Résumés
Abstract
For several decades, the positive norms of cosmopolitanism and omnivorousness have dominated cultural consumption in Britain. This paper will discuss the implications of these interrelated affinities in the popular reception of fiction in translation. Ethnographic data for the study has been collected mostly through participant observation with book club members in the UK. Through an analysis of statements made by readers, the article will illustrate how reading and discussing fiction in translation encourages readers to mobilize their international cultural capital and how horizontal and vertical boundaries between genres become blurred. Consequently, individual translations may become “upgraded” or “downgraded” in aesthetic terms, especially in the ways these books have been packaged and marketed to readers.
Résumé
Au cours des dernières décennies, deux normes positives, le cosmopolitisme et l’omnivorité, ont dominé la consommation culturelle en Grande-Bretagne. Dans cet article, nous examinons l’incidence de ces affinités interreliées sur la réception populaire des oeuvres de fiction en traduction. Notre analyse repose sur des données ethnographiques collectées, en majorité, par l’observation des activités de clubs de lecture au Royaume-Uni. Les commentaires de lecteurs et de lectrices servent ainsi de base pour illustrer la manière dont la lecture d’oeuvres traduites et la discussion qui s’ensuit encouragent ceux-ci à mobiliser leur capital culturel international, ainsi que la façon dont les frontières horizontales et verticales entre les genres littéraires en viennent à s’estomper. En conséquence, les traductions sont « revalorisées » ou « dévalorisées » sur le plan esthétique, notamment en fonction de leur commercialisation pour un nouveau lectorat.
Parties annexes
Bibliography
- Agualusa, José Eduardo. Rainy Season. Translated by Daniel Hahn. London: Arcadia, 2009.
- Aswany, Alaa al. TheYacoubian Building. Translated by Humphrey Davies. London and New York: Harper Perennial, 2007.
- Ayrton, Pete. Interview with the author. London, December 14, 2009.
- Bratchell, Roger. “Marketing Literature in Translation.” Presentation at the London Book Fair panel titled “The Marketing of Literature in Translation: UK & China.” London, April 22, 2009.
- Bulgakov, Mikhail. Master and Margarita. Translated by Michael Glenny. London: Collins and Harvill Press, 1967.
- Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose. Translated by William Weaver. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1984.
- Gogol, Nikolai. Dead Souls. Translated by Constance Garnett. New York: The Modern Library, 1936.
- Lang, Andrew, ed. Arabian Nights. London: Longmans, Green, 1960.
- Márquez, Gabriel García. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Translated by Gregory Rabassa. London: Cape, 1970.
- Murakami, Haruki. After Dark. Translated by Jay Rubin. London: Vintage, 2008.
- Nafzawi, Umar ibn Muhammad. The Perfumed Garden of the Shaykh Nefzawi. Translated by Richard F. Burton. London: Guild Publishing, 1982.
- Pamuk, Orhan. My Name is Red. Translated by Erdağ Göknar. London: Faber and Faber, 2002.
- Swainson, Bill. Contribution to the discussion at the panel titled “The Art of Translation: A Closer Look.” Festival of Ibero-American Literature. London, November 14, 2009.
- Xinran. Sky Burial. Translated by Julia Lovell and Esther Tyldesley. London: Vintage, 2005.
- Adil, Alev. “The Yacoubian Building, by Alaa al Aswany, trans Humphrey Davies.” TheIndependent (February 16, 2007). http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-yacoubian-building-by-alaa-al-aswany-trans-humphrey-davies-436484.html.
- Alter, Robert. The Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age. New York: Touchstone, 1989.
- Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. London: Routledge, 1984.
- Bryson, Bethany. “‘Anything but Heavy Metal’: Symbolic Exclusion and Musical Dislikes.” American Sociological Review 61, no. 5 (1996): 884–9.
- Casanova, Pascale. The World Republic of Letters. Translated by M. B. DeBevoise. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2004.
