to the Western
European tradition. Here the example of Kundera is pertinent again:
when he was finally read for the aesthetic value of his writing and when
his attempt to revolutionise the literary genre itself was noticed, he pro-
236 J. Holter
ceeded to demonstrate that the label “Eastern European writer” is non-

sensical by showing a difference between the Russian cultural tradition
nourished by the Orthodox Church and Byzantium and the Central
European one, closely related to the Western culture (Popa 2010, 523).
Because Kundera positioned himself as belonging to the “European tradi-
tion”, he had the right to renew it (Popa 2010, 520).
Very different was Kozovoï, with his specific interests in the mystical
roots of Russian culture. He was not ready to give up his Eurasian singu-
larity and neither was he ready to theorise his “non-Western” cultural
profile or turn poetry into the language of his exile and defend it, like
Brodsky, as “language ‘exiled’ from prose” (Bethea 1994, xii). Instead,
aware of the realities of the publishing industry guided by profit and the
symbolic capital of prestige, he refused, almost in spite of himself, to
participate in it altogether and felt betrayed when he saw his benefactors
abandoning the ideals of the poète maudit in commercial arrangements
and compromises.
David Bethea suggested that the key to understanding Brodsky’s (and
also Nabokov’s) acceptance by the Western audience was their relation to
the Other, which came by “fashion[ing] the bilingual self ” (1994, xi); in
other words, the Other nearby and not an imagined faraway reader—
something that the newcomers “owe” to the people welcoming them.
This entailed leaving behind some of the domestic “irrational” culture,
including the one of the Soviet era, nourished by a metaphysical and
romantic worldview long abandoned in Europe, and embracing a less
romantic, prosaic view of poetry.
This kind of fashioning the bilingual self did not happen to Kozovoï.
His vehement view of poetry as “кровью добытое освобождающее
слово” [the liberating word won by blood] (Kozovoï 2005, 263) only
hindered his cultural transfer proving to be largely out of sync with the
Parisian literary climate, imbued with ideologies of its own. Neither a
dissident nor a cultural ambassador or a teacher, sociologically speaking,
he did not have a chance to exist in the field. Or, rather, he existed in a
marginal way, translating French poetry into Russian, publishing between
1984 and 1999 (the year he died in Paris from a pulmonary disease) a
number of essays and poetry collections in Russian and French, without

finding a significant readership in either country.
Alain Finkielkraut once observed that Kundera was “the only Eastern
European writer who emigrated to the West who refused the term ‘dissi-
dent’” (in Popa 2010, 521). We know that Kozovoï also refused the label
that nonetheless brought him non-negligible media attention and suc-
cessful social integration: “Définitivement poète. Définitivement en
marge” [Definitely poet. Definitely marginal], writes Nicole Zand in Le
Monde (1984, 17). She quotes Kozovoï: “Quand on me demande: êtes-
vous dissident? Cela ne veut rien dire pour moi. Il faut être libre. Depuis
l’âge de dix-sept ans, je n’ai jamais été dans le système. J’étais ailleurs”
[When they ask me: are you a dissident? the question does not make
sense. One needs to be free. Since 17 years old, I was never in the system.
I was elsewhere] (Zand 1984, 17).
It seems that Kozovoï, willing to take advantage of the political situa-
tion and accepting the lever that cultural and political power was gener-
ously offering him in France, was not willing to participate in a cliché
dissident scenario. He could not accept this “added value” to his willingly
marginal poetic project.
Certainly, French political and literary power structures welcomed
him with open arms. However, they did it only as their vision of him
served their own political needs and cultural agendas. Few were really
prepared to see this difficult man on his own terms. In this way, the dis-
sident welcoming born out of colliding political powers and cultural
identities is deceptive. A guileless immigrant lured by it would likely see
his cultural and personal differences impose themselves as psychological
barriers blocking a successful transfer—just as Kozovoï’s attempt to
translate his own existential catastrophe into French language and literary
culture without transcending it proved to be a catastrophe. Yet, when any
self-reduction seems a kind of self-betrayal, a writer like Kozovoï, whose
identity is profoundly invested in his work, might feel the treason of
translation unbearable. The poet’s disruption of this process, that is, the
creation of a “catastrophic” translation, may have been necessary to main-
tain his sense of integrity.
238 J. Holter
Notes
1. All translations into English of quoted sources in French and Russian are
mine.
2. Baudelaire, for example, was only partially “rehabilitated” in 1960 when
he was recognised as anti-bourgeois and revolutionary—thus progressive
(and ironically) not decadent (Wanner 1996, 50).
3. Some of these anthologies include Ja pichu tvoïo imya, Svoboda:

Frantsouzskaya poezia epokhi Soprotivleniya (Velikovski 1968); S Franciey v
serdce: Frantsouzkie pisateli i antifachistskoye Soprotivlenie (Kozovoï 1973);
Zapadnoevropeyskaya poezia XX veka (Bochkareva et al. 1977); Pisateli
Frantsii o literature (Balashova 1978); or Novie golosa: Stihi sovremennih
frantsouzskih poetov (Balashova et al. 1981). Their circulation was remark-
ably important—it could be as much as 303,000 copies (for
Zapadnoevropeyskaya poezia XX veka).
4. In a personal interview, Deguy described Kozovoï as pouring everyone
chefir, a steeply brewed tea to which he became accustomed in the Gulag.
In fact, the translation manuscripts carry dark-brown stains from it.
Deguy politely rejected this beverage, fearful that caffeine late in the day
will keep him up. He typically got up at 6 am, which is when Kozovoï,
having ingested strong doses of nicotine and caffeine, was finally prepar-
ing to go to bed after a night spent translating (Deguy 2014).
5. An example is the publication in French of Kundera’s novel The Joke in
1967. The novel was not recognised for its literary value but rather for its
political theme—that is, the critique of the current regime in
Czechoslovakia (Popa 2010, 515).
References
Balashova, Tamara, ed. 1978. Писатели Франции о литературе [Pisateli
Frantsii o literature]. Moscow: Progress.
Balashova, Tamara, et al., eds. 1981. Новые голоса: Стихи современных
французских поэтов [Novie golosa: Stihi sovremennih frantsouzskih poetov].
Moscow: Progress.
Bethea, David. 1994. Joseph Brodsky and Creation of Exile. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Blanchot, Maurice. 2009. Lettres à Vadim Kozovoï. Houilles: Manucius.
Bochkareva, Izabella, et al. 1977. Западноевропейская поэзия ХХ века

[Zapadnoevropeyskaya poezia XX veka]. Moscow: Hudozhestvennaïa literatura.
Buzelin, Hélène. 2011. Agents of Translation. In Handbook of Translation
Studies, ed. Yves Gambier and Luc van Doorslaer, vol. 2, 6–13. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.
Casanova, Pascale. 2004. The World Republic of Letters. Trans. M. B. DeBevoise.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Deguy, Michel. 2014. Personal Interview with Julia Holter, Le Rostand, Paris,
April 19.
Dupin, Jacques. 2000. Contrepoison. Po&sie 91: 4–6.
Emmerich, Karen. 2013. Visibility (and Invisibility). In Handbook of Translation
Studies Volume 4, ed. Yves Gambier and Luc van Doorslaer, 200–207.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Fischer, Beatrice, and Matilde Nisbeth Jensen, eds. 2012. Translation and
Reconfiguration of Power Relations: Revisiting the Role and Context of Translation
and Interpreting. Zurich: Lit Verlag.
Flynn, Peter. 2013. Author and Translator. In Handbook of Translation Studies,
ed. Yves Gambier and Luc van Doorslaer, vol. 4, 12–20. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Grutman, Rainier. 2007. L’autotraduction: dilemme social and entre-deux tex-
tuel. Ateliers de Traduction 7, Editura Universitatii din Suceava, 219–229.
Kinnunen, Tuija, and Kaisa Koskinen. 2010. Translators’ Agency. Tampere:
Tampere University Press.
Kozovoï, Vadim, ed. 1973. С Францией в сердце: Французские писатели и
антифашистское сопротивление. [S Franciey v serdce: Frantsouzkie pisateli
I antifachistskoye Soprotivlenie]. Moscow: Progress.
———. 1982. Прочь от холма [Proch ot holma]. Paris: Syntaxis.
———. 1984. Hors de la colline/Прочь от холма. Paris: Hermann.
———. 1994. Поэт в катастрофе [Poet v catastrophe]. Moscow: Gnozis, Paris:
Institut d’Études Slaves.
———. 2003. Тайная Ось, Избранная Проза [Tainaya Os, Izbrannaya Proza].
Moscow: NLO.
———. 2005. Выйти из повиновения [Viiti iz povinoveniya]. Moscow:
Progress.
Lefevere, André. 1992. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary
Milton, John, and Paul Bandia, eds. 2009. Agents of Translation. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.
240 J. Holter
Myskja, Kjetil. 2013. Foreignisation and Resistance: Lawrence Venuti and his
Critics. Nordic Journal of English Studies 12 (2): 1–23.
Nivat, Georges. 1984. La terreur et la parole. Le Monde, 24–25 June, 17.
———. 2004. Kozovoï Vadim 1937–1999. Universalis Encyclopaedia. http://
www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/vadim-kozovoi. Accessed 3 Aug 2016.
Popa, Ioana. 2010. Traduire sous contraintes. Littérature et communisme
(1947–89). Paris: CNRS Editions.
Robinson, Douglas. 1997. What is Translation? Centrifugal Theories, Critical
Interventions. Kent: Kent State University Press.
Sapiro, Gisèle. 2008. Translatio. Le marché de la traduction en France à l’heure de
la mondalisation. Paris: CNRS Editions.
———, ed. 2012. Traduire la littérature et les sciences humaines. Conditions et
obstacles. Paris: Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication.
Tymoczko, Maria, and Edwin Gentzler, eds. 2002. Translation and Power.
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Vaissié, Cécile. 2012. La France et la dissidence Soviétique. In Intelligentsia Entre
France et Russie, Archives inédites du XXe siècle, ed. Véronique Jobert and
Lorraine de Meaux, 371–407. Paris: ENSBA.
Velikovski, Samari. 1968. Я пишу твое имя, Свобода: Французская поэзия
эпохи Сопротивления. [Ja pichu tvoïo imya, Svoboda: Frantsouzskaya poezia
epokhi Soprotivleniya]. Moscow: Hudozhestvennaïa Literature.
Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility. New York: Routledge.
Wanner, Adrian. 1996. Baudelaire in Russia. Gainesville: University Press of
Florida.
Zand, Nicole. 1984. Vadim Kozovï: un poète contre le dépérissement de la
langue. Le Monde, 24–25 June, 17.
Julia Holter taught foreign languages at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris,
France, and at the University of Washington in Seattle, the USA, where she
defended her doctoral dissertation “Le Clair-Obscur extrême-contemporain:
Pascal Quignard, Pierre Michon, Pierre Bergounioux et Patrick Modiano”
(Rodopi, Chiasma Series). Holter conducts her research in Paris as a member of
the division “Multilingualism–Translation–Creation” of the Institute for
Modern Texts and Manuscripts, CNRS/ENS. She is General Editor of Joca
Seria’s Russian contemporary poetry series and a temporary lecturer at the
Western Catholic University (UCO).
Beyond Self-Translation: Amara Lakhous
and Translingual Writing as Case Study
Rita Wilson
Introduction
Together with the growing recognition that self-translation is not limited
to a sequential process (Grutman 2009; Wilson 2009; Bassnett 2013),
scholars have expanded the definition of self-translators to include “idi-
omatic bilingual writers who have two literary languages […] compose
texts in both languages, and […] translate their texts between those lan-
guages” (Hokenson and Munson 2007, 14). As Susan Bassnett notes,
“many writers consider themselves as bilinguals and shift between lan-
guages” and, consequently, “the binary notion of original-translation
appears simplistic and unhelpful” (Bassnett 2013, 15). Like Bassnett, I
find it more productive to conceptualise self-translation as involving
“rewriting across and between languages, with the notion of an original
as a fluid rather than a fixed concept” (Bassnett 2013, 19).
R. Wilson (*)
Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

242 R. Wilson
Various scholars contend that self-translation can also be considered in

a metaphorical sense, to describe, for instance, “a renegotiation of the
self ” (Saidero 2011, 33) or to depict “transnational migrants living as
‘translated beings’ between multiple cultures, languages, and national
identities” (Shread 2009, 52), and to consider the extent to which the
narration of a writer’s lived experience could be viewed as an act of (self-)
translation (Wilson 2009). The term “self-translation” alerts us to the
subjectivities involved in this process and to the fact that when we discuss
implications of “translation” in literary texts, it is not simply a case of
language transfer: rather, it is often a pointer to the problematisation of
identities. Thus, self-translation can simultaneously function as a frame-
work, a metaphor, and a praxis for inquiry into bi-, multi-, and translin-
gual writing practices.
In works by translingual authors, who “write in more than one lan-
guage or in a language other than their primary one” (Kellman 2000, ix),
self-translation often features as a literary topos or as a metanarrative: both
as a process of transition into a new language and as a literary (re)creation
of the migration experience. In this sense, translingual writers double as
cultural mediators (Jung 2004; Wilson 2011). Indeed, because they write
in their adopted language, not only do they translate themselves into
linguistic constructions, they also create “a space of mediation and rene-
gotiation where transcultural exchange may occur, thereby allowing them
to fuse and re-inscribe their multiple identities, selves, languages and cul-
tures” (Saidero 2011, 32), which “underscores the link between transla-
tion and creative writing” (Wilson 2009, 187). I am interested in
exploring how self-translation practices in translingual writing dramatise
not only the cohabitation of languages, but also explore the implications
of the “self ” in translation, which, in turn, encompasses a much wider
field of possibilities than moving from a source text to a target text.
In an earlier study, following the approach that sees self-translation as
a double writing process in which each text produced is a variant of the
other, I attempted to look beyond the explicit use of translation in fic-
tion and to consider the more abstract processes of cultural translation
and self-translation that take place in translingual and migrant narratives
(Wilson 2011). Drawing from ideas presented in that study, in this
chapter I develop the notion that fiction can be a productive “source for
Beyond Self-Translation: Amara Lakhous and Translingual... 243
theorizing about translation” (Kaindl and Spitzl 2014, 11) in order to

explore the links between self-translation as rewriting and the negotia-
tion of cultural identity. My premise is that translingual writers engage
in contradictions and ambiguities that complicate linguistic and national
identities. The aim is to illustrate how practices of self-translation in
translingual literature. afford insights into questions of subjectivity and
identity, as well underlining the fluidity of language practice and the
ability to incorporate multiple codes, at times juxtaposing, at others
mixing them to create new hybrid forms. The author-oriented approach
to the study of self-translation, which forms the basis for this chapter,
takes into account the author’s experience of language(s) within the rel-
evant context (exile, colonisation, professional mobility, etc.) and envi-
sions the complex power relations of the languages in which translingual
authors choose to write and translate as a particular play of mirrors: one
that is not necessarily related to the status of a language (i.e., whether it
is a “minority” or “world” language). Rather, it represents the moment
when “the confrontation of languages results in entanglements which are
both conflictual and productive” (Simon 2011, 18). The meeting or col-
lision of languages thus becomes the testing ground, through which to
create new possibilities for the author to go beyond the barriers that usu-
ally surround the world of the monolingual writer.
An Exemplary Case

