Kafka Translated: How Translators Have Shaped Our Reading of Kafka

ISBN-13: 9781441197719 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 304 str.

Michelle Woods

Opis

Kafka Translated is the first book to look at the issue of translation and Kafka's work. What effect do the translations have on how we read Kafka? Are our interpretations of Kafka influenced by the translators' interpretations? In what ways has Kafka been 'translated' into Anglo-American culture by popular culture and by academics? Michelle Woods investigates issues central to the burgeoning field of translation studies: the notion of cultural untranslatability; the centrality of female translators in literary history; and the under-representation of the influence of the translator as interpreter of literary texts. She specifically focuses on the role of two of Kafka's first translators, Milena Jesenska and Willa Muir, as well as two contemporary translators, Mark Harman and Michael Hofmann, and how their work might allow us to reassess reading Kafka. From here Woods opens up the whole process of translation and re-examines accepted and prevailing interpretations of Kafka's work.

Recenzje

Though Kafka's language takes center stage in this insightful, well-researched book, Woods (former director, Centre for Translation and Textual Studies, Dublin City Univ., Ireland) Also provides a sustained analysis of the process of literary translation, putting the practice of literary translation into the service of textual criticism and interpretation. She compares the cultural and historical backgrounds of two of kafkas first translators, Milena Jesenka and Willa Muir, and contemporary translators, Mark Harman and Michael Hofmann, Transforming the polemics of competing or differing translations-what she calls the 'gotcha game' of finding errors- into positive dialectical process that yields refreshing insights into aspects of Kafka's writing. Woods is less interested in interpretive transgressions and infidelities to the source of texts than she is in exploring how supposed "mistakes can shed light on textual intricacies and interpretive resistance that confound Kafka's readers. Woods complements her literary analysis with an exemplary foray into the cinematic adaptation of Kafka work by focusing on controversial appropriations by such luminaries as Orson Welles, Federico Fellini, and Steven Soderbergh, who like their literary co-conspirators have shaped the way one reads and visualizes Kafka. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, general readers.-- E. WIlliams, Universidad de las Americas, Puebla (Mexico CHOICE

Spis treści

IntroductionKafka Translated Milena Jesenská Willa Muir Mark Harman Michael HofmannKafka TranslatingAdapting KafkaInterpreting KafkaBibliographyIndex

O autorze

Michelle Woods is Associate Professor of English at The State University of New York, New Paltz, USA. Previously she was Director of the Centre for Translation and Textual Studies at Dublin City University, Republic of Ireland.