What is it about?
Most people think that a literary translation is the exact same kind of literature as its original: a translated poem is a poem, a translated novel is a novel, etc. I claim that the literary translator actually renders not the words or meanings (contents) of the original, but the source author's strategies in creating it.
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Why is it important?
There are a lot of stereotypical assumptions that go along with this established notion that a literary translator simply transfers content from one language to another, especially that a translation will invariably be WORSE than the original, because the translator is BY DEFINITION a hack, or at least a worse writer than the original author. This article seeks to undo all that.
Perspectives
I realize that this is something of an idiosyncratic claim that may not persuade many people. Normative stereotypes are difficult to dislodge! But it's something that I believe fervently, both as a literary translator and as a reader and scholar of literary translations.
Professor Douglas J. Robinson
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: What kind of literature is a literary translation?, Target International Journal of Translation Studies, September 2017, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/target.16064.rob.
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