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Translation Spaces: Online-First Articles

Revising a literary translation for publication

Insights from an autoethnographic study

ORCID logo | University of Malta

Despite the surge of interest in translation revision and its ubiquitousness in translation processes, minimal scholarly research has been carried out into the revision of literary translations (Koponen et al. 2021, 10). This article responds to calls in the literature for empirical studies examining the creation of actual published translations. It aims to partially address this gap by reporting on the processes and practices occurring during the revision of my Maltese translation of Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s Concerto à la mémoire d’un ange. Although numerous translation scholars are also practising translators, we rarely look at our own processes and practices. Not only is this reality of translation revision largely overlooked but also the wealth of empirical data generated during the translation process remains unexploited. Drawing on my own translation practice, this study adopts an autoethnographic approach to provide insights into how revision materialised in this specific literary translation. Meticulously conserved real-life data are analysed in order to shed light on the agents involved in the revision process, their role and power.

Keywords: literary translation, revision, autoethnography, processes, practices, roles, networks, practisearchers
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction and contextualisation
  • 2.Methodology
  • 3.Findings and analysis
    • 3.1The revision itinerary: A rich description
    • 3.2The network of agents and their interactions during revision
    • 3.3Revision agents: Profiles and roles
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 4 April 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.23040.bor
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