It seems obvious that “self-translation” would be a central concept for
those translingual writers who fashion narratives that try to encompass
both the “original” and the relocated cultural–linguistic self. These are
modes of writing for which the plurality and combination of languages
represent constitutive elements, markers of the composite nature of both
individual and cultural identities, as well as their tendency to go beyond
national boundaries. Thus, translingual writing viewed as self-translation
underlines the question of agency as to how the subject can sustain com-
plex, fluid, heterogeneous notions of identity by working with the intri-
cacy of languages. In each case, the linguistic choice of translingual
writers is understood to be political in valence and often represents an
244 R. Wilson
ideological statement about their identity. To illustrate how these writers,

who navigate between two languages and their associated social contexts,
bring both linguistic and cultural translations into play to convey notions
of cultural identity, I offer as an exemplary case, the work of Amara
Lakhous for whom writing across languages constitutes a liberating,
empowering force potentiating encounter and transformation.
Amara Lakhous is an unusual case in the contemporary literary land-
scape: he writes in both Italian and Arabic and all his texts have an inter-
esting linguistic history. Born and raised in Algeria to a Berber-speaking
family, he learned both Arabic and French while growing up. In 1995, at
the age of 25, he moved to Italy as a political refugee. He wrote his first
novel in Arabic while still living in Algiers but it remained unpublished
until 1999, four years after his arrival in Italy, when it was translated into
Italian by Francesco Leggio and published at the author’s expense in a
bilingual edition al-baqq wa-l-qursan/Le cimici e il pirata [The Bedbugs
and the Pirate] (Lakhous 1999). The author explains that the experience
of co-producing a radio programme in Italian, entitled Kalimat [words]
and dealing with contemporary issues and cultural practices in the Arab
world, made him review:
gli appunti che avevo portato con me dall’Algeria, un breve romanzo scritto
nel ‘93 nel quale io descrivevo la società algerina che avevo lasciato, con i suoi
limiti e le sue speranze. … La scelta più difficile non è stata quella di pub-
blicare o meno, ma quella che riguardava la traduzione. Per questa ragione
ho scelto un’edizione bilingue, Italiana e Araba. (Lakhous 2000, n.p.)
[the notes I had brought with me from Algeria, the draft of a short novel
written in ‘93 in which I described the Algerian society that I had left, with
its limitations and its aspirations. … The most difficult decision was not
whether to publish the novel, but whether it should be in translation. For
this reason I opted for a bilingual edition, Italian and Arabic.]1
The publication of Cimici marked the launch of what Lakhous describes

as an ambitious intercultural project that aims to promote knowledge of
the Arabic language in Italy and of the Italian language in the Arab
countries (Lakhous 2000, 2006a, 2008a, 2014a). His next step in the
realisation of this ambition was the publication, in 2003, of an Arabic-

language novel about his early years in Italy. Released in Algeria with the
title Kayfa tarḍa‘u min al-dhi’ba dūna an ta‘aḍdạ ka [How to be Suckled by
the She-wolf without Getting Bitten] (Lakhous 2003), it explores the rela-
tionship between memory, language, and cultural belonging. By the time
this second novel came out, Lakhous had been living in Italy for over a
decade and had worked hard to acquire Italian as his personal adoptive
language, to the point where Italian had become “una seconda madrelin-
gua” [a second mother tongue] (Lakhous 2000, n.p.).
Soon after his arrival in Rome, Lakhous had taken an Italian-language
course at the Casa dei Diritti Sociali, a secular voluntary association
advocating for human and social rights for disadvantaged groups. He was
later offered a job by the association as a cultural mediator in a migrant
centre. This latter experience motivated his decision to rewrite his second
novel in Italian. Lakhous emphasises the fact that the Italian version is
not “simply a case of self-translation” [“non si tratta di una semplice auto-
traduzione”] (Lakhous 2005, n.p.). He notes that, precisely because he
had a different readership in mind, he changed parts of the novel and
revised or omitted culture-specific metaphors and references that he felt
did not work in Italian:
In alcuni casi il testo è stato italianizzato ex-novo, come per esempio le espres-
sioni dialettali. In altri sono nate delle espressioni ibride a metà tra arabo e
italiano che sono più efficaci del testo originale. (Lakhous 2006a, n.p.)
[In some cases, the text was Italianised ex-novo, as in the case of the
dialect expressions. In others, I generated hybrid expressions halfway
between Arabic and Italian that are more effective than the original text.]
The Italian version, published in 2006 with the title Scontro di civiltà
per un ascensore a Piazza Vittorio [Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in
Piazza Vittorio], won him the prestigious Italian literary prizes Flaiano
and Racalmare-Leonardo Sciascia. It also made the bestseller list in the
widely distributed national daily newspaper, Corriere della sera. It is
important to note that Scontro was placed in the “Italian fiction” category
of the bestseller list rather than the “Foreign fiction” one. As various critics
246 R. Wilson
and reviewers have remarked, this categorisation recognised Lakhous’ sta-

tus as a writer within the national literary system. In a couple of recent
interviews, Lakhous reiterates that his choice to write in two languages,
Arabic and Italian, is motivated by his desire to enrich both cultures
(Lakhous 2014d, n.p.):
I made it my goal to “Arabicise” the Italian, and to “Italianise” the Arabic.

That is, to bring Arabic into Italian—and really, not just Arabic, because
my origins are Berber, which has a very rich language, my mother-tongue—
so I put some Italian into my language. And French too, really. And when
I write in Arabic, I put in my new language, which is Italian—so I Arabicise
Italian and Italianise Arabic. (Lakhous 2014a, n.p.)
Lakhous’ insistence that he rewrites, rather than translates, which empha-

sises the complementary relationship that the term “rewriting” suggests,
acknowledging the porousness of the self as translator while also inhabit-
ing what Sherry Simon calls the “third space of dual-languages”:
In the shadowing of one language by another, in the ghostly presence of

one behind the other, there is a widening of the frame of reference. No one
vocabulary will suffice, no one channel can access the multiple planes of
expression. (Simon 2006, 321)
This dual-language space is exemplified by Lakhous’ third novel. In this

instance, Lakhous wrote the first draft in Italian and then created a new
document consisting of two columns:
Italian text on the left and Arabic text on the right. I have a multi-language
keyboard, so I can go from one language to the other. And I would look at
the Italian text, and write in Arabic, and if I found something that seemed
more convincing as an image in Italian, I would change it. (Lakhous 2014a,
n.p.)
The Italian version, Divorzio all’Islamica a viale Marconi [Divorce

Islamic Style in Viale Marconi] (Lakhous 2010a), and the Arabic version,
al-Qahira as-saghira [Little Cairo] (Lakhous 2010b), were published in
2010, within a month of one another. As in the case of Scontro, and in
keeping with his desire to foster a deeper understanding of Arabic (and in

this instance specifically Islamic) culture in Italy and of Italian culture in
the Arab countries, the two versions were deliberately given different
titles. The reasons for the change have to do with the fact that the novels
have long titles with locally specific spatial references and ironic intertex-
tual allusions that would not “work” adequately in the new culture and
for the new public for which the different language versions are destined.
In other words, in creating two versions of each novel, Lakhous considers
the cultural variations that only an act of rewriting can actually provide,
in its ability to “manipulate literature to function in a given society in a
given way” (Lefevere 1990, 7).
Powerful Creation: Transforming

A
the Adoptive Language
For an author like Amara Lakhous, for whom themes of linguistic and
cultural identity are central, self-translation becomes a tool of narrative
construction, of understanding and making sense of a world made up of
static sovereign borders but mobile populations. His multilingual creative
ability is a way for him to break away from restrictive linguistic and geo-
graphical boundaries:
La scrittura, e forse la mia stessa esistenza, sono il risultato del plurilingu-

ismo. Ogni lingua è una patria priva di confini artificiali e permessi di sog-
giorno da rinnovare. Mi affascinano i mestieri del traduttore e del mediatore.
Definirei la traduzione il viaggio da una riva all’altra, durante il quale ti
arricchisci di idee, immagini e metafore. […] Benedico l’emigrazione, per-
ché simboleggia l’alternativa al mare chiuso. Ti spinge a riflettere sulla tua
identità. La mia è un mosaico di tessere assemblate in contesti diversi.
(Lakhous 2014a, n.p.)
[Writing, and perhaps my very existence, are the result of multilingual-
ism. Each language is a homeland free of artificial borders and temporary
residence permits. I am fascinated by the tasks done by translators and
mediators. I would define translation as a journey from one shore to the
other, during which you are enriched by ideas, images and metaphors. […]
248 R. Wilson
I bless emigration, because it symbolises the alternative to the closed sea. It

pushes you to think about your identity. Mine is a mosaic of tiles assem-
bled in different contexts.]
Arguably, language furnishes the necessary underlying ingredient for the

politics of identity, which, in a polyethnic setting, constitutes the ground
for language groups to make demands for the right of recognition. To
discern hierarchies of power in processes of translation, it is important to
ask who is (not) permitted to speak. Marginalised individuals and groups
have historically been denied self-expression, only continuing to exist as
subjects through translation. By arguing that symbolic citizenship offers
opportunities for new minoritarian affiliations or solidarities that tran-
scend and disregard national borders, Homi Bhabha (Bhabha 1994, xvii)
draws attention to the power of transcultural (minoritarian) connections
to instigate a politics of group rights and recognition. Self-translation as
practised by Lakhous can be read as a counter-narrative, engaging in criti-
cal translational work that highlights the power of transcultural and eth-
nolinguistic solidarities by bringing subjugated voices to the forefront to
disrupt dominant forms discourse and to critique ethnic inequalities in
contemporary Italian society.
The choice of Piazza Vittorio—one of the most popular and multieth-
nic squares in today’s Rome—as the setting for Scontro di civiltà per un
ascensore a Piazza Vittorio allows Lakhous to explore and challenge exclu-
sivist constructions of national identities. This particular square is para-
digmatic in its contemporary role as a showcase of the ongoing social
hybridisation of Italian society. The plot of Scontro is shaped around a
single apartment building on Piazza Vittorio and revolves around the
murder of one of the building’s residents. The inhabitants of the build-
ing—five immigrant characters and five Italian characters—all give their
views on the facts, especially on the prime suspect, whose real name is
Ahmed but who is universally known as Amedeo and thought to be
Italian, although he is actually Algerian, and who mysteriously disap-
peared after the murder. By making the culturally hybrid Amedeo/Ahmed
a foreigner who seems to be more Italian than anybody else in the book,
the protagonist, Scontro, mocks the superficiality of the dominant notion
of citizenship/nationality. This dominant notion, in fact, accommodates
only those who can be thought of as Italians on the surface, where surface
is represented by linguistic knowledge and skin colour. At the same time,
Scontro also highlights the strong exclusionary potential of such a notion
of belonging through drawing attention to the hierarchies of translation
inherent in the problematic relationship between language and the main-
stream notion of nationality.
The structure of the novel is rather complex. Eleven separate chapters
are written in a diary form by Amedeo/Ahmed. His diary entries are
inserted after each of the rest of the 11 individual chapters. The chapters
that contain the protagonist’s diary are entitled “Ululati” [Howls]: “Primo
Ululato,” “Secondo Ululato” [First Howl, Second Howl], and so on. As
Amedeo/Ahmed remarks in a passage that also provides a clue to the
choice of title for the Arabic version of the novel, “howling” connects
him to his adoptive “mother,” the Roman She-Wolf: “Mi allatto della
lupa insieme ai due orfanelli Romolo e Remo. Adoro la lupa, non posso
fare a meno del suo latte” (Lakhous 2006b, 168) [“I suckle on the wolf
with the two orphans Romulus and Remus. I adore the wolf, I can’t do
without her milk” (Lakhous 2008b, 118)]. Bypassing both his lan-
guages—Italian and Arabic—the howls (representing both the she-wolf ’s
language and the high-pitched ululations commonly practised by women
in the Arab world to express celebration) allow Amedeo/Ahmed to remain
bonded to both his cultures through the phonic representation of two
mother tongues.
The second group of chapters, upon which the diary chapters com-
ment and expand, make full use of dialogism, foregrounding the space of
communication that involves the co-presence of multiple languages with
each having equivalent political valence. These chapters consist of first-
person monologues recited in turn by the rest of the characters. All the
chapters in this second group are entitled “The truth according to,” fol-
lowed by the name of the individual character. Even if the range of topics
discussed in addition to Amedeo/Ahmed’s disappearance and innocence
is very broad and varies from one “truth-telling” chapter to another, in
almost all of them the themes that emerge are directly connected to the
exploration of Italianness. Whether the characters express their bewilder-
ment at Italian linguistic heterogeneity, or incredulity at the discovery
that a foreigner has been able to master the language “meglio
250 R. Wilson
di tanti italiani” [better than many Italians] (Lakhous 2006b, 103), these
reactions serve the same textual purpose: the investigation of the nexus
between language and national identity. Immigrant and Italian charac-
ters alike approach this complex question from different and seemingly
conflicting positions, but the patent dialogism of their interaction is a
vivid illustration of the author’s translational poetics: that is, a poetics
that valorises all languages equally.
Edwin Gentzler maintains that “fictional accounts reveal more about
the inner workings of the mind during the process of a migrant’s private
self-translations than more factual accounts” (2013, 346). In Scontro,
we are given a glimpse of self-translation as an essential component of
an efficient intercultural process and of a plural identity, both in the
individual and in the collective domain through the intertextual refer-
ence to the Amin Maalouf ’s novel Leo Africanus, which is based on the
life of al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi.2 Like Leo Africanus,
Amedeo/Ahmed has an identity built from different elements and
belongs to two different cultures. While one is a historical figure and
the other a fictional character, both can be considered examples of para-
digmatic creolisation and their juxtaposition is a way of drawing atten-
tion to the significant historical encounters and their interconnectedness
with the present that are typical of the centuries-long interactions in
the Mediterranean region:
Vivere due culture significa disporre come di chiavi diverse per porte
diverse … arabizzare l’italiano e viceversa significa anche portare
l’immaginario da una riva all’altra del Mediterraneo non soltanto nel senso
dell’incontro tra le culture, ma pure nel senso della riscoperta di una
memoria comune … come autore arabo che scrive in italiano non vengo
ma torno in Italia, che è un luogo abitato dalla cultura araba da secoli e
secoli. (Lakhous 2011, 3)
[Living two cultures means having different keys for different doors. …
Arabising Italian and vice versa also means bringing the imagery from one
shore of the Mediterranean to another, not only in the sense of the meeting
between cultures, but also in the sense of rediscovering a common memory
… as an Arab author who writes in Italian I did not arrive in Italy, I just
returned to a place inhabited by Arab culture for many centuries.]
Both Hassan/Leo and Amedeo/Ahmed occupy a central role in connect-

ing two worlds, in trying to build a dialogue to create an equal inter-
change between cultures: a role that is compared to that of a smuggler,
crossing “le frontiere della lingua con un bottino di parole, idee, immag-
ini e metafore” (Lakhous 2006b, 155) [“the frontiers of language with
[his] booty of words, ideas, images, and metaphors” (Lakhous 2008b,
109)]. By “smuggling” one language into another and writing so that a
dialect or an accent can be “heard,” Lakhous not only gives us lessons
about how to imagine other cultures, he also performs a cultural self-
translation that “manifests itself in the language of the story” (Klinger
2013, 119) and thereby empowers non-Arabic readers to access modes of
thought and modes of life specific to Italian society and vice versa.
Parallel Creations
For Lakhous, the process of writing the same text in both languages
becomes a way of overcoming the “failure of languages” (McGuire 1992,
111). In a sense, the failure of one language is reconciled by the use of the
other language and it becomes a supplementing act of re-exploration and
expansion of the text. As Richard Federman has argued, bilingual texts
“are not to be read as translations or as substitutes for one another. They
are always complementary to one another” (Federman 1996, n.p.). In
this context, the concepts of “original” and “translation” blur and cease to
apply as clearly illustrated by the composition of Lakhous’ third novel
where he adopted a creative method that involved the parallel writing of
the Arabic and Italian versions. This process of (almost) simultaneously
creating the same work in two languages is more than a necessary prac-
tice, or a means to an end, or even a political message. The “going back
and forth” between languages is fundamental in avoiding “constrictive
stereotypes of identity” (Apter 2006, 98), or, to put it another way, in
contesting stereotypical representations of fixed national, regional or
local identity.
Lakhous is concerned above all with language as a strategic area of
cultural self-definition. His ongoing project to “Arabise Italian and
252 R. Wilson
Italianise Arabic” is a process of creolisation that, through the constant

fragmenting and recombination of linguistic elements, compels us to
rethink the relationship between literature and identity in terms of
“diversalism” (Glissant 1997) rather than “otherness.” In other words, we
must put to one side a “sense of language or knowledge that attempts to
dominate or comprehend (in the sense of ‘grasping’ that which is Other)
and adopt one that is shared” (Bermann 2014, n.p.). Like Edouard
Glissant’s attempt to think identity via the “poetics of relation” (Glissant
1997, 141–157), which he defines, in Deleuzian terms, as a rhizomatic
form of thought, one that reaches out to the other while accepting the
“opacity” of that other, Lakhous seeks a way to safeguard both cultural
difference and localised identity without falling into the exclusionary
tendencies of ethnic and national identity. His method is to attempt to
transcend these categories in a dialectical movement that is signalled on
the stylistic level through his ongoing hybridisation of language and, on
the structural level, by adopting strategies of genre hybridisation and
intertextuality.
Divorzio all’islamica a viale Marconi is a rewriting of Pietro Germi’s
film Divorzio all’italiana (1961), a milestone in the genre of Italian
film known as “commedia all’italiana” [comedy Italian style]. The dif-
ference between Lakhous’ and Germi’s titles is significant: while
Divorzio all’italiana suggests homogeneity, Lakhous’ work immedi-
ately signifies difference and heterogeneity both by associating an
Islamic element to the Italian context, and by localising it to viale
Marconi in Rome. While Germi’s film narrativises and problematises
the indissolubility of marriage in 1960s Italy, Lakhous’ novel recounts
the complexities that exist in an official Islamic divorce from a femi-
nine perspective:
Dopo Scontro di civiltà per un ascensore in piazza Vittorio, che ho scritto per
portare uno sguardo sull’Italia, Divorzio all’islamica è uno sguardo al mio
paese, alla mia cultura d’origine. Ho usato la stessa metodologia di curi-
osità. Nella mia cultura, musulmana e khabil, lo sguardo è sempre mas-
chile, è l’uomo, che “vede.” Safia, invece, afferma che abbiamo bisogno di
un’interpretazione femminile del Corano, volevo contrapporre allo sguardo
maschile dominante un’altra interpretazione. (Lakhous 2013a, n.p.)
[After Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, which I

