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Article published In:
Translation in Society
Vol. 1:2 (2022) ► pp.157–176

Towards a sociology of consuming translated fiction

Pleasure, status, and textual-linguistic intolerance

ORCID logo | Yeditepe University

This article aims to explore British readers’ aesthetic responses to fiction in translation, based on ethnographic data from reading groups around the UK. Examining excerpts from book club meetings on Haruki Murakami’s After Dark (trans. Jay Rubin), Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (trans. Richard Freeborn) and José Eduardo Agualusa’s Rainy Season (trans. Daniel Hahn), the study investigates judgements regarding the visibility of translation in particular. A case is made for “consuming” translated literature. With an analytical perspective derived from the sociology of art, the paper focuses on the various dimensions of reading such as pleasure, status and textual-linguistic (in)tolerance. The analysis of excerpts reveals that readers derive pleasure from texts that have undergone interlingual transfer as long as they recognize the artistry involved in the translation profession, where such recognition is culture-bound.

Keywords: sociology of translation, reception, readers, book clubs, consumption, ethnographic methods
Article outline
  • Introduction: A sociology of consumption
  • Methods
  • The research context: Omnivorousness and anglophone cosmopolitanism
  • Aesthetic judgements on translated texts in reading groups
  • Case studies: Attitudes towards the visibility of literary translation
    • After Dark
    • Fathers and Sons
    • Rainy Season
  • Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 April 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tris.21011.tek
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