Publications

Publication details [#11953]

Simon, Sherry. 2006. Translating Montreal: episodes in the life of a divided city. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. xi + 296 pp.
Publication type
Monograph
Publication language
English
Source language
Target language
Main ISBN
0-7735-3077-0
Edition info
Paperback ISBN: 0-7735-3108-4

Abstract

The divided Montreal of the 1960s is very different from today's cosmopolitan, hybrid city. Taking the perspective of a walker moving through a fluid landscape of neighbourhoods and eras, Sherry Simon experiences Montreal as a voyage across languages. Sketching out literary passages from the then of the colonial city to the now of the cosmopolitan Montreal, she traces a history of crossings and intersections around the familiar sites and symbols of the city - the mythical boulevard Saint-Laurent, Mile End, the Jacques-Cartier Bridge, Mont-Royal. Translating Montreal follows the trajectories of adventurous cultural translators such as Malcolm Reid, F.R. Scott, and A.M. Klein - pioneers of the 1950s and 1960s - Pierre Anctil, whose translations from Yiddish to French are emblematic of the dramatic reroutings now occurring across the Montreal landscape, and contemporary writer-translators such as Gail Scott, Erin Mouré, Jacques Brault, Michel Garneau, Nicole Brossard, and Emile Ollivier. Simon argues that translation is a dynamic and subtle tool for analysing cultural contact. An original take on cultural relations in the city, Translating Montreal explores the emergence of the "new" Montrealer. No longer "Franco-Québécois," "Anglo-Québécois," "immigrant," or "ethnic," the new Montrealer is a citizen of a mixed and cosmopolitan city.
Source : Publisher information

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