wrote to take a look at Italy, Divorce Islamic Style is a look at my country, my
culture of origin. I used the same method of inquiry. In my culture, Muslim
and Kabyle, the gaze is always masculine, it is the man who “sees.” Safia,
however, asserts that we need a feminine interpretation of the Qur’an, I
wanted to contrast the dominant male gaze with another interpretation.]
The two main characters in the story are Christian, a young Sicilian who
speaks perfect Tunisian Arabic and is contacted by the Italian secret ser-
vices to infiltrate a potential terrorist cell, and Safia, a woman of Egyptian
origin who has come to Rome to follow her husband, Said. Once more
the setting is crucial: the crowded and diverse viale Marconi neighbour-
hood (in the 15th District of Rome) where the largest Muslim commu-
nity in the capital resides. It is known as “Little Cairo” because its
inhabitants are mainly from northern Africa (and hence the title of the
Arabic version). Set in the alarmist climate that followed the 2004 Madrid
and 2005 London bombings, the novel follows Christian in his under-
cover role as Issa, a Muslim Tunisian migrant, on his mission to uncover
the allegedly imminent Rome bombing being plotted in viale Marconi.
Christian “exits” his Italian identity to inhabit that of a migrant. He
adopts the name Issa, shares a flat in Little Cairo with other migrants,
and changes his way of speaking:
L’ideale è parlare un italiano con una doppia cadenza, araba, perchè sono
tunisino, e siciliana perchè sono un immigrate che ha vissuto in Sicilia.
(Lakhous 2010a, 45)
[The ideal is to speak Italian with a dual cadence, Arab, because I’m
Tunisian, and Sicilian, because I’m an immigrant who has lived in Sicily.]
(Lakhous 2012, 47)
The change of names from Arabic to Italian and from Italian to Arabic
plays a significant role in Lakhous’ Arabising of Italian and Italianising of
Arabic, as well as in underscoring the role of the characters as intercultural
mediators. Personal names have been frequently used in literary narratives
as dense signifiers in the sense that they may contain in themselves indica-
tions about the function of a character or about the way the storyline
might develop. The protagonists in Scontro and Divorzio all have double
254 R. Wilson
names that reflect their mixed affiliations. From a semiotic perspective,

the names act as signs, generating cultural associations, which, in the case
of both male protagonists, indicate religious identity. Amedeo/Ahmed’s
name in Italian means “love of God” and in Arabic is a variant of
Muhammad and means “praiseworthy.” Christian’s mission requires him
to take on an Arab name and he, significantly, chooses Issa (which is “the
equivalent of Jesus for Muslims,” Lakhous 2012, 34). In Safia’s case, the
change of name is part of a series of empowerment strategies developed by
the character. She happily embraces the Italian version of her name (Sofia),
not so much because people fail to grasp her name correctly (Lakhous
2010a, 25), but more because of the fortuitous coincidence that she
resembles the celebrated Italian actress Sophia Loren. The duality of
Christian/Issa and Safia/Sofia allows each to provide both insider and out-
sider perspectives on various identities. Because they can acknowledge
differing points of view, these characters are not ideologically bound.
Christian is Italian, but he also experiences Rome as an outsider, com-
menting on his experiences in a Sicilian-inflected Italian. Along with his
Italian nationality, he has a familial and cultural link to Tunisia through
his grandfather. Safia/Sofia’s covert political ideas make her an outsider in
the Muslim community insofar as she reflects critical opinions on the role
of women in Islam. At the same time, she is an outsider in Italy as a for-
eign woman who wears the veil. The ambiguity imbricated in the renam-
ing and the slippage of one identity into the other is reflected in the novel’s
narrative strategies, in which both Christian/Issa and Safia/Sofia articulate
a dialogue between centre and margin, between Catholic Italy and Muslim
northern Africa. Similarly, the fact that both Amedeo/Ahmed in Scontro
and Christian/Issa in Divorzio are fluent in Italian and Arabic, as well as
being well versed in the discourses of both Mediterranean cultures, makes
them ideally suited to the role of “cultural brokers” who could actively
contribute to effecting change in both “home” and “host” societies.
The Power of Idioms

The translation process that Lakhous explores is not just focused on lan-
guage: it involves a translation of culture at all levels, including appar-
ently trivial experiences; it is in the discovery of a culture’s tangible
workings that he reaches a different level of consciousness, and he posi-

tions himself as a carrier of different views expressed through different
languages. In his migration from one language to another, he emphasises
not the difference but instead the connections among tongues, national
identities, and cultural perspectives that make communication possible.
From the outset, Lakhous’ work lays emphasis on the concept of the
heterolingual (Sakai 1997) and displays a translative practice of language
through which the staging of both the inequalities and the possibilities of
linguistic contact is made manifest in his use of a multilingual idiom
(Glissant 1997). Amalgamating oral and written discourse, Lakhous
makes visible the dynamics of displacement generated by literary self-
translation through the extensive use of culturally loaded metaphors and
idioms. The result is a distinctive form of language, a multilingual idiom
that not only consists of “subtypes and varieties existing within the vari-
ous officially recognised languages” (Delabastita and Grutman 2005, 15)
but, as in the case of the “howls,” is a new idiom that transforms the
respective “national” languages by transcending both the mother tongue
and the adopted language.
The languages and dialects spoken by Lakhous’ characters are strongly
marked by their regional belonging. In Scontro, for example, the
Neapolitan concierge code switches to Napoletano while the professor
who moved from Milan to take up an academic post at La Sapienza
University regularly lapses into Milanese. The liberal use of Italian regional
dialects, already present in the first novel (written in Arabic), in later
novels marks the differences and the similarities between the heteroge-
neous but nevertheless coherent community formed by migrants and the
apparently homogenous community of the host nation, which is revealed
as lacking social and political coherence. The “accented language” spoken
by the immigrant characters is the result of an association with Arab cul-
tures. When, for example, the Iranian Parviz Mansoor Samadi is testifying,
we find similes that are more likely to seem familiar to an Arabic or
Persian reader rather than to an Italian one, such as “Io non sono Amedeo,
questo è chiaro come la stella nel cielo sereno di Shiraz” (2006b, 17) [“I
am not Amedeo, that is as clear as a star in the peaceful sky of Shiraz”]
(2008a, 18). Generally, the Arabic proverbs are transcribed into Latin
characters and italicised, and accompanied by an explanation in Italian,
as illustrated below:
256 R. Wilson
In “Egitto si dice: ‘Al maktub aggabin, lazemtchufo l’ain!,’ ciò che è scritto
sulla fronte degli occhi gli occhi lo devono vedere per forza!” (Lakhous
2010a, 29)
[In Egypt they say: ‘Al maktùb aggabin, lazem tchufo l’ain!’ What’s writ-
ten on the forehead, the eyes have to see.] (Lakhous 2012, 31)
These are just a couple of examples of the translational poetics Lakhous

adopts throughout his work, carrying the sedimentation of other lan-
guages, whose particular locutions become part of the fabric of the writ-
er’s chosen Italian or Arabic. One of his distinguishing narrative techniques
is to illustrate the exchange between popular sayings and proverbs from
two different cultures from the point of view of a single character. A case
in point is the character of Abdallah Ben Kadour in Scontro. Abdallah, an
Algerian immigrant who grew up in the same neighbourhood where
Amedeo/Ahmed used to live, uses the image of leaving the cover on the
well (“lasciare il pozzo con il coperchio,” Lakhous 2006b, 113) derived
from a common Arab proverb to explain why he avoided talking about
their shared past. In a later episode in which he describes the arduous
situation of immigrants in Italy, he uses a popular Italian proverb:
Conosco un proverbio che gli italiani ripetono molto spesso, “L’ospite è

come il pesce, dopo tre giorni puzza.” L’immigrato è un ospite né più né
meno, e come il pesce si mangia fresco o poi si butta nella spazzatura
quando perde il suo colore. (Lakhous 2006b, 114)
[I know a proverb that the Italians often repeat, “Guests are like fish,
after three days they stink.” The immigrant is a guest, no more or less, and,
like fish, you eat him when he’s fresh and throw him in the garbage when
he loses his colour.] (Lakhous 2008a, 116)
The alternating use of idiomatic expressions and proverbs is exemplary of

how “self-translation can also be thought of as a type of reflexive meta-
commentary” in which each work reflects on the other version of the text,
and “by doing so foregrounds the workings of both source and target
languages” (Noonan 2013, 165). Lakhous’ translative language prac-
tices—integral to his translational poetics—also imply a continuous and
active demand that the reader engage not only as a receiver of but also as
a participant in the experience of meaning creation, a doubled experience
pertinent to translation, and a continuous and active interaction between

languages. Such practices also ask readers to be prepared to accept some
of the opacity of the text, evoking Glissant’s “defense of the right to opac-
ity” that ultimately seeks to “protect the subject against epistemologies
that threaten to reduce him or her to an externally generated and imposed
‘truth’” (Aching 2012, 45).
Unlike those propositions of creoleness that, in their turn, reproduce a
unified monolingualism, the translational dimension of multilingual lit-
erature acknowledges and mobilises the continuous and active interac-
tion between languages that is sometimes harmonious dialogue but at
other times marks the confrontation with a historically entrenched hier-
archy. The relational use of language in Lakhous’ writing gives the reader
a glimpse of the cultural substrate of the writing. Thus, it could be argued
that thinking the translative opens up the possibility of linguistic power
deployed in both directions, of interventions into the inscription of
power: or what in Glissant’s terms would be seen as a challenge to the
global tyranny of the transparent and decipherable.
The Power of Linguistic Mobility

Issues of power are notably interrelated with aspects of mobility.
Geographical mobility, for example, often implies social mobility. In the
domain of communication, only linguistic items and discourses that are
mobile—that are quoted—gain credibility and power; thus intertextuality
and iteration have to be considered important elements in the reproduc-
tion of power structures (Pennycook 2010). In Lakhous’ novels, intertex-
tuality is bound up not only with negotiation of authority but also with
issues of mediation of values and cultural forms. The creation of a bilin-
gual text is also the creation of a single polyphonic work that incorpo-
rates the translation project directly into the body of the text. The work,
then, gains not only a multilingual aspect but a linguistic hyper-awareness
and thereby demonstrates how polyphonic thinking can generate new
narrative possibilities. Further, Lakhous’ bilingual writings reveal a con-
sistent accumulation of translational commentary by retaining elements
of the original reading while gaining further perspectives on it
258 R. Wilson
through the process of rewriting, thus destabilising the notions of source

and target and contesting critical concepts such as “mother tongue,”
“original,” and “national literature.”
As we have seen, Lakhous’ transformative project arises from the dou-
ble need to give voice to the experience of immigrants and to familiarise
Italians with the cultures of origin of their new neighbours, fulfilling,
therefore, a function of cultural mediation. Accordingly, each stage of his
literary trajectory enacts and describes various levels of translation/trans-
formation. His first novel, written in Arabic, was translated into Italian
by a professional translator and published in a bilingual edition in which
the Arabic version begins at what, for an Italian reader, would be the
“back” of the book. The Arabic and Italian versions merge into each
other where both end (in the “middle” of the book). Thus, Cimici con-
structs a privileged space where double linguistic and cultural palimp-
sests create an intricate relational model between two worlds. The process
Lakhous undergoes in creating an Italian version of his second novel
(also originally written in Arabic) is both a self-translation and a transla-
tion of the self across the boundaries of language. As he has noted, this
process was necessary in order to liberate and express a translingual imag-
ination. If in rewriting Scontro he operated in a kind of dialogic way with
what could be termed the Arabic “original”/source text, the composition
of Divorzio signals a greater identity shift through the extensive rework-
ing of the Italian text while simultaneously creating the Arabic version.
Constantly overlapping different perspectives enables Lakhous to re-nar-
rate the dialectics of cultural encounters: in this liminal space between
two worlds, the past becomes “permeable” and opens itself to questions
that emerge from different directions and goes towards different possi-
bilities. The process that Lakhous adopts in his (re-)writing is encapsu-
lated in Michael Cronin’s understanding of the notion of “entre-deux,”
or in-betweenness:
a constant movement backwards and forwards in which there is no fixed

identification with either of the poles. The continuous oscillation between
source text and target text, between home culture and foreign culture,
native language and foreign language, define both translator and traveller
as figures in motion. (Cronin 2000, 106)
Working between languages enables Lakhous to provide new insights

into shifting constructions of citizenship in a period characterised by the
transition from national to transcultural communities. The problems of
racism and oppression that emerge in his narrative as part of reflections
on migration cannot be thought through in personal, individualistic
terms but rather in terms of collective practices that link disparate indi-
vidual stories. In other words, Lakhous reproduces ideological linkages as
rhetorical ones, and by so doing provides a way of capturing “the labile
quality of self and intercommunal identity construction” (Cronin 2013,
348). From this perspective, it emerges that the process of linguistic
hybridisation destabilises conceptions of fixed national, linguistic, and
personal identities together with binary notions of translations, and may
ultimately emerge as a vehicle of counter-power. Lakhous’ stories about
multicultural co-existence in contemporary Italian society map out an
innovative literary territory that transforms language into an empowering
motif. As the author himself has argued:
One acquires freedom through language. It is power. It means to arm one-

self with a powerful tool of survival, to live well, and to matter as a person.
[…] The ability to communicate offers status. […] Thinking about lan-
guage, […] you receive the soul of a people; you conquer part of the cul-
ture’s identity. Then the relationship with your native language changes, as
does your way of speaking and thinking. And the beautiful thing is that
you also change the language you acquire. (Lakhous 2008a, n.p.)
It is the comparison of divergent models of discourse that challenges the

literary canon and provides a context for the development of new iden-
tity profiles, be they aesthetic, social, or cultural. Translingual writers
who compose in more than one language aspire to both experience their
own maternal linguistic reality and transcend it by simultaneously taking
on the language of the Other. In the case of Lakhous, the act of multilin-
gual creation reflects a desire to know and become the Other, and then
share two spheres of cultural and linguistic formation through the pro-
cess of transculturation. Arguably, Lakhous has realised this aspiration in
his latest novels, Contesa per un maialino italianissimo a San Salvario
[Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet in San Salvario] (Lakhous 2013b)
260 R. Wilson
and La zingarata della verginella di Via Ormea [The Hoax of the Little
Virgin in Via Ormea] (Lakhous 2014b), which were both written in
Italian but in which he continues his practice of “Arabising” the language
and using a multilingual idiom.3 The author has stated that he moved to
Turin to write these novels because in the second half of the twentieth
century this industrial city received massive flows of migrants from the
poorest regions of Italy and his goal was to write “about immigration in
Italy from within Italy and from outside Italy. … To tell the story of the
relationship to the Other” (Lakhous 2014c, n.p.). Lakhous is proud of
his linguistic heritage (Lakhous 2014d, n.p.) and there is no desire for
“vertical” translation here, of giving enhanced prestige to the “new” lan-
guage, but rather of establishing a linguistic relationship of horizontality,
reaching out to explore the possibilities of expression in another language
of equal importance and also of understanding what it is like to achieve
linguistic identification with another reality.
Texts such as Contesa and Zingarata, positioned inside national cul-
tures but on the border of where the foreign meets the familiar, have
important implications for our understanding of intercultural exchanges
more generally. Understanding how the process of linguistic and cultural
self-translation works through the textually reconstructed experiences of
others allows us to define how these experiences can be translated into
accessible knowledge for other globally mobile citizens to use.
The multidimensionality of these translingual narratives is the conse-
quence of an epistemological reflection about the power and the limits
of the (monolingual) word. Their literary experimentation should be
placed into the context of the multi-, poly-, hetero-, and translingual
reality that their author inhabits. In particular, translative writing pro-
cesses accentuate the value of “heterolingual address” (Sakai 1997) as an
inclusive practice that, unlike the ideology of monolingualism, does
not treat language practices as discrete, uniform, and stable, nor does it
consider languages as discrete sites in hierarchical relation to others.
Rather, it recognises the inevitability and necessity of interaction among
languages and across language practices, as well as acknowledging the
need of writers and readers to engage the fluidity of language to medi-
ate the “clash of cultures” in pursuit of new knowledge and new ways of
knowing.
Notes
1 . All translations from Italian are mine unless otherwise specified.
2. Later known as Leo Africanus, al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-
Fasi was born in Granada in the sixteenth century. His family fled to
Morocco when the Spanish army forced Muslims and Jews out of
Andalucia, and Hassan-Leo grew up in Fez. As a trader and diplomat, he
followed the caravans through North Africa and later travelled extensively
in the Islamic Mediterranean. He was captured by Spanish pirates and
brought to Rome in 1518, where he was kept a prisoner until he professed
to have converted to Christianity. Pope Leo X then gave him the name
“Leone” as a patronly favour, and Hassan-Leo was baptised and became a
member of the papal court (Zemon Davis 2007).
3. To date neither has been published in an Arabic version.
References
Aching, Gerard. 2012. The ‘Right to Opacity’ and World Literature. 1616,
Anuario de Literatura Comparada 2: 33–47.
Apter, Emily. 2006. The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Bassnett, Susan. 2013. The Self-Translator as Rewriter. In Self-Translation,
Brokering Originality in Hybrid Culture, ed. Anthony Cordingley, 13–25.
London: Bloomsbury.
Bermann, Sandra. 2014. Translation as Relation and Glissant’s Work. CLCWeb:
Comparative Literature and Culture 16 (3). http://dx.doi.org/10.7771/1481-
4374.2516. Accessed 8 Aug 2015.
Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Cronin, Michael. 2000. Across the Lines, Travel, Language, Translation. Cork:
Cork University Press.
———. 2013. Response. Translation Studies 6 (3): 348–351.
Delabastita, Dirk, and Rainier Grutman. 2005. Introduction. Fictional
Representations of Multilingualism and Translation. Linguistica Antverpiensia
4: 11–34.
Federman, Raymond. 1996. A Voice within a Voice, Federman Translating/
Translating Federman http://www.federman.com/rfsrcr2.htm. Accessed 8
Aug 2015.
262 R. Wilson
Gentzler, Edwin. 2013. Response. Translation Studies 6 (3): 342–347. doi:10.1

