What is it about?
In Woody Allen's short story "The Kugelmass Episode," a CUNY comp lit professor gets magically projected into Flaubert's Madame Bovary and has a steamy affair with Emma. Lit professors all over the world wonder where this bald Jew has suddenly appeared from on page 105. I read this story as an allegory of translation, especially technical translation.
Featured Image
Perspectives
I gave this as a talk several times, twice in Spanish-speaking countries, once in Portugal, twice in English-speaking countries, and especially loved giving it in places where people knew Spanish (or Portunhol), because the concluding joke that the story ends on, which was the focus of my allegory of technical translation, was that Kugelmass was projected into an intermediate Spanish textbook, where he found the irregular verb "tener" coming at him "on its spindly legs."
Professor Douglas J. Robinson
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Kugelmass, translator, January 1998, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/btl.21.07rob.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