- DiMaggio, Paul. “Classification in Art.” American Sociological Review 52, no. 4 (1987): 440–5.
- Donahaye, Jasmine. “Three Percent? Publishing Data and Statistics on Translated Literature in the United Kingdom and Ireland.” Literature Across Frontiers (2013) http://www.lit-across-frontiers.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Three-Percent-Publishing-Data-and-Statistics-on-Translated-Literature-in-the-UK-and-Ireland_FINAL.pdf.
- English, James. “Winning the Culture Game: Prizes, Awards and the Rules of Art.” New Literary History 33, no. 1 (2002): 109–35.
- Even-Zohar, Itamar. “The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem.” Poetics Today 11, no. 1 (1990): 45–51.
- Freeman, John. “The Yacoubian Building, By Alaa al Aswany, Translated by Humphrey Davies.” San Francisco Chronicle (August 13, 2006). http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/A-window-into-rich-life-of-Cairo-apartments-2514615.php.
- Fridman, Viviana and Ollivier, Michèle. “Ouverture ostentatoire à la diversité et cosmopolitisme: vers une nouvelle configuration discursive?” Sociologie et Sociétés 36, no. 1 (2004): 105–26.
- Frow, John. Cultural Studies and Cultural Value. Clarendon: Oxford, 1995.
- Fuller, Danielle and Rehberg Sedo, DeNel. Reading Beyond the Book: The Social Practices of Contemporary Literary Culture. New York and London: Routledge, 2013.
- Hannerz, Ulf. Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.
- Kraaykamp, Gerbert and Dijkstra, Katinka. “Preferences in Leisure Time Book Reading: A Study on the Social Differentiation in Book Reading for the Netherlands.” Poetics 26 (1999): 203–34.
- Long, Elizabeth. Book Clubs: Women and the Uses of Reading in Everyday Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
- Peplow, David; Swann, Joan; Trimarco, Paola and Whitely, Sara. The Discourse of Reading Groups: Integrating Cognitive and Sociocultural Perspectives. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2016.
- Peterson, Richard A. “Understanding Audience Segmentation: From Elite and Mass to Omnivore and Univore.” Poetics 21, no. 4 (1992): 243–58.
- Peterson, Richard A. and Kern, Roger M. “Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore.” American Sociological Review 61 (1996): 900–907.
- Savage, Mike; Wright, David and Gayo-Cal, Modesto. “Cosmopolitan Nationalism and the Cultural Reach of the White British.” Nations and Nationalism 16, no. 4 (2010): 598–615.
- Squires, Claire. “A Common Ground? Book Prize Culture in Europe.” The Public 11, no. 4 (2004): 37–48.
- Squires, Claire. “Book Marketing and the Booker Prize.” In Judging a Book by its Cover, edited by Nicole Matthews and Nickianne Moody, 71–82. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.
- Squires, Claire. Marketing Literature: The Making of Contemporary Writing in Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
- Tahir Gürçağlar, Şehnaz. “Agency in Allographic Prefaces to Translated Books: An Initial Exploration of the Turkish Context.” In Authorial and Editorial Voices in Translation 2 – Editorial and Publishing Practices, edited by Hanne Jansen and Anna Wegener, 89–108. Montréal: Éditions québécoises de l’oeuvre, 2014.
- Tekgül, Duygu. “Marketing the Other: Exoticism in the Promotion of Literature from the Middle East and Asia.” In Beyond Boundaries: East & West Cross-Cultural Encounters, edited by Michelle Ying Ling Huang, 230–48. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.
- Toury, Gideon. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1995.
- Warde, Alan; Wright, David, and Gayo-Cal, Modesto. “Understanding Cultural Omnivorousness: Or, the Myth of the Cultural Omnivore.” Cultural Sociology 1, no. 2 (2007): 143–64.
- Wright, David. “Cultural Capital and the Literary Field.” Cultural Trends 15, no. 2/3 (2006): 123–39.
- Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation (2nd ed.). London and New York: Routledge, 2008.
10.7202/009584ar