080/14781700.2013.801661.
Glissant, Édouard. 1997. Poetics of Relation. Trans. Betsy Wing. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Grutman, Rainier. 2009. Self-translation. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation
Studies, ed. Mona Baker and Gabriella Saldanha, 257–260. London:
Routledge.
Hokenson, Jan W., and Marcella Munson. 2007. The Bilingual Text, History and
Theory of Literary Self-Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome.
Jung, Verena. 2004. Writing Germany in Exile—The Bilingual Author as Cultural
Mediator: Klaus Mann, Stefan Heym, Rudolf Arnhem, and Hannah Arendt.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 25 (5–6): 529–546.
Kaindl, Klaus, and Karlheinz Spitzl. 2014. Transfiction: Research into the Realities
of Translation Fiction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kellman, Steven G. 2000. The Translingual Imagination. Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press.
Klinger, Susanne. 2013. Translated Otherness, Self-Translated in-Betweenness:
Hybridity as Medium versus Hybridity as Object in Anglophone African
Writing. In Self-Translation, Brokering Originality in Hybrid Culture, ed.
Anthony Cordingley, 113–126. London: Bloomsbury.
Lakhous, Amara. 1999. al-baqq wa-l-qursan/Le cimici e il pirata. Trans. Francesco
Leggio. Rome: Arlem.
———. 2000. Elegia dell’esilio compiuto. Sagarana, http://www.sagarana.it/
rivista/numero2/elegia.html. Accessed 8 Aug 2015.
———. 2003. kayfa tarḍa’u min al-dhi’ba dūna an ta’aḍḍaka. Algiers: Editions
Al-ikhtilaf.
———. 2005. Intervista con Ubax Cristina Ali Farah. El-ghibli 1 (7). http://
archivio.el-ghibli.org/index.php%3Fid=1&issue=01_07&section=6&in
dex_pos=1.html. Accessed 20 Dec 2016.
———. 2006a. Come farsi allattare dalla lupa senza farsi mordere, Interviewed
by Nicola Villa: Scuola di scrittura Omero: interviste. http://www.omero.it/
omero-magazine/interviste/amara-lakhous-come-farsi-allattare-dalla-lupa-
senza-farsi-mordere/. Accessed 5 May 2015.
———. 2006b. Scontro di civiltà per un ascensore a piazza Vittorio. Rome:
Edizioni e/o.
———. 2008a. Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio.
Interview with Amara Lakhous. Trans. Giulia Prestia, IADP i-Italy, inter-
viewed by Letizia Airos Soria. http://www.iitaly.org/5486/clash-civilizations-
over-elevator-piazza-vittorio-interview-amara-lakhous. Accessed 5 May 2015.
———. 2008b. Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio. Trans.

Anne Goldstein. New York: Europa Editions.
———. 2010a. Divorzio all’islamica a Viale Marconi. Rome: Edizioni e/o.
———. 2010b. al-Qahira as-saghira. Beirut: Dar Al-arabiya lil-ulum.
———. 2011. Le catene dell’identità. Conversazione con Amara Lakhous,
Between, interviewed by Daniela Brogi. http://ojs.unica.it/index.php/
between/article/viewFile/152/128. Accessed 20 Dec, May 2016.
———. 2012. Divorce Islamic Style. Trans. Anne Goldstein. New York: Europa
Editions.
———. 2013a. Il primato della leggerezza, Interviewed by Grazia Puliero.
http://www.nigrizia.it/notizia/il-primato-della-leggerezza. Accessed 5 May
2015.
———. 2013b. Contesa per un maialino italianissimo a San Salvario. Rome:
Edizioni e/o.
———. 2014a. L’Italia che nega se stessa. Minima et Moralia, Interviewed by
Gabriele Santoro. http://www.minimaetmoralia.it/wp/intervista-ad-amara-
lakhous/. Accessed 15 Sep 2015.
———. 2014b. La zingarata della verginella di Via Ormea. Rome: Edizioni e/o.
———. 2014c. Full Stop. Interview with Amara Lakhous, Interviewed by
Meredith K. Ray. http://www.full-stop.net/2014/04/09/interviews/meredith-
k-ray/amara-lakhous/. Accessed 15 Sep 2015.
———. 2014d. Le interviste dei Serpenti: Amara Lakhous, interviewed by
Emanuela D’Alessio. http://www.viadeiserpenti.it/interviste-dei-serpenti-
amara-lakhous/. Accessed 20 Dec 2016.
Lefevere, Andre. 1990. Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary
McGuire, James. 1992. Forked Tongues, Marginal Bodies: Writing as Translation
in Khatibi. Research in African Literatures 23 (1): 107–116.
Noonan, Will. 2013. Self-Translation, Self-Reflection, Self-Derision: Samuel
Beckett’s Bilingual Humour. In Self-Translation: Brokering Originality in
Hybrid Culture, ed. Anthony Cordingley, 159–176. London: Bloomsbury.
Pennycook, Alastair. 2010. Language as a Local Practice. London: Routledge.
Saidero, Deborah. 2011. Self-Translation as Transcultural Re-inscription of
Identity in Dôre Michelut and Gianna Patriarca. Oltreoceano 5: 33–41.
Sakai, Naoki. 1997. Translation and Subjectivity: On Japan and Cultural
Nationalism. Transl. Meaghan Morris. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press.
Shread, Carolyn. 2009. Redefining Translation through Self-Translation: The
Case of Nancy Huston. French Literature Series 36 (1): 51–66.
264 R. Wilson
Simon, Sherry. 2006. Translating Montreal: Episodes in the Life of a Divided City.
Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
———. 2011. Cities in Translation: Intersections of Language and Memory, New
Perspectives in Translation and Interpreting Studies. London: Routledge.
Wilson, Rita. 2009. The Writer’s Double: Translation, Writing and
———. 2011. Cultural Mediation through Translingual Narrative. Targets 23
(2): 235–250.
Zemon Davis, Natalie. 2007. Trickster Travels: In Search of Leo Africanus, A
Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds. New York: Hill and Wang.
Rita Wilson is Professor of Translation Studies at the School of Languages,

Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
Her research combines an interest in linguistic and cultural translation and mul-
tilingualism with studies of contemporary translingual and transcultural writ-
ing. She has written widely on contemporary Italian literature, on women’s
writing, and on the relationship between migration, self-translation, and iden-
tity. She is the co-editor of the journal The Translator and academic co-director
of the Monash-Warwick Migration, Identity, and Translation Network.
Writing Beyond the Border: Max Frisch,
Dialect and Place in Swiss-German
Literature
Marc Cesar Rickenbach
Introduction
In an interview conducted for a study at the University of Basel,
Switzerland, Max Frisch (1911–1991) responds to a question concerning
his relationship as a writer in the German language: “Ich habe von Anfang
an über die Grenze hinaus geschrieben, natürlich nicht im Sinne von
Marktabsatzgebiet oder so ähnlich, sondern weil man beim Schreiben
einfach immer mit einem deutschen Leser rechnet” [From the beginning,
I have written beyond the border, not, of course, in the sense of a market-
place, or anything like that, but because when writing, one always reck-
ons with a German reader] (in Bloch 1971, 68).1 This encounter with the
German reader and their language appears not only in Frisch’s interview,
but also in those of the other Swiss writers included in the same volume
edited by Bloch (1971), all of whom are inevitably forced to consider
M.C. Rickenbach (*)

City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

266 M.C. Rickenbach
the gap that exists between the oral dialects of their everyday experience
and the standardised High German in which they generally write. This
“literary” language is a shared language that already flows over (at least in
print) a couple of national borders to the north and to the east. Bear in
mind a German reader of some sort has always been, in one form or
another, a general reality for the Swiss-German writer.
Frisch’s characterisation of his writing as writing-beyond-the-border
can be duly read within the context of the metaphorical language of
border-crossing that has become a mainstay in translation studies, namely
in the recent work of Emily Apter (2006, 2013) and in Pascale Casanova
(2004). This understanding has its foundations in the plurality of mean-
ings of the Latin word translatio, which, as Antoine Berman (1988, 23)
has reminded us, is not limited to its general contemporary usage of lin-
guistic transference, but includes the physical displacement of people,
objects, laws and jurisdictions. For Frisch, then, reckoning with a German
reader who, using his own words, requires a writing-beyond-the-border
can be understood as an act of translation—not only in its linguistic sense
but as displacement as well. This translation, however, is not one taking
place after an original is produced (say in the dialect before it is translated
by the author into a target language) but rather one taking place simulta-
neously with the original act of writing. In other words, it is a self-
translation that takes place to guarantee, in advance and from the outset,
the text’s intelligibility for the general German reader. In a sense, it
approaches the situation of those texts Rebecca Walkowitz (2015) calls
“born-translated”—texts already conceived of as reaching across the bor-
ders of their purported sites of origin.
Taking this understanding of self-translation as displacement, this
chapter will examine the “spatial” component of such border-crossing in
some notable Swiss-German texts, particularly some key texts by Frisch
whose work is often seen as having exceeded its national borders. His
work is perhaps the most immediate and accessible example of a Swiss
author who had to navigate such a literary displacement, especially at a
time when the economic and political power of Switzerland after National
Socialism’s defeat threw the country and its culture into a rather bright
light on the world stage. Furthermore, having written plays, novels and a
film, he offers a varied terrain of work through which to pull our main
Writing Beyond the Border: Max Frisch, Dialect and Place... 267
questions and to witness an under-examined tendency that is worthy of

thematic consideration.
Frisch’s work therefore offers an exemplary model of a larger problem.
Among many novels and plays of the late nineteenth and twentieth cen-
turies, the problematic status of the representation and even the naming
of specific Swiss places appear to be endemic. A survey of this literature
suggests that there is often an overt tendency to omit place names. In
relation to this, there is also the author’s and the speaking subject’s hesi-
tance or, at times, inability to utter these place names while inhabiting
them. The hypothesis I would like to advance here is that this tendency
towards silence in regard to place is symptomatic of such a translation as
a type of border-crossing—though this idea of the border will become
further complicated. As Frisch’s statement hints, there is a calculation
(mitrechnen) going on, an exchange of sorts. What often appears to be
exchanged in this calculation for a wider intelligibility and inclusion in
the German-language cultural area is regional or national place. Place is,
in one way or another, left behind on the other side of the border as the
writer, to echo Rilke in 1928 (in Schazmann 1941, 2), moves from one
sol-de-langue [language-ground] to another.
While this phenomenon, as we will see, can be partly explained by the
cultural and political configurations of the German-speaking realm, there
is also a certain linguistic impossibility that must be taken into account.
It would be helpful to first broadly examine the political terrain of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries as it might pertain to Swiss-German
literature in the German cultural realm and to map out a historical and
more contemporary understanding of this relationship.
Topography, Borders, Checkpoints, Regions

The landscape for which Switzerland has been exalted as a sort of utopian
ideal by the English Romantics, for example, has been an existential and
metaphorical quandary for its writers who often feel trapped atop its high
peaks or below in its valleys. This tension has been treated both explicitly
and implicitly in works ranging from Karl Schmid’s highly influential
literary study, Unbehagen im Kleinstaat [The Small State and its Discontents]
268 M.C. Rickenbach
(1963), to Jean Starobinski’s (1966) genealogy of Nostalgia or Heimweh,

and also, more recently, in Hugo Loetscher’s (2003) appeal for writers to
descend from the Alps in order to find a place among the German plains
unhindered by parochial or provincial aspersions—something that recent
trends in Swiss literature seem to be defying.
This literal or metaphorical drama of high-low, inclusion-exclusion,
departure-return, hinges on and is problematised by a shared literary lan-
guage that highlights a border while at the same time transgressing it.
Clearly, a few potentially fruitful openings to reading this relationship
already exist, such as Deleuze and Guattari’s (1986) discussion of minor
literature and its relationship to its major counterpart, or the discussion
of centre-periphery and the control and circulation of cultural capital in
Casanova’s The World Republic of Letters (2004). Writing-beyond-the-
border, as Frisch puts it, brings the writer into the midst of these dualistic
tensions. As a so-called minor writer, how and where does a writer like
Frisch find his place?
Speaking of a clean border-crossing runs the risk of oversimplification,
a reduction to inside and outside which overlooks complex nuances.
Given the nature of the cultural relationship between the Swiss and the
Germans, the Swiss, by way of a shared cultural-literary language, is often
somehow already on the inside while maintaining, reluctantly or not, an
outsider status. In this vein, Apter (2013) has recently shown that the
very idea of a border has become problematised by the new and ever-
shifting geopolitical and transnational paradigm. Borders have suppos-
edly become open or fluid, not only politically and economically, but in
literary studies as well. In considering critically the new “cartography”
that such a redefining of borders establishes for literary studies, Apter
(2013, 104) has astutely pointed out that what is often forgotten in dis-
cussions of these new porous borders are the checkpoints that remind us
of these spectral borders. While some critics might take a shared literary
language as an attenuation or even an erasure of a certain “literary” bor-
der—thereby doing away with a sense of foreignness that comes along
with that language it is this concept of the checkpoint standing some-
where in the gap between dialect and high language that reinforces the
idea of the border with which Frisch must reckon, and which sets the
conditions for wider inclusion.
Perhaps one of the most illustrative examples of an encounter with

this ambiguous border, and the general entanglement of language and
politics, is of Nobel laureate Carl Spitteler’s (1915) 1914 address.
Spitteler’s plea to his compatriots to sever themselves politically from
Germany while remaining loyal to the Goethean cultural patrimony, to
which in many ways they saw themselves indebted, was perceived as
traitorous by many German readers and a confounding maze for his
Swiss audience. This suggests that a shared cultural language has his-
torically necessitated a complex interrelation between Switzerland and
Germany, which has often and at times problematically manifested
itself within literature. It also highlights the existence of this notion of
the checkpoint, which exists not as a fixed line along a national border,
but as a specific and delocated point of entry. It is a nexus at which the
Swiss-German writer confronts compromise between cultural inclusion
and territorial sovereignty.
Of course, the terms of this compromise within literature are contin-
gent upon the politics of the time and must therefore be considered his-
torically. The post-war work of Frisch, Dürrenmatt, Loetscher, Bichsel
and Muschg appeared at a time when cultural affiliation to the German-
speaking realm became uncomfortable after National Socialism. The
dilemma for the Swiss at this particular moment became one of moral
positioning, and their standing both in the Germanic region and interna-
tionally became an explicit topic of concern. Frisch did not hesitate to
become an outspoken cultural and political critic of his country; nor did
Hugo Loetscher, whose first novel Abwässer: Ein Gutachten (1963)
[Wastewaters: A Report] offers a parabolic deconstruction of the superfici-
ality of Switzerland’s own self-conception as a clean and untouched soci-
ety. Likewise, more recent writers of the last two decades, such as Ernst
Eggimann, Pedro Lenz and Arno Camenisch, have all entrenched them-
selves in the actual terrain and dialects of Switzerland in order to turn it
inside-out—all this at a time when Europe is apparently doing away with
its borders.
The nineteenth century shows similar fluctuations, during which the
political consciousness of Switzerland grappled with its position in post-
Napoleonic Europe. The most prominent literary figure during this era
was pastor Albert Bitzius, better known by his pen name, Jeremias
270 M.C. Rickenbach
Gotthelf (1797–1854). Gotthelf ’s work is known for its firm rooting in

