Publications
Publication details [#13183]
Meillont, Bénédicte. 2006. Translating the 'Covered Bridges' in Barbara Kingsolver’s short stories. In Raguet, Christine, ed. Traduire intertextualité [Translating intertextuality]. Paris: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle.
Publication type
Article in jnl/bk
Publication language
English
Keywords
Person as a subject
Abstract
The title of this paper was prompted by the bridge motif in Barbara Kingsolver’s short stories, a motif revealing implicit connections from one story to another within the collection, and showing how those intratextual bridges extend to the many intertextual ones. Kingsolver’s palimpsest narratives strongly depend on these 'Covered Bridges'—indeed one of the story titles—all the more so in the case of very brief short stories. Problematically, the translator’s recovery of these 'covered bridges' will depend on his/her personal encyclopaedia, and his/her capability to discover the hybrid structures woven into the fabric of the text. While the reader’s interpretation may tend to leave out or add meaning to the original, the translator sometimes chooses to clarify references he might deem too implicit, or (what could be worse) covers them up after not having spotted them in the original text. Based on the author's analysis and translation of Barbara Kingsolver’s short stories and a comparison with the recently published translation, this paper argues that the translator’s task lies in the discreet and faithful recovery of the more or less covered, intertextual bridges (s)he perceives and researches.
Source : Based on abstract in journal