Translating Triomf: The Shifting Limits of “Ownership” in Literary Translation Or: Never Translate Anyone but a Dead Author
Abstract
This essay teases out the paradoxes inherent in competing notions of (1) authorial “ownership” of a text and of its modes of signification in acts of translation, (2) the claims upon that text by a translator, and (3) the senses in which imaginative texts are “co-owned” by readers, specialists, critics, teachers, reviewers and editors. Based on anecdotal evidence – in this instance, an incomplete case-history of translating the Afrikaans novel Triomf into English – the essay builds an argument about the nature of translation in more general terms.
Opsomming
Hierdie artikel pluis die paradokse uit wat inherent is aan die kompeterende begrippe van (1) outeurs “eienaarskap” van die teks en van die betekenisgewing daaraan deur vertaling, (2) die aansprake op die teks deur die vertaler, en (3) die sin waarin oorspronklike tekse “medebesit” word deur lesers, spesialiste, kritici, leerkragte, resensente en redakteurs. Aan die hand van anekdotiese gronde – in hierdie geval ’n gedeeltelike gevalbeskrywing van die vertaling van die Afrikaanse roman Triomf in Engels – voer die essay ’n argument aan omtrent die aard van vertaling in meer algemene terme.
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