the Emmental villages he called home and his liberal use of Bernese dia-
lect. His conservative politics, which opposed the Radical Party’s attempt
to move towards a more centralised federal government, was readily offered
to the public in his journalistic writings. One could potentially make a
strong case for a literature rooted in language and place, as an act of oppo-
sition to a more nationalised, pan-Swiss consciousness. However, it is also
possible to see the general rush of nationalistic feeling in the work of
Gottfried Keller (1819–1890) as an attempt at a consciousness that exceeds
its borders. This Romantic feeling is clearly evident in the opening of the
1854–1855 edition of Der grüne Heinrich [Green Henry], in which Keller
praises the beauty of those idyllic Swiss cities and towns that lay alongside
rivers and lakes: Zurich, Luzern, Rapperswil and Geneva (2005, 15).
A superficial analysis of the novel’s opening reveals a certain intention
towards rootedness to a particular place. “Schweiz” [Switzerland] appears
in the first sentence, with Zurich and its river Limmat making five appear-
ances in the first paragraph alone. It differs from Gotthelf in its symbolic
linking of the apparent focus of the novel (Zurich), not only to other
cities in Switzerland (Geneva and Luzern), but also to Konstanz, which
lies across the border in Germany, where much of the novel was written
in the 1840s and 1850s. This first page thus indexically marks both loci
of the narrative and its speaker’s position. This position of Keller’s is per-
haps best summarised by Wilhelm Schulz, an early reviewer of his first
book of poetry in 1846: “He is a Swiss poet of the German nation … and
at the same time a warm Swiss republican” (quoted in Lindsay 1968, 27).
Lindsay adds that “Keller had steered a middle course between a watery
and characterless internationalism and Swiss smugness. He retained his
national identity but avoided intellectual provincialism” (1968, 27).
The failed revolutions of 1848 in Germany, as well as the increasing
influence of liberals and radicals in Switzerland, both of which sought
expanded unification, clearly affected Keller’s consciousness. In light of
the nationalistic and pan-Germanic movements of the period, it is not
surprising that Keller would look to steep his reader in the liberal
nationalism which he shared. Having studied with Ludwig Feuerbach
and having socialised with the likes of Michael Bakunin and Wilhelm
Weitling while they were both in Zurich, Keller was prone to speak with
an “internationalist” tenor, even if that tenor was only ever a soft one
(Lindsay 1968, 25). Keller seemed to never fully commit to the doc-
trines of his teachers and friends.
The first edition of Der grüne Heinrich was met with critical acclaim,
yet failed to sell. This is largely attributed to a sense of formlessness as a
result of part of the novel being written in the first person while the
remainder appeared in the third person—perhaps a consequence of
Keller’s self-alienating “middle course.” Another factor is what many saw
as the unmotivated death of Heinrich Lee. These failures, among other
points of discontent with the initial edition, led Keller to revise the novel
in 1879–1880. What we find on the first page is a significant omission.
The romantic adulations of the idyllic Swiss landscape of his hometown
that opens up the first edition of the novel is replaced by a village that
bears an “Alemannic” name, though that name is never given and there-
fore never actually “located” (Keller 1993, 1). Why this change?
In this revised version, rewritten entirely in the first person, the land
and villages of Keller’s novel become mostly empty, nameless and nation-
less signifiers. His Alemannic village is out there in no specific place and
no longer here in Zurich. The initial indexing of place in the opening
pages of the novel ambiguously places it in a space that includes
Switzerland, southern Germany, western Austria, Liechtenstein and even,
perhaps, Alsace; in short, it becomes extra-national. Keller’s revision not
only lends the novel a more unified structure, in that he seems to step
away from his “middle course,” but it allows Heinrich a freer movement
across borders, though at the cost of naming places. There is no longer a
question of nations, only of an inclusive linguistic culture. The literary
language establishes a conduit between nations that no doubt passes
through a cultural checkpoint: Keller, the “Swiss republican,” seems to be
compelled to leave something behind at customs (perhaps his “Swiss
smugness”) in order to enter into the German literary nation. It is this
edition, in which the appearance of “Switzerland” is greatly diminished,
that has made its way into the German canon.
272 M.C. Rickenbach
Feeling of Strangeness: Foreignness

A
and Timidity of Language
Parallel to the political context in which these texts are created is the
question of language, which, I believe, is at the heart of this problem of
place. To generally represent texts written by Swiss authors such as Frisch,
Gottfried Keller and even Robert Walser (among countless others) as
being self-translated admittedly may be read as problematic and met with
some resistance—especially since there is no source-target distinction.
Instead, what we are dealing with is translation between sols-de-langue
[language-grounds], or between what critic Peter von Matt calls the two
“Gestalts” [forms] of the Swiss variant of German—that is, a dialect and
a high language (2012, 127) that offer different possibilities of being-in-
the-world. Put differently, self-translation is between empirical experi-
ence and literary representation, everyday private encounters and public
discourse—all of which are contingent on the demands and possibilities
allotted by the language or languages in which these are ultimately
represented.
The question of the naturalness or foreignness of High German in rela-
tion to dialect is one that comes up often and appears time and time
again in local and national newspapers, at the same time as education
authorities grapple with when and how to implement the teaching of a
standardised high language. Von Matt’s two-Gestalt argument is his rem-
edy for the lingering sense of foreignness that High German seems to
have for the Swiss. This model is his way of making a sort of national
claim on this otherwise “foreign” or more “elite” language. Pointing to
the Schweizerische Bundesverfassung’s [Swiss Federal Constitution’s] desig-
nation of “Deutsch” as one of the four national languages, von Matt
argues that with this designation, “wird der Dialekt nicht negiert, sondern
er ist beim Wort Deutsch mitgemeint” [dialect is not negated, rather it is
included in the meaning of the word Deutsch] (2012, 127).
And yet, among many writers, a strong sense of the foreignness of
High German still persists. In a 1984 interview, playwright Friedrich
Dürrenmatt (then at the age of 61) still considers his dialect his mother
tongue and distinct from German: “My native language is Bernese, for
me German is artificial” (1984, 66). In light of this, it is important to

keep in mind the aim of von Matt’s essay: he is not attempting a revision-
ist critique of (in this case) the writer’s affective relationship to his or her
two languages as it was, but rather as it should be in the future, in the
prescriptive sense. An irreducible fissure, no matter how distinct, between
dialect and its high counterpart still appears to be stamped on the con-
sciousness of many of the great Swiss writers.
This fissure often has certain affective consequences for the writers in
question, which can often have a destabilising effect. Von Matt points out
that the perceived foreignness can lead to an uneasiness that effects a
“strange feeling of being too formal,” leading to a sense of awkwardness
when confronted with “the well-oiled tongue of our counterparts” (2012,
131). Günter Grass and Peter Bichsel have made similarly remarks, point-
ing to an ingrained timidity and a tendency towards grammatical exact-
ness that leaves behind any trace of the spontaneous use of localised
dialect, moving instead towards the more abstract or objective use of lan-
guage (Bloch 1971, 169; quoted in Steinberg 1976, 107).
This “strange” feeling or timidity indicates a certain sense of alienation
from the general and dominant literary discourse, in that there appears to
be a preoccupation with being perceived as a foreigner on the territory of
the German reader. This creates a tendency to remain silent about one’s
origins, or to silence one’s origin, out of a fear of betraying a potentially
isolating parochialism. This muting is found in a number of Swiss texts as
well as in the biographies of their authors, from Robert Walser’s Jakob von
Gunten, in which Jakob remains mute when asked about his origins
(Walser 1983, 35), to Keller’s own experience while studying in Germany
(Lindsay 1968, 49). In Frisch’s case, we remember that it is a word, most
definitely in dialect, that betrays Anatol Stiller’s potentially true identity
in I’m Not Stiller2 (Frisch 1954) and sets in motion the events that make
him a ward of the state: “If I had not condescended to speak German in
the train I might never have found myself in this scrape. Another pas-
senger, a Swiss, had spoken to me in German” (Frisch 1961, 9). In these
instances, a “spoken” encounter with this “other reader” almost always
brings into play the location of origin and an exertion of power, whether
implicit or otherwise. What these instances demonstrate is the tendency
to keep quiet so as not to betray one’s foreign origins.
274 M.C. Rickenbach
Not to keep silent often “locates” a character or a writer who then runs
the risk of isolation or marginalisation. Paul Haller (1882–1920), for
example, wrote almost exclusively in dialect, and he is perhaps both the
most well known and often overlooked of such dialect authors. His so-
called master play Robert und Marie (1915) found its staging difficult
precisely because of its exclusive use of dialect. Finding enough actors of
quality who could faithfully (if at all) reproduce the Aargauer dialect
proved nearly impossible and the play remains almost exclusively a writ-
ten text, never having found its way into staged repertoires (Steinberg
1976, 107–108). Limiting such a text to site-specific dialect risks aban-
doning that text, and its author, to isolation within the immediate area
described or in whose dialect it is written. Haller is still perceived primar-
ily as an Aargauer before Swiss. Similarly, Pedro Lenz, a contemporary
writer and journalist known for his spoken-word and dialect plays, col-
umns and novels is known primarily as a Berner. Their use of dialect
identifies them directly with their particular region, unlike authors such
as Gottfried Keller, Max Frisch and Hugo Loetscher, all of whom are
generally considered “representative” Swiss or German-language writers
before being identified with their specific locality—which, for all three,
incidentally happens to be Zurich.
here Is Heimat? The Position of Writing,

W
Narrative and Noise
Frisch’s one and only film, Zürich-Transit (1966), offers an excellent
example of the dissonance created between dialect and High German and
the latter’s troublesome relationship to place. While a number of contin-
gencies may explain the production failures, its peculiar handling of lan-
guage together with the outlying choice of setting within the greater
context of the author’s work makes it particularly exemplary of the topic
of this chapter as it relates to dialect and setting.
Among the dramatic works of Frisch’s oeuvre, Zürich-Transit remains
the only one set on Swiss soil. That it exists at all as a “completed” work
that has been allowed a place in Frisch’s bibliography is due to the fact
that after its production failure the scenario was published as a text on its
own. However, what is of interest here is the protagonist Ehrismann’s

status as a type of spectre, a being still alive and inhabiting a bodily form,
yet one who should no longer be here (in Zurich) and who essentially
remains invisible. After travelling to London, during which time some-
one stole and died in his car, Ehrismann returns to Zurich, unfettered
from the social world that presumes him dead.
Frisch evidently saw in Ehrismann’s being-dead an impossibility for
communication; to speak and make himself heard would have meant an
abandonment of autonomy. At the Berliner Akademie der Künste [Berlin
Academy of the Arts], Frisch commented on the disappearance of com-
munication in the film: “Ursprünglich sollte der film überhaupt keine
Dialoge haben; nur die Off-Stimme. Dies nicht als stilistische Masche,
sondern als artistisches Mittel zum Zweck: es gibt keine Kommunikation
mehr” [Initially, the film was not supposed to have any dialogue, only a
voice-over. Not for the sake of a stylistic ploy, rather as an artistic way to
make the point: there is no more communication] (Max Frisch: Zürich-
Transit 2011). On the surface it appears that Frisch meant this silence to
be rooted in the fact that a dead man cannot speak. He is no longer alive
and therefore no longer part of living society. No longer being-there (or
here, in Zurich) renders him mute.
There is, however, another factor that runs parallel to this new existen-
tial circumstance for Ehrismann. For a cosmopolitan writer such as
Frisch, who had at this point established himself both at home and abroad
as an important figure of German-language literature, it is a moment
pregnant with signification that for his first film, one set in his hometown
of Zurich, he should choose his characters to remain silent. His other
dramatic work up until this time avoided any problem of speaker and
place simply by setting his plays elsewhere: to name a few, Andorra (1961),
Santa Cruz (1947) and The Arsonists (1958) are set either abroad, in fic-
tive locations, or in unnamed environments that are generally assumed to
be somewhere within the German-speaking realm. Eventually, formal
pressures did force Frisch to include some short dialogue. To mitigate this
apparent necessity, Frisch attempted what might be construed as a stylis-
tic remedy by having his actors deliver their lines in the more realistic,
domestic scenes in Swiss-German: short, truncated sentences, sometimes
only single words (“Zucker,” “Ich kondoliere” [sugar, condolences]) and
276 M.C. Rickenbach
conventional greetings. These scenes are generally overheard or imagined

and have no bearing on what little narrative there is—Frisch calls this a
“Geräusch-Gestus [noise-gesture]” (Bolliger et al. 2001, 182). On the
other hand, the more “artistic” scenes, those actual dialogues in which
characters interact in a way that develops the narrative, were to be deliv-
ered in standard languages: Ehrismann speaks English with a supposedly
Swiss flight attendant, in High German with the stranger from Hamburg,
Italian with the guest worker and waiters and French with Yvette.
There is a palpable hesitation, an obvious move towards avoidance on
the part of Frisch to fully embrace the language of his main character. His
allowing Swiss-German in the home of the widow locates the oral dialect
as the site of lived “reality,” while the stylistically distanced “reality” of
diegesis is given over entirely to the standardised languages. Even the off-
screen narrative voice of Ehrismann is delivered in High German. Frisch
writes: “Dinge, die der Held nicht wirklich erlebt, die er sich aber denken
kann, habe ich dort nun die Möglichkeit, den Dialog ins Hochdeutsch zu
übersetzen” (Bolliger et al. 2001, 182). [What the hero did not really
experience but could think to himself, allowed me only one possibility, to
translate the dialogue into High German]. Zürich-Transit thus poses an
interesting quandary for Frisch that ultimately results in silence, both for
the film’s protagonist and ultimately the film itself, which remains an
incomplete spectre itself in the Filmarchiv Düsseldorf.
Ehrismann’s being a sort of mute ghost begs a spatial question that can
be answered in part by looking at the deictic nature of the film’s language
problem. It seems that no longer being-here, in Zurich, forecloses on the
possibility to communicate within the realm of everyday lived experience
in dialect. If this is indeed the case, then where does Frisch’s protagonist
stand in relation to his Heimat when dialect is left behind in favour of the
“strange” translation into High German?
As is clear, Zürich-Transit’s language problem highlights the well-
established and conventional distinction between the public and private
functions of languages. The vernacular (dialect), as Deleuze and Guattari
(1986, 23) have mapped out, is the “maternal-territorial” language, the
language spoken by Ehrismann’s family and friends within their home—
it is the language of here, of the immediate, proximate and the close
at-hand. Conversely, public discourses of government and culture (the
vehicular and referential, respectively) are out there or everywhere, dis-

tanced or nowhere in particular (Deleuze and Guattari 1986, 23). These
are the languages in which Ehrismann speaks to the other characters in
town, all of whom have arrived in Zurich from other countries or linguis-
tic regions; it is also the language of the narrative itself.
Surprisingly, Frisch does not address the issue of deictic placement in
the context of this film. He does, however, later speak to what Tzvetan
Todorov (1994, 205) would call the “truth of correspondence” required
of private discourse, in which “statements must describe the world or
designate the position of the speaking subject in the most precise manner
possible,” which stands in contradistinction to the abstract conformity
imposed by public discourse. On the subject, Frisch writes:
Der unterschied der beiden Sprachen ist natürlich vielfältig. Ich meine so,
dass unsere Mundart, die konkretere Sprache ist. Es fallt uns leichter einen
Gegenstand zu beschreiben, zu sagen wie er sich anfühlt oder eine
Örtlichkeit zu beschreiben, also in der Hochsprache, die sich dafür sehr
viel besser eignet für die abstrakten Gedanken. Also es wäre sehr schwer
eine Philosophie in der Mundart zu haben, da wird sie dann plötzlich
ungelenkig. (Frisch 2011)
[The differences between the two languages is, of course, manifold. I
mean to say that our dialect is the more concrete language. It is easier for
us to describe an object, to say what it feels like, or to describe a place, than
it is in the high language, which is much better suited for abstract ideas. It
would be very difficult to discuss philosophy in dialect, which would sud-
denly become inflexible or awkward.]
The “concrete language” of correspondence, in which objects and places

can be described by a subject who can position himself or herself in and
among them is reduced, as we recall, to “noise” in the film. Ehrismann,
who is no longer here in Zurich, is now out-there among the other stan-
dard languages. In moving to the realm of public discourse, Ehrismann
loses sight-and-sound of his location, his place, his hometown of Zurich.
This translation into the public discourse creates a distance from imme-
diacy—just as writing, according to Walter Benjamin (1969), distances
the storyteller from his or her immediate audience—so that the subject
now finds itself at odds with its surroundings and its reality, which it
278 M.C. Rickenbach
can no longer properly describe. Ehrismann, who can be seen here as a

stand-in for Frisch, is dislocated and distanced from the deictic here that
the mother tongue allows for when describing a certain Erfahrung, or
experience. Cultural language seems, then, to create a certain problem of
immediacy. Frisch’s most famous protagonist, Anatol Stiller, hits on this
lack when he exclaims, “I have no words for my reality” (Frisch 1961,
72). In translating the so-called private discourse of dialect towards the
conforming public discourse of High German, a correspondence between
subject and its surrounding objects and place risks dissolution.
Deterritorialised Discourse
While there is no suggestion here of any form of overt institutional hege-
mony or oppression, it is becoming apparent that High German does
seem to exert a power over the oral dialect and its spatial situation that
comes in the form of a sort of “internalised checkpoint” (see Apter 2013,
112–113) in which the condition for entry is made to be understood, to
conform. Or, in other words, as we have just seen in the example of
Zürich-Transit, a dissolution of correspondence. Unlike theatre or film,
the novel does allow for more leniency with regards to the portrayal of
space and place. It would be absurd to state categorically that place has no
place in the Swiss novel. However, whether in its absence or in its prob-
lematised presence, the topos of place and its occupation does, more often
than not, find itself quietly sitting at the centre of the novel’s narrative,
even if that narrative is one that only plays itself out linguistically on the
surface of the text.
This nuanced exercise of power is perhaps best dramatised in a short
scene in Frisch’s Gantenbein (1964). On leave from military service in the
Engadine, the novel’s narrator hikes up into the mountains. The scene is
one of idyllic escape that almost tumbles into the cliché of Alpinliteratur
before the narrator’s peaceful sleep is broken by another hiker. What fol-
lows is a telling series of exchanges in which language, power and topol-
ogy are all at stake: “[He] said Grüssi! Which he imagined to be Swiss;
obviously a German” (Frisch 1982, 51). In a time of war a German hiker
in the Engadine, who appears to be on a reconnaissance mission, arouses

immediate suspicion of ties to an aggressive external force. The narrator
recounts:
I soon noticed how well he knew the district. … He was carrying a map in
the approved manner, although maps had been confiscated at that time
and also a Leica. His stubborn insistence on imitating our national speech
and making it sound like a form of baby talk, an attempt to curry favour
without any talent for catching the alien intonation, patronisingly benevo-
lent without noticing that it set my teeth on edge, did more to make con-
versation difficult than the wind. Naturally I answered in High German,
even if with an Alemannic accent, but without success. […] Perhaps the
embarrassment is my fault, I thought, as he offered me his field-glasses.
[…] I now saw through his field-glasses that he had used my tracks. (Frisch
1982, 51–52)
Not only does the figure of the German enjoy the privilege of grasping
a hold of the representation of the land on which the two are standing,
but he turns the narrator away from his own dialect. This turn in conver-
sation, however, is an exchange willingly undertaken by the narrator,
even if reluctantly at first, who now subjects himself to the language of
the hiker. He is by no means explicitly coerced, only implicitly. What’s
more, the narrator shifts to German out of an inhibition, “as though
prepared for some tactless remark that embarrassed me in advance”
(Frisch 1982, 52). It seems evident, of course, that the conversation
would inevitably stall were this exchange not to take place. In addition to
his having deterritorialised the narrator—insofar as he is the only one to
be in possession of the territory’s representation and has dictated the
terms of exchange as far as language is concerned—the hiker also holds
the one instrument through which the narrator is able to survey this land
that is represented on the map: the field glasses. The narrator is thus dis-
tanced from his soil, relying on the mediating instrument (the German’s
“eyes”) in order to witness the minute details (his tracks) that he had
embedded in the snow. Without the field glasses, those tracks would not
only have been invisible to the narrator, but inaccessible to the narrative
and reader altogether.
280 M.C. Rickenbach
Immediately following this initial encounter between the narrator and

the hiker, another exchange is transacted. As they survey the land the
German “bequeaths” an apple to the soldier. “An apple up here was some-
thing,” remarks the humbled narrator (Frisch 1982, 52). The apple is a
gift of sustenance. It is an important exchange that occurs only after the
conversation turns to High German. In switching to the so-called public
discourse that traverses borders and which finds its cultural centre at the
seat from which the hiker also presumably receives his orders, the narra-
tor is offered an item of sustenance that at the same time mutes his speech.
Deleuze and Guattari similarly use the mouth and its twin functions of
eating and speech as an example of deterritorialisation. The mouth is
initially an instrument for eating. Speech then deterritorialises the mouth,
changing its function from one of nourishment to one of communication
(1986, 19–20). By eating the apple the narrator receives from the hiker—
who, despite his attempts of speaking dialect, has already succeeded in
shifting the conversation from one sol-de-langue to the other—the narra-
tor effectively renders himself unable to speak. Writing becomes the only
possible means of communication. It is around this point that the hiker
alludes to his being a representative of a powerful force: indicating the
Alpine landscape, he remarks that all of this would “also belong to the
Reich” (Frisch 1982, 52).
A corporealised checkpoint of sorts manifests itself here as a particular
point of exception in which the cultural authority of one language is
asserted over another (see Apter 2013, 101–102). The encounter with the
German hiker demands of the narrator an exchange for communication
and at the same time sets the terms for that exchange. The assertion of
authority and its effect on voice is also evident in one of Frisch’s earlier
works, I’m Not Stiller (1954). However, in this novel there is a clearer
relationship between certain topologies or spaces and the vehicular and
referential languages, namely the jurisdiction exercised by language on
space. The question is, where is voice possible?
I’m Not Stiller dramatises the power confronted at the checkpoint that,
in this case, takes the form of a customs official embodying the state
apparatus. The protagonist, who calls himself “White” and claims to be
“American,” is confronted by this officer upon descending the train. After
having let slip a word or two in German, he is immediately suspected of
being the missing Swiss sculptor Anatol Ludwig Stiller, arrested and held
in remand during which the State’s prosecutor compels him to write his
life story in order to make clear his true identity. In order to establish his
identity, Stiller must write, the caveat being that this identity must be the
one posited by those who have compelled him to write. Until then, Stiller
is to remain in their custody.
Writing in the first person only occurs while Stiller is in custody, and
as the state compels the writing, it is the vehicular language that is used.
The narrative essentially takes the form not of a novel but of an official
document meant to convince the state that White/Stiller is who he
claims to be. As such, remanded by the state and its language, Stiller
produces seven notebooks. While writing, however, Stiller sees himself
as the American James Larkin White (or variations thereof ). Opposing
this inner freedom while in custody is the fact that the city to which we
must assume he freely returned to is only to be viewed through bars.
About this Stiller’s counsel says, “It is painful to look at one’s homeland
through bars” (Frisch 1961, 18). These bars are both literal and meta-
phorical, since he is permitted daytime leave in order that his wife Julika
and others can convince him of his identity. However, the situation that
allows the novel I’m Not Stiller to exist also bars the protagonist from the
place outside. Stiller’s response to the defence counsel’s previous remark
(“Was heißt Heimat?” [What do you mean, homeland?]) is a symptom
of his writing situation: defining, or even naming, Heimat runs into an
impasse.
The novel ends with Stiller’s release after having reassumed his former
identity. At this point the novel turns from a first-person narrative to a
third-person narrative written as a postscript by the state’s prosecuting
attorney. Deictically, Stiller can only write of here and now in the vehicu-
lar or referential language, but only as James White the American, not at
Anatol Stiller of Zurich. Stiller, who after his release settles down in a
provincial region of French-speaking Switzerland, where he makes pots
in the good Swiss tradition (Frisch 1961, 323–324), no longer speaks
himself but only through the attorney who relays his communications.
The attorney begins the postscript implicitly stating the conditions for
Stiller’s writing: Stiller does not follow his “Notes in Prison” with “Notes
in Freedom,” due to his “sudden loss of voice” [Stummheit] which “was in
282 M.C. Rickenbach
fact an essential, perhaps even the decisive step towards his inner libera-
tion” (Frisch 1961, 339). To be sure, his sudden loss of voice is only a loss
of voice as far as the state’s prosecutor is concerned.
Negotiating Place and the Voice

Anatole Stiller’s situation above dramatises the role that power (market or
state) has over the dialect voice and the situations in which it either allows
the voice to resound or silences it. The implicit or explicit power of the
checkpoint is rather clearly stated, particularly in a traditional publishing
paradigm that generally recalls the process of literary consecration that is
central to Casanova’s (2004) argument.
In recent years, however, there has been a rise in recognition of the so-
called dialect writers, namely the aforementioned Pedro Lenz (1965–)
and the Romansh-German writer Arno Camenisch (1978–). What we
find in these two writers is a sort of opting-out of the checkpoint or, per-
haps, a stronger negotiation of power. Both writers, unlike many dialect
writers in the past, have found audiences abroad through translation into
English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Hungarian (among the major
languages) as well as Glaswegian, a Scottish dialect. All this, while setting
their works in their native regions and languages—though even here
Camenisch runs up at times against an internal checkpoint through
which his Romansh dialect of Sursilvan must pass.
What allows these writers to resist such a demand? Or, what allows
them to make their own demands at the checkpoint? One possibility may
be that this is a result of a reaction against a Europe that has experi-
mented with a quasi-borderless configuration, a shared currency and a
unified political body for some time now. Another (much more likely)
possibility lies in a question of form. Implicit in this chapter has been the
relation between form and audience, or form and market power in the
guise of an audience. Dialect theatre has suffered the most in terms of
isolation, while “delocated” novels have been able to gain relatively free
entry. The flow and regulation of texts within the German-reading area
seems then to be predicated on a print-literary marketplace that has
demanded the leaving behind of place and dialect for a wide readership.
The internet, however, seems to have allowed for a new space beyond the
bounds of national-language categories (and thus out of the reach of a

checkpoint or border patrol), opening up new possibilities when it comes
to the creation, experimentation and dissemination of dialect “texts.”
This new, extra-national “space” has allowed for a new generation of
local, Swiss readers to become accustomed to reading dialect—something
to which the preceding generations never really became accustomed. As
Corina Caduff writes, the rise of social media has allowed for the youth to
fill this vacuum, “indem sie Dialekt seit einiger Zeit in Kurznachrichten
und sozialen Medien verwendet—und sich dabei genau die Tatsache zunu-
tze macht, dass die Schreibweisen nicht normiert und dementsprechend für
alles Experimentelle offen sind” [in that for some time they have used dia-
lect for SMS and social media—and in doing so they have exploited the
fact that spelling is not standardised and therefore open to experimentation
for all] (2015, 13). In this digital space, we find a plurality of and within
dialects. While it has always existed in speech, it now finds itself in text as
well. Pedro Lenz (2015) makes this point in one of his dialect columns to
reject the notion that writing in his particular dialect is an imposition
(Zumutung) for those who speak another; since they can listen to each other
and understand a variety of dialects across the cantons, they should instead
be able to make the leap with a certain Mut (courage) and listen while read-
ing a text written in another dialect. This Mut, or courage, seems to be
something new among writers who, as we have seen throughout this chap-
ter, have struggled with a certain dual timidity, both to use their isolating or
parochial dialect and to deal with the foreignness of standardised German.
As a thematic concern, then, “listening” to place could offer a way in
which to determine or understand the fundamental changes in the distri-
bution of power, be they literary or political. When and where does one
keep silent about place? Again, the figure of Walser’s Jakob von Gunten
sitting silently in his barber chair when being asked his origins is particu-
larly demonstrative of the fear or inability to utter one’s place. In other
words, by keeping our ear to the ground, a clearer picture may arise of the
manner in which communities—especially the so-called minor ones—
are imagining themselves within their larger political and cultural
contexts. As with the above examples of contemporary dialect literature,
these infinite and borderless forms of digital dissemination have, perhaps
paradoxically, allowed for a rediscovery of the local imagination and an
opportunity to speak of it.
284 M.C. Rickenbach
Concluding Remarks
The use of Frisch as an example of an encounter and reckoning with a
border- or checkpoint-crossing is not meant to be exhaustively represen-
tative of how space and place is represented in Swiss-German literature.
It does, however, offer an entry into a more general problem. The works
discussed here that appeared over the course of the nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries demonstrate the manner in which the political configura-
tion of the German-reading area often has a substantial hand in the
formulation of a literature’s inclusion or representation of place. This
might take the form of a conservative envelopment in place and dialect,
as it was the case in the use of the Bernese dialect and villages in the work
of Gotthelf, who in some fashion was no doubt reacting to a universalis-
ing tendency. It might also appear as an appeal for a descent from the
Alps to an anonymous or nationless linguistic zone of inclusion, as we see
in the theatre of Frisch and in some of the work of Loetscher (Abwässer)
and Dürrenmatt (The Visit, or Der Besuch der alten Dame in the original).
As literary critics such as Schmid (1963) and Loetscher (2003) have made
clear over the decades, this tension between the particularity of the moun-
tainous small state and the drive towards the outside plain was not lim-
ited to a small literary circle, but was representative of a wider affective
relationship to a changing Europe. Roughly speaking, the question
became: How does one achieve inclusion without losing sight of the par-
ticularities of experience? Or, how does one mediate the dualistic tension
of homesickness and return?
Moving beyond this question of political configuration (though not
forgetting it), what this chapter has had at its centre is ultimately a lin-
guistic problem and the literal and figurative displacement that self-
translation incurs. “Moving” to the high language moves the writer
away from immediate experience, in which language and experience
correspond, to a realm of conformative public discourse. In order to be
understood within the bounds of this public discourse, in this case the
languages of state and culture, the speaker is abstracted from a certain
understanding of immediate lived experience and the ability to com-
municate it.
Inclusion, then, insofar as it is a move away from a particular language

to conformity, results in a sort of silence. In crossing a border, or passing
through a checkpoint in this act of self-translation, demands are made on
the writer, just as demands are made on any traveller who changes juris-
dictions and must take notice of the new rules and expectations such as
language, currency and so on. This self-translation, however, is not neces-
sarily imposed upon the writer as an enforced imperative. Rather, it is a
condition that is demanded of the writer if he or she wishes to be under-
stood. One could very well remain a dialect writer, like Paul Haller,
though one runs the risk of not achieving recognition on the other side
of any border, simply because a presupposed readership would be lacking,
as might any readily available mediation through translation. However, as
some of the more contemporary dialect writers have shown (Pedro Lenz,
especially), the implicit conditions set before the writer who seeks intel-
ligibility can be retuned to pick up those voices that wish to speak from,
and of, their immediate experience and place. This new attunement could
allow for a renegotiation for the entry and voicing of place that could
potentially affect the relationship a community has to its own
understanding.
Notes
1 . All translations are my own unless a published translation is referenced.
2. When the English title is given, it is because I am referring to (or quoting
from) the English version.
References
Apter, Emily. 2006. The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
———. 2013. Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability.
New York: Verso.
Benjamin, Walter. 1969. The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai
Leskov. Illuminations. New York: Schocken.
286 M.C. Rickenbach
Berman, Antoine. 1988. Tradition, Translation, Traduction. Le Cahier 6: 21–38.

Bloch, Peter André, ed. 1971. Der Schriftsteller und sein Verhältnis zur Sprache.
Bern: Francke Verlag.
Bolliger, Luis, Walter Obschlager, and Julian Schütt, eds. 2001. Jetzt: Max
Frisch. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.
Caduff, Corina. 2015. ‘Frou’ oder ‘Pfrou’? Literarischer Monat 21: 10–13.
Casanova, Pascale. 2004. The World Republic of Letters. Trans. M.B. DeBevoise.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 1986. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature.
Trans. Dana Polan. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Dürrenmatt, Friedrich. 1984. Interview with Jacques le Rider. Entretiens avec Le
Monde. Vol. 2. Paris: Éditions la Decouverte et Le Monde.
Frisch, Max. 1961. I’m Not Stiller. Trans. M. Bullock. London: Penguin Books.
———. 1966. Zürich-Transit: Skizze eines Films. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp
Verlag.
———. 1982. Gantenbein. Trans. M. Bullock. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich.
———. 2011. Max Frisch Spricht. Christoph Merian Verlag, compact disc.
Keller, Gottfried. (1879–80) 1993. Der grüne Heinrich. Zurich: Diogenes Verlag.
———. (1854–55) 2005. Der grüne Heinrich (Erste Fassung). Vol. 11. of
Sämtliche Werke. Basel: Stroemfeld Verlag.
Lenz, Pedro. 2015. Zuemuetige mache muetig. Schweizer Illustrierte, June 11.
http://www.schweizer-illustrierte.ch/gesellschaft/notabene/pedro-lenz-dr-
goalie-bin-ig-kolumne-sprache-berndeutsch-texte. Accessed 30 Nov 2016.
Lindsay, J.M. 1968. Gottfried Keller: Life and Works. London: Dufour.
Loetscher, Hugo. 1963. Abwässer. Ein Gutachten. Zurich: Arche.
———. 2003. Im Helvetischen Chatroom. In Lesen statt kelttern: Aufsätze zur
literarischen Schweiz, 376–416. Zurich: Diogenes Verlag.
Max Frisch: Zürich-Transit. 2011. Das gescheiterte Filmprojekt. First broadcast
15 May 2011 by SF1. Directed by Matthias von Gunten.
Schazmann, P.-E. 1941. Une lettre inédite de R.-M. Rilke sur la langue fran-
çaise. Gazette de Lausanne, January 5.
Schmid, Karl. 1963. Unbehagen im Kleinstaat: Untersuchungen Über Conrad
Ferdinand Meyer, Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Jakob Schaffner, Max Frisch, Jacob
Burckhardt. Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Spitteler, Carl. 1915. Unser Schweizer Standpunkt. Zurich: Rascher & Cie.
Starobinski, Jean. 1966. The Idea of Nostalgia. Diogenes 14 (54): 81–103.
Steinberg, Jonathan. 1976. Why Switzerland? London: Oxford University Press.
Todorov, Tzvetan. 1994. Dialogism and Schizophrenia. Trans. M.B. Smith. In

Another Tongue: Nation and Ethnicity in the Linguistic Borderlands, ed. Alfred
Arteaga, 203–214. Durham: Duke University Press.
von Matt, Peter. 2012. Das Kalb vor der Gotthardpost: Zur Literatur und Politik
der Schweiz. Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag.
Walkowitz, Rebecca L. 2015. Born Translated: The Contemporary Novel in an Age
of World Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
Walser, Robert. 1983. Jakob von Gunten. Trans. Christopher Middleton.
New York: Vintage.
Marc Cesar Rickenbach is a PhD candidate at The Graduate Center, City

University of New York (CUNY), the USA. He teaches literature at Baruch
College, CUNY. His work focuses mainly on French- and German-language
dialect literatures, cosmopolitanism and sound studies.
Index1
A al-Qahira as-saghira. See Lakhous,

Aargauer dialect, 274 Amara
Abrate, Laurent, 55 Alsace, 271
Aching, Gerard, 257 Álvarez, Román, 2
Adil, Alev, 123 Amalric, Jacques, 223
Adıvar, Adnan, 75, 84 Anagrama, 104
Africa, 253, 254 Anatole, Christian, 52
Afrikaans, 30 Ancient Greek. See Greek, Ancient
Agresti, Giovanni, 107 Andalucia, 261n2
Agustí, Ignacio, 99 Anselmi, Simona, 10, 28, 194, 198
Al Hassan ibn Muhammad anti-globalisation, 4
al-Wazzan al-Fassi, 250 Anti-Semitism, 147
al-baqq wa-l-qursan/Le cimici e il Antwerp, 35, 36, 38, 39, 42
pirata. See Lakhous, Amara Apter, Emily, 266, 268, 278, 280
Algeria, 134, 244, 245 Arabic, 14, 18, 75, 96, 182, 244–7,
Algiers, 244 249, 251, 253–6, 258, 261n3
Alianza Anticomunista Argentina, 144 Aracil, Lluís V., 53
alienation, 68n6, 85, 146, 273 Araf. See Shafak, Elif
Alkiza, Begoña, 209 Aragon, 97
Note: Page number followed by ‘n’ refers to end notes.

1

and Interpreting, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50781-5
290 Index
Aragon, Louis, 218, 234 Barbusse, Henri, 218

Arana, Sabino, 170 Barthes, Roland, 61
Arbó, Sebastià Juan. See Juan, Arbó Bartra, Agustí, 99
Sebastià Basque Country
Argentina Basque, 5, 14, 17, 103, 167–70,
Argentine, 143, 145, 147, 150–2, 173–9, 183, 185, 198–201,
158, 159 203–7, 209
porteño Spanish, 151, 152 Euskadi, 185n1
Argentine Dirty War, 144 Euskal Herria, 185n1
Argentine. See Argentina Euskara, 185n1
Argentinian. See Argentine Euskera Batua, 169
Armenian massacres, 125 Euzkadi, 170
Asymmetrical diglossia. Basque Nationalist Party, 170
See diglossia Basque. See Basque country
Atxaga, Bernardo, 17, 165, 185, Basque-Spanish, 192, 198, 200, 205,
185n1, 198, 199, 201–10, 211
212n2 Bassnett, Susan, 2, 3, 6, 71, 72, 241
hijo del acordeonista, El, 171, Bastard of Istanbul, The. See Shafak,
185n4, 203, 209 Elif
lugar llamado Obaba, Un, 171, Beckett, Samuel, 10, 199
172 Belgian. See Belgium
Obabakoak, 17, 201, 202 Belgium, 5, 15, 25
Austria, 31, 271 Belgian, 25, 27, 32–5, 37–42, 46
Austrian, 30, 31, 33 Bellefroid, Marthe. See Gronon, Rose
Austrian. See Austria Benguerel, Xavier, 99, 108
auto-traduction: opinion d’un Icaria, Icaria, 108, 109
théoricien-praticien, L’. See Berliner Akademie der Künste
Lafont, Robert Berman, Antoine, 275
Avermaete, Roger, 33, 35, Bermann, Sandra, 252
37–9, 41 Bernese dialect, 270, 284
Axular, Pedro, 178–80 Bethea, David, 236
Bey, Salih Zeki, 86
Bhabha, Homi K., 248
B Bible translation, 30, 194
Baba ve Piç.. See Shafak, Elif Biçen, Aslı, 122, 125, 127
Bacardí, Montserrat, 97 Bichsel, Peter, 269, 273
Badosa, Cristina, 99 bilingualism, 7, 25, 26, 32,
Bahasa Indonesia, 30 37–40, 42, 43, 45, 46, 61,
Bakunin, Michael, 271 64, 169
Index
291
Bitzius, Albert. See Gotthelf, Jeremias Castilian. See Spain

Blackledge, Adrian, 11 Catalan. See Catalonia
Blanchot, Maurice, 220–2, 224–6, Catalonia, 97, 98, 102, 110,
231 114n4
Bodon, Joan. See Boudou, Jean Catalan, 97, 98, 102, 110,
Borges, Jorge Luis, 10, 182 114n4
Boudou, Jean, 15, 52–6, 63, 64, 66, Catharism, 53
68n5 Catholic, 30
Contes del meu ostal, 63 Centre national de la recherche
Contes dels Balssàs, 63 scientifique (CNRS), 223
grava sul camin, La, 62, 63 Cercas, Javier, 109, 114n6
Bourdieu, Pierre, 27, 32, 39, 43, 44, Char, René, 217, 218, 220, 221,
46, 46n4, 51, 55 224, 231, 234
Boyer, Henri, 52 Chekhov, Anton, 222
Bremt, Stefaan van den, 36, 42 Christian, 147, 253, 254
Breton, 53, 107, 111 Chronique de l’éternité. See Lafont,
Brezhnev, Leonid, 217 Robert
Brodsky, Joseph, 235, 236 Citas y Comentarios. See Gelman, Juan
Buenos Aires, 151, 152 Claudel, Paul, 218
Buysse, Cyriel, 35, 37, 40, Club Editor, 110
41, 44 COEA. See Comité Occitan d’Etudes
Buzelin, Hélène, 233 et d’Action (COEA)
collaboration. See collaborative
Self-translation
C collaborative self-translation, 18,
Caduff, Corina, 283 191, 217–37
Calders, Pere, 99 collaboration, 17, 127, 194, 202,
Calvet, Alain, 52 206, 209, 219
Calvet, Louis-Jean, 51, 52 colonisation, 243
Calvinism, 30 Comité Occitan d’Etudes et d’Action
Camenisch, Arno, 269, 282 (COEA), 55, 68n4
Campana, La, 109 computer-aided translation, 193
Carballo Soliño, Xesús, 210 Conscience, Hendrik, 34
Carcassonne, 57 Contes del meu ostal. See Boudou,
Carner, Josep, 99, 114n4 Jean
Casanova, Pascale, 7, 8, 51, 54, Contes dels Balssàs. See Boudou, Jean
64, 113n2, 224, 266, Contesa per un maialino italianissimo
268, 282 a San Salvario. See Lakhous,
Cassou, Jean, 221, 223 Amara
292 Index
cooperation, 194, 200 diglossic. See diglossia

Cork, 12 Divorzio all’Islamica a viale Marconi.
Corriere della sera, 245 See Lakhous, Amara
Corsican, 53 Divorzio all’italiana. See Germi,
Cortázar, Julio, 149, 181 Pietro
creolisation, 250, 252 domestication, 167, 172, 181, 183,
Cronin, Michael, 6, 165, 227
258, 259 dominant language, 7, 8, 12, 17,
Czech. See Czechoslovakia 45, 119, 120, 165, 172,
Czechoslovakia, 235, 238n5 198, 208
Czech, 171, 235 Domínguez, César, 173, 175–7,
179
Dupin, Jacques, 218, 219, 224–9,
D 232, 234
Daisne, Johan, 36–8, 41, 42 Ďurišin, Dionýz, 7
Danish, 30 Dürrenmatt, Friedrich, 269, 272
Dante Alighieri, 56, 58, 181 Dutch Meertens Institute for
Dasilva, Xosé Manuel, 103, 105, Dialectology, 30
106, 193–5, 198, 199, 201, Dutch. See Low Countries, the
207, 208
Deguy, Michel, 218, 219, 224–8,
232, 234, 238n4 E
Delabastita, Dirk, 255 Edib, Halide, 76, 90
Deleuze, Gilles, 7, 268, 276, 277, Memoirs of Halide Edib/ House
280 with Wisteria: Memoirs of
Deleuzian, 252 Turkey Old and New, 76,
Deleuzian. See Deleuze, Gilles 90n4
Der grüne Heinrich, 271 Turkish Ordeal, The, 90
desaparecidos, los, 144, 150, Türk’ün Ateşle İmtihanı, 74, 79
158, 160 editorial self-translations, 194
deterritorialisation, 18, 143, Eekhoud, Georges, 33, 39
145–7, 151, 152, Eggimann, Ernst, 269
156, 280 Egypt, 256
dibaxu. See Gelman, Juan Egyptian, 253
Dictionnaire des écrivains belges, 34 Egyptian. See Egypt
diglossia Elorriaga, Unai, 12, 210
asymmetrical diglossia, 7 Eluard, Paul, 218, 234
diglossia; diglossic, 54 Emelianova, Irina, 218
Index
293
emigration, 248 Fitzgerald, Scott, 235

English, 10, 14, 15, 30–2, 40, 41, Flanders
46n2, 46n4, 59, 74–80, 82–4, Flemish, 27, 31, 38, 39, 41–3, 45,
86–90, 114n5, 120, 121, 127, 46, 46n5
129–34, 136, 137, 138n1, Flanders, John. See Kremer,
138n3, 162n2, 165, 167, 173, Raymond Jean Marie De
177, 178, 182, 185n1, 185n2, Flemish. See Flanders
185n4, 185n5, 203, 205, 229, Flemish Literature Fund, 28,
231, 234, 238n1, 267, 276, 36, 41
282 Flynn, Peter, 225
Entre la tierra y el mar. See Juan foreignisation, 166, 175, 227
Arbó, Sebastià Forêt, Joan-Claudi, 53, 57, 59, 64–7,
Equality Bill, 26 107
Ermelino, Louisa, 125 Foucault, Michel, 3
Espinosa, Albert, 109 France, 5, 30, 43, 46n6, 52, 55, 58,
EU. See European Union (EU) 75, 217–25, 228, 231, 234,
European Union (EU), 1, 5 235, 237
Euskera. See Basque Country French, 5, 30
Euskera Batua. See Basque Country Franco, Francisco, 98–103, 108,
Even-Zohar, Itamar, 6, 51, 113n2 170, 171
exile, 76, 90, 99, 100, 114n4, Franco’s dictatorship, 170
143–8, 150, 151, 153, 156, Frankfurt, 110, 114n6
159, 161, 235, 236, 243 French. See France
French poetry, 217, 218
Frisch, Max
F Gantenbein, 278
Falcones, Ildefonso, 109 I’m Not Stiller, 273, 280, 281
Fargue, Léon-Paul, 218 Zürich-Transit, 275, 276,
Federman, Raymond, 160, 251 278
Félibres. See Félibrige Fuster, Joan, 100
Félibrige, 54, 55, 64
Félibres, 54
Ferguson, Charles A., 27, 53 G
Feuerbach, Ludwig, 270 Gaelic, 107, 111
Fez, 261n2 Galician, 8, 13, 103, 173, 198, 199,
Figaro, 218 205, 210
Finland, 184 Gantenbein. See Frisch, Max
Fishman, Joshua A., 53, 64 García Lorca, Federico, 149
294 Index
Gardy, Philippe, 52–4, 57, 58, 64 grava sul camin, La. See Boudou, Jean
René Nelli, à la recherche du poème Greek, Ancient, 56
parfait, 57 Green, Julien, 221
Garikano, Asun, 201, 203, 204, 207, Gronon, Rose, 36–9, 41, 42
209 Grüne Heinrich, Der. See Keller,
Gelman, Juan Gottfried
Citas y Comentarios, 147 Grup 62, 110
dibaxu, 143, 148 Grutman, Rainier, 5, 8–10, 15, 25,
General Videla. See Videla, General 33, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43, 68n1,
Genette, Gérard, 175, 183 101, 120, 128, 172, 228, 241,
Gentzler, Edwin, 3, 4, 226, 250 255
German. See Germany Guattari, Félix, 7, 268, 276, 277,
Germany, 27, 29–31, 182, 269, 280
270 Gudin de Vallerin, Gilles, 59
German, 26, 29, 33, 46n1, 265, Guimerà, Àngel, 98
272, 273, 278 Gulag, 217, 225, 238n4
High German, 266, 272, 276, Gulag Archipelago, The. See
278–80 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr
standardised German, 266, 283 Günyol, Vedat, 74, 89
Germi, Pietro, 252
Divorzio all’italiana, 252
Ghent, 31, 35, 38, 39 H
Gijsen, Marnix, 36, 37, 40–2 Haller, Paul, 274, 285
Gimenez Bech, Jorge, 200, 201, 206, Robert und Marie, 274
207 Hassan-Leo, 261n2
Gimferrer, Pere, 101, 114n6 headscarf, 129, 130, 132, 133
Gironella, Josep Maria, 102 hegemony, 7, 11, 15, 55, 82, 83, 89,
Glaswegian, 282 137, 168, 278
Glissant, Édouard, 252, 255, 257 hegemonic, 4–9, 15, 18, 67, 74,
globalisation, 1, 119 82, 83, 88, 97, 103–5, 112,
Globalisation, 66 144, 154, 156, 166, 167, 170,
Goris, Jan Albert. See Gijsen, Marnix 173, 175, 192, 198, 204, 207,
Gotthelf, Jeremias, 269, 284 208, 211
Goytisolo, Juan, 114n6 Hemon, Aleksandar, 122
Gracq, Julien, 221 Hermans, Theo, 6, 194
Gramsci, Antonio, 82 Herralde, Jorge, 104
Granada, 261n2 High German. See Germany
Grass, Günter, 197, 273 high variety. See variety
Index
295
hijo del acordeonista, El. See Atxaga, Italy, 75, 244, 245, 247, 250, 252–4,
Bernardo 256, 260
Hokenson, Jan W.. See Hokenson, Italian, 14, 31, 244–50, 253–6,
Jan Walsh 258, 260, 276, 282
Hokenson, Jan Walsh, 10, 12, 71,
120, 176, 199, 241
Hokenson, Jan. See Hokenson, Jan J
Walsh Janer, Maria de la Pau
Hors de la colline/Прочь от холма. mujeres que hay en mí, Las, 107
See Kozovoï, Vadim Pasiones romanas, 107
House with Wisteria: Memoirs of Japan, 184
Turkey Old and New. See Edib, Jew. See Jews
Halide Jewish languages. See Jews
Hungarian, 282 Jews
Hupel, Erwan, 107 Jew, 145, 147, 261n2
Jewish languages, 145
Sephardic Jews, 17, 145
I Journal of Turkish Literature, 132
I’m Not Stiller. See Frisch, Max Juan Arbó, Sebastià
Icaria, Icaria. See Benguerel, Entre la tierra y el mar, 108, 109
Xavier Jull Costa, Margaret, 173, 177,
IEO. See Institut d’Etudes Occitanes 185n1
(IEO) Jung, Verena, 242
Independence Struggle of Turkey,
74–7, 79, 83
Index Translationum, 34, 51 K
Institució de les Lletres Catalanes, 111 Kabyle, 253
Institut d’Etudes Occitanes (IEO), 55, Kadıoğlu, Ayşe, 82
58, 59, 63, 64, 66 Kaindl, Klaus, 243
Institut Ramon Llull, 101, 111 Kayfa tarḍa‘u min al-dhi’ba dūna an
invisibility, 2, 12, 13, 16, 17, 29, ta‘aḍḍaka. See Lakhous, Amara
105–8 Keller, Gottfried, 270–4
Iranian, 255 Grüne Heinrich, Der, 270
Irigoien, Joan Mari, 209 Kellman, Steven G., 242
Islamic, 247, 252 Kemal, Mustafa, 76–83, 88, 89,
Istanbul, 74–6, 86, 126, 132, 134, 91n6
135 Nutuk, 77, 82, 83, 88
Italian. See Italy Nutuk-Söylev, 77
296 Index
Khayyam, Omar, 59 Kayfa tarḍa‘u min al-dhi’ba dūna

Rubayats, 59 an ta‘aḍḍaka, 245
Klinger, Susanne, 251 Scontro di civiltà per un ascensore a
Kozovoï, Vadim, 8, 18, 217, 238n3, Piazza Vittorio, 245
238n4 zingarata della verginella di Via
Hors de la colline / Прочь от Ormea, La, 260
холма, 219, 220, 223, 229 language policy, 33
Krause, Corinna, 107 Lasa, Mikel, 209
Kremer, Raymond Jean Marie De, Latin, 96, 97, 159, 182, 223,
35, 38 255, 266
Kundera, Milan, 171, 235–7, Lee, Heinrich, 271
238n5 Lefevere, André, 2, 3, 233, 247
Kurdish revolt, 75 Leggio, Francesco, 244
Kurdish Revolution, 4 Lenz, Pedro, 269, 274, 282, 283
Kurlansky, Mark, 170 Leo Africanus. See Malouf, Aamin
Kuyper, Eric de, 33, 36, 38, 42 Leo X, 261n2
Lertxundi, Anjel, 199, 200,
205–7
L Liechtenstein, 271
Labov, William, 32 linguistic hospitality, 166, 184
Ladino, 14, 17, 145–56, 161 linguistic practices, 25
Lafont, Robert Lloréns, Chufo, 109
auto-traduction: opinion d’un Llull, Ramon, 96, 99, 101
théoricien-praticien, L’, 60 Loetscher, Hugo, 268, 269,
Chronique de l’éternité, 63 274, 284
Mistral ou l’illusion, 54 Lorca, Federico García, 56
vida de Joan Larsinhac, La, 62 Loren, Sophia, 254
Lafont, Robèrt. See Lafont, Robert Low Countries, the, 30
Lagarde, Christian, 5, 15, 51 Dutch, 30
Lahiri, Jhumpa, 122 low variety. See variety
Lakhous, Amara lugar llamado Obaba, Un. See Atxaga,
al-baqq wa-l-qursan/Le cimici e il Bernardo
pirata, 244
al-Qahira as-saghira, 246
Contesa per un maialino M
italianissimo a San Salvario, 259 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 39
Divorzio all’Islamica a viale major languages, 17, 120, 123, 133,
Marconi, 252 165, 282
Index
297
Malay, 30 Mistral, Frédéric

Malouf, Aamin, 250 Mirèio, 54
Leo Africanus, 250, 261n2 Mitterrand, François, 223
Manent, Marià, 99 Modernisme, 98
Manterola, Elizabete, 5, 12, 18, 103, Moliner, Empar, 105
169, 171, 173, 185n3, 191, Molist, Jordi, 109
193, 194, 201, 202, 205, Monde, Le, 217, 223, 231, 237
207–9 monolingualism, 160, 257, 260
Marfany, Joan-Lluís, 97, 98 Monteagudo, David, 109
Marí, Antoni, 105 Montorio, Bego, 207
Marijen, Joannes, 36, 42, 45 Montpellier, 58
Marsé, Juan, 114n6 Monzó, Quim, 103, 114n6
Marxism, 66 Morocco, 261n2
Masson, Arthur, 34 Mouly, Henri, 63
Massot, Josep, 102 Mounin, Georges, 61
Matthijsen, Joannes Michael. See mujeres que hay en mí, Las. See Janer,
Marijen, Joannes Maria de la Pau
McGuire, James, 251 multilingual. See multilingualism
McRae, Kenneth, 33, 39, 42 multilingualism
Mediterranean, 250, 254 multilingual, 1
Melloy, Camille, 33, 35, 37, 39, 41 multilingual Italy, 8
Memoirs of Halide Edib. See Edib, Munson, Marcella, 10, 12, 71, 120,
Halide 176, 199, 241
Mendoza, Eduardo, 101, 114n6 Murphy, Alexander B., 26, 32, 42,
Merkle, Denis, 73, 83 43, 45, 46n1
Meylaerts, Reine, 11, 33 Regional Dynamics of Language
Michaux, Henry, 217, 218, 223, Differentiation in Belgium, The,
224, 228, 231, 232, 234 32
Middle Ages, 5, 10, 29, 96, 156, Muslim, 133, 135, 253, 254, 261n2
180 Mysjkin, Jan H., 34
Milan, 255
Miletic, Tijana, 171
minor languages, 65, 119, 120, 165, N
166, 170 Nabokov, Vladimir, 10, 236
minorisation, 1, 7, 105, 108 national identity, 17, 82, 83, 89,
Mirèio. See Mistral, Frédéric 135, 147, 250, 252, 270
Mistral ou l’illusion. See Lafont, National Socialism, 266, 269
Robert Neapolitan, 255
298 Index
Nelli, Renat. See Nelli, René Passen, Robert Van, 37, 41

Nelli, René, 52–8, 60, 65, 66 Pasternak, Boris, 223, 224
Nicoïdski, Clarisse, 145, 149, 156 Peasants Revolt, 4
Nida, Eugene, 194 Pennycook, Alastair, 257
Ninyoles, Rafael Lluís, 53 peripheral, 7, 53, 97, 156,
Nivat, Georges, 219, 223, 231 162, 165, 172,
Noonan, Will, 256 185, 234
Noordhoven, Jean Van, 35, 37, Persian, 59, 255
38, 41 Pla, Josep, 99, 113n3
normalisation, 101, 107, 150 Planeta, 107, 108, 110
Noucentisme, 98 Po&sie, 224, 228
Nutuk. See Kemal, Mustafa Pokorn, Nike, 194
Nutuk-Söylev. See Kemal, Mustafa Porcel, Baltasar, 114n6
porteño Spanish. See Argentina
Portugal, 184
O postcolonial, 6, 7, 14, 66
Obabakoak. See Atxaga, Bernardo postmodern, 66
Occitan, 5, 14, 15, 51–67, 68n3, Pourveur, Paul, 28, 36,
68n6, 97, 107, 111 38, 42
Olaziregi, Mari Jose, 170, 171, 173, Primo de Rivera, Miguel, 98
174, 181 Prometeo, 108
Oller, Narcís, 98 provence, 54
Ortiz, Lourdes, 209 Psichari, Jean, 53
Ottoman Empire, 74, 76, 138n2 Puigtobella, Bernat, 110
P Q
Paepe, Camille-Joseph De. See Qur’an, 253
Melloy, Camille
Paker, Saliha, 121, 122, 124
Pàmies, Sergi, 103 R
Pàmies, Xavier, 109 Ramis, Josep Miquel, 5, 11,
Pamuk, Orhan, 121, 138n4 16, 95, 97, 100, 113n1,
Paradigm of linguistic hospitality. See 194
linguistic hospitality Ray, Jean. See Kremer, Raymond
Parcerisas, Francesc, 104, 106, Jean Marie De
107 Regàs, Rosa, 109
Paşa, İsmet, 80 Regional Dynamics of Language
Pasiones romanas. See Janer, Maria de Differentiation in Belgium, The.
la Pau See Murphy, Alexander B.
Index
299
regionalist, 58 Saizarbitoria, Ramon, 209

Remus, 249 Sakai, Naoki, 255, 260
Renaixença, 97 Samsó, Joan, 99
René Nelli, à la recherche du poème Sànchez Piñol, Albert
parfait. See Gardy, Philippe Victus, 109
Reniers, Annie, 36, 38, 42 Santoyo, César. See Santoyo, Julio
Resina, Joan Ramon, 108 César
Riba, Carles, 99 Santoyo, Julio César, 13, 103, 150,
Ricœur, Paul, 166, 183–5 194
Riera, Carme, 114n6 Sapienza University, La, 255
Rilke, Rainer, 267 Sapiro, Gisèle, 51, 234
Robert und Marie. See Haller, Paul Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 166, 183,
Robinson, Douglas, 227 184
Rodoreda, Mercè, 99 Schmid, Karl, 267, 284
Rodriguez, Eider, 196 Schulz, Wilhelm, 270
Rolland, Romain, 218 Scontro di civiltà per un ascensore a
Romania, 184 Piazza Vittorio. See Lakhous,
Romansh-German, 282 Amara
Rome, 144, 245, 248, 252–4, self-minorisation, 11, 12, 14,
261n2 16, 17, 144–7, 154,
Romulus, 249 160, 161
Roqueta, Max. See Rouquette, Max Semilla Durán, María, 147,
Rosales, Emili, 108 152, 155
Rouquette, Max, 15, 52–6, 58–60, Semprún, Jorge, 171
65, 66, 68n3 Sephardic Jews. See Jews
Verd paradís I et II, 59 Serra, Màrius, 103, 110
Rouquette, Yves, 63 Serrahima, Xavier, 110
Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Shafak, Elif
Studies, 9, 120 Araf, 122
Rubayats. See Khayyam, Omar Baba ve Piç, 122, 127
Ruiz Zafón, Carlos, 109, 114n6 Bastard of Istanbul, The, 16, 17,
122, 125–8, 132, 134, 135,
137
S Saint of Incipient Insanities, The,
Sabán, Arantza, 202, 203 122, 124
Sagarzazu, Paco, 149, 209 Shiraz, 255
Saidero, Deborah, 242 Shread, Carolyn, 242
Saint of Incipient Insanities, The. See Sicilian, 253, 254
Shafak, Elif Sillato, María del Carmen, 148
Saizarbitoria, Madalen, 209 Simon, Sherry, 243, 246
300 Index
Smith, Zadie, 122 Switzerland

Sökmen, Semih, 125 Swiss, 265–74, 276, 278, 281, 283
Soldevila, Carles, 99 Swiss-German, 14, 266, 269, 275,
Solsona, Ramon, 103 276
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr
Gulag Archipelago, The, 221
Soprotivlenie, 218 T
South America, 144 Tagore, Rabindranath, 10
Soviet. See USSR Tanqueiro, Helena, 105
Spain team translation, 194
castilian, 167, 173 Thiery, Herman. See Daisne, Johan
Spaniards, 173 Thomas, Dylan, 181
Spanish, 102, 103, 173, 199, Todó, Lluís Maria
205 últim mono, L’, 110
Spaniards. See Spain último mono, El, 110
Spanish. See Spain Torrent, Ferran, 107
Spanish Civil War, 97–100, vida en el abismo, La, 107
149 Torres, Maruja, 109
Spanish Literary Award, 198, Tournier, Michel, 182
200–2 Toury, Gideon, 195
Spanish Premio Nacional de Toussaint, Jef, 35, 37, 38, 41
Literatura. See Spanish Literary Trastámara dynasty, 97
Award Troubadours, the, 52, 56, 60
Spartacus, 4 Tsvetaeva, Marina, 224
Spitteler, Carl, 269 Tunisia
Spitzl, Karlheinz, 243 Tunisian, 253, 254
Standarised German. See Germany Tunisian. See Tunisia
Starobinski, Jean, 268 Turanism, 75
Stil, André, 218 Turin, 260
Stiller, Anatol, 273, 278, Turk. See Turkey
281, 282 Türk’ün Ateşle İmtihanı. See Edib,
Swaan, Abram de, 31, 165 Halide
Swahili, 165 Turkey
Swiss. See Switzerland Turk, 74, 75, 84
Swiss Federal Constitution, 272 Turkish, 14, 15, 74, 77, 79–90,
Swiss-German. See Switzerland 120–38, 138n2
Index
301
Turkish. See Turkey Verd paradís I et II. See Rouquette, Max

Turkish nationalism, 75, 82, 132, Verdaguer, Jacint, 98
135 Verhaeghen, Paul, 28, 33, 36, 41
Turkish Ordeal, The. See Edib, Halide Vermeylen, August, 40
Turkish Progressive Republican Party, Victus. See Sànchez Piñol, Albert
75 vida de Joan Larsinhac, La. See
Turkish Republic, 76, 77, 83, 128 Lafont, Robert
Tymoczko, Maria, 3, 37, 72–4, 123, vida en el abismo, La. See Torrent,
127, 226 Ferran
Tzvetan Todorov, Tzvetan, 277 Vidal, África, 2
Videla, General, 147, 158
Vila-Matas, Enrique, 114n6
U Villefranche de Rouergue, 63
últim mono, L’. See Todó, Lluís Maria Viure, 55
último mono, El. See Todó, Lluís Vloeberghs, Joseph Charles Jean. See
Maria Noordhoven, Jean Van
UNESCO, 34 Vroman, Leo, 41
Université de la Sorbonne, 223
untranslatability, 233
USSR, 218, 220, 221, 224, 235 W
Soviet, 222 Walkowitz, Rebecca, 266
Wallonia, 27, 39, 43, 45, 46, 46n6
Walloon, 31, 33, 34, 42
V Walloon. See Wallonia
Vallverdú, Francesc, 53, 97 Walser, Robert, 272, 273, 283
Van Bolderen, Trish, 120 Warwick Research Collective, 7
Vanderschelden, Isabelle, 193, 194, Waters, Alyson, 160
196, 197 Weber, Max, 27, 29, 30, 32, 43
Vanguardia, La, 103 Weitling, Wilhelm, 271
variety Welsh, 107, 111
high variety, 27 Whyte, Christopher, 11, 107
low variety, 27 Wilson, Rita, 5, 18, 120, 146, 241
Vassié, Cécile, 221 Woods, Michelle, 13
veil, 130, 254 The World Republic of Letters, 7, 268
Venuti, Lawrence, 13, 17, 123, 133, writer/publisher, 192, 210
165–7, 175, 181, 183, 227 writer/spouse, 12, 192, 210
302 Index
Y Zemon Davis, Natalie, 261n2

Young Turk Revolution, 75 zingarata della verginella di Via
Ysabie, Reinier, 35, 37, 38, 41 Ormea, La. See Lakhous,
Ysabie, René Gaston Raymond. See Amara
Ysabie, Reinier Zurich, 270, 271, 274–7, 281
Yurchuk, Yuliya, 6 Zürich-Transit. See Frisch, Max
Z
Zand, Nichole, 217, 223, 237

5 6097939050113531965 PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

5 6097939050113531965 PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN TRANSLATING

SERIES EDITOR: MARGARET ROGERS

NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES IN EUROPEAN

EDITED BY OLGA CASTRO,

More information about this series at

Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017949910

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Cover illustration: Bursting into Crevices by Olga Castro

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

of self-translation as an act of resistance by inserting the minority language

University of Massachusetts Amherst Edwin Gentzler,

I ntroduction: Self-Translating, from Minorisation

Part I Hegemony and Resistance 23

 abel in (Spite of ) Belgium: Patterns of Self-Translation

 he Three Powers of Self-Translating or Not Self-Translating:

 elf-Translation as Testimony: Halide Edib Rewrites

Part II Self-Minorisation and Self-Censorship 93

 he Failure of Self-Translation in Catalan Literature 95

 he Power and Burden of Self-­Translation:

 elf-Translation and Linguistic Reappropriation:

 elf-Translating Between Minor and Major Languages:

Part III Collaboration, Hybridisation and Invisibility 189

 ollaborative Self-Translation in a Minority Language:

 ollaborative Self-Translation as a Catastrophe:

 eyond Self-Translation: Amara Lakhous and

 riting Beyond the Border: Max Frisch, Dialect and

Multilingualism, cultural awareness and ethnic diversity have become

© The Author(s) 2017 1

languages and cultures are rarely, if ever, of equal status in multilingual

Steering the Power Turn

(through direct control, influence or manipulation) the actions and activ-

translators’ approach to their activity, the choices made while translating,

 ultilingualism and Power Dynamics

and minorised cultures take place in an increasingly multicultural and

literature studies seem to be less dismissive of the terminology. In the world

In Casanova’s terms, the unequal asymmetries between literary poly-

into French, he encounters a strong resistance of the target polysystem

What is Special about Self-Translation?

demned that marginality, declaring self-translation to be an invisible

Invisibility in the practice of self-translation plays a decisive role in this

The chapters in Part I explore one of the fundamental aspects linking

Self-censorship is precisely one of the notions discussed in Part II,

interconnections within the triad power/national identity/self-­translation.

It opens with Elizabete Manterola Agirrezabalaga’s “Collaborative

omissions, we are confident that this volume crucially contributes to

Grutman, Rainier. 1998. Auto-Translation. In Encyclopedia of Translation

Whyte, Christopher. 2002. Against Self-Translation. Translation and Literature

Olga Castro is Lecturer in Translation Studies at Aston University, Birmingham,

Sergi Mainer currently teaches Hispanic literature, Spanish language, Catalan

Svetlana Page (neé Skomorokhova) teaches Translation Studies and EAP at

In this chapter, written from a sociological standpoint (see Grutman

© The Author(s) 2017 25

Official Bilingualism, de facto Diglossia

areas” (taalgebieden/régions linguistiques): Dutch-speaking Flanders, French-

With self-translation being a way of avoiding—or at least postponing—a

Power (at) Play

Thus … in linguistic communities the elevation by authoritative fiat of a

or chain of dialects. This phenomenon, whereby the existence of a “new”

Germanic dialects (West- and East-Flemish, Brabantian, Limburgish)

those written in English by Americans, to “American literature.” Similarly,

In order for one mode of expression among others (a particular language in

University of Massachusetts Amherst Edwin Gentzler,

I ntroduction: Self-Translating, from Minorisation

Part I Hegemony and Resistance 23

abel in (Spite of ) Belgium: Patterns of Self-Translation

he Three Powers of Self-Translating or Not Self-Translating:

elf-Translation as Testimony: Halide Edib Rewrites

Part II Self-Minorisation and Self-Censorship 93

he Failure of Self-Translation in Catalan Literature 95

he Power and Burden of Self-Translation:

elf-Translation and Linguistic Reappropriation:

elf-Translating Between Minor and Major Languages:

Part III Collaboration, Hybridisation and Invisibility 189

ollaborative Self-Translation in a Minority Language:

ollaborative Self-Translation as a Catastrophe:

eyond Self-Translation: Amara Lakhous and

riting Beyond the Border: Max Frisch, Dialect and

Steering the Power Turn

ultilingualism and Power Dynamics

What is Special about Self-Translation?

interconnections within the triad power/national identity/self-translation.

Official Bilingualism, de facto Diglossia

Power (at) Play

Self-Translation Made in Belgium

Geographical and Social Distribution

The Uncoupling of Belgian Bilingualism

Inequality Within Languages and Cultures

l anguages and cultures; the collective will (at a community or national[ist]

language, more or less directly from their family background, during a

On the Side of the (Self) Translators

On the Side of the “Front (?) of Refusal”

Possible Retrospective Critic of