“Superheroines”--A Translation of Barbi Marković's Novel
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University of Vermont ScholarWorks @ UVM UVM Honors College Senior Theses Undergraduate Theses 2020 “Superheroines” -- A Translation of Barbi Marković's Novel Superheldinnen Emma Roach Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/hcoltheses Recommended Citation Roach, Emma, "“Superheroines” -- A Translation of Barbi Marković's Novel Superheldinnen" (2020). UVM Honors College Senior Theses. 364. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/hcoltheses/364 This Honors College Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Undergraduate Theses at ScholarWorks @ UVM. It has been accepted for inclusion in UVM Honors College Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ UVM. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “Superheroines” -- A Translation of Barbi Marković's Novel Superheldinnen Emma Roach Department of German and Russian Honors College Thesis Spring 2020 Introduction Through my studies of German over the years, I have discovered that one of my favorite things about learning another language is being able to read literature from that culture in the original language. Furthermore, I find it interesting to read a German text as well as its English translation and compare how the original and the translation express the same story. As a double major in German and Linguistics, I have learned a lot about the structure of language and crosslinguistic differences that make each language unique. Translation was the perfect way to engage creatively with each language and its unique linguistic features. Moreover, since literary works are not only concerned with linguistic creativity but also reflect the culture of the respective linguistic community, translation is an important facet of cross-cultural communication. Translating works of literature contributes to promoting cultural understanding, and I want to be a part of this chain of cultural communication. My Honors College thesis offered me the perfect opportunity to undertake such an endeavor. The Importance of Translation Translation is an important and necessary aspect of cultural communication because it allows speakers of different languages and people from different cultures to connect with one another in a way that does not detract from either group of people or place one above the other. Both are able to access communication in their native language and still learn about the other. With the rise of English as a lingua franca in the world, it is important for people to write and speak in their native language, but also be able to reach a wider audience through translation. Translation involves many details and intricacies that require a translator to have a strong knowledge of the source language (SL), in this case German, and a native knowledge of the target language (TL), in this case English. My studies in German and Linguistics have provided me with this foundational understanding of both languages. Translation involves taking the nuances of both languages into careful consideration in order to best capture the idiosyncratic elements of a text that exist in the SL and put them into the TL, while avoiding major translation loss, though some is inevitable in almost every text. An ideal translation identifies with and facilitates the understanding of the original text by replicating its effect on the audience (Venuti p.66). There have been many translations of major German literary works, such as texts by Goethe and Schiller, but it is increasingly important to 2 translate contemporary works, as exposure to international literature is of the utmost importance for communication between cultures in the global world we live in. My aim in completing this translation project is to join that exchange of cultural information through literature. Choosing the Text My goal was to complete a large-scale translation of a contemporary novel. It was important to find one that had not yet been translated into English, as one of my goals is to be able to provide English-speaking readers a translation of a German novel that they would not otherwise have access to. To do so, my thesis advisor, Helga Schreckenberger, and I looked online and in libraries to find recently published German books and then checked if they had been translated. I stumbled upon a website (http://www.new-books-in-german.com/) that provides up-to-date information about recently published books. On this website, I found a few titles that sounded intriguing, and I started requesting copies through interlibrary loan and reading sections of a few different books. I wasn’t able to read one of the possible candidates until Summer 2019 when I was in Vienna, Austria, because it wasn't yet available in the United States. My goal was to find a fictional text about a topic that I thought English readers would find interesting and important. After searching and testing out a couple different books, I ultimately decided on Superheldinnen by Barbi Marković. This novel, entitled “Superheroines” in English, deals with a number of topics that I found really important in the global world we live in today. Migration, particularly in the context of the refugee crises of recent years, has brought stories of immigrants to the forefront of news and media. While Superheldinnen is a work of fiction and ventures into the realm of magic, it still provides us with an immigrant’s perspective. The three main characters are women who have immigrated to Vienna, and while they may have special powers, they are not immune to the cultural alienation and economic difficulties experienced by many immigrants. This alienation is represented throughout the book as the narrator describes each woman’s self-doubts and despair about their lack of achievement. In today’s global world, where refugee crises force many people to leave their homes involuntarily while many others willingly seek a better life in other countries, this novel works to reflect and validate the stories of immigrants around the world, and even more importantly allows non-immigrants to understand these immigrants’ stories and develop empathy for their situation. Reading about these experiences in other cultural contexts, 3 in this case, in Austria, offers the readers a different perspective of these issues which might broaden their understanding of the situation in their own country. In addition, the novel criticizes the overwhelming influence of consumerism especially on those whose economic situation excludes them from joining in. Both topics, the experience of immigrants and the pressure to consume, add to the cultural relevance of the novel. Since this book had not been translated into English, yet offers a compelling story about the lives of immigrants told tongue-in-cheek in a fresh and creative way, I thought this story was worth being shared with an English-speaking audience, and thus needed a translation. Life in Vienna While deciding which book to translate, I was also in the process of organizing an internship in Vienna, Austria for Summer 2019. I ended up working for an online translation company called Nativy Translations - while I wasn’t doing translations myself, I did learn how they run their online translation system, as well as what they look for in translators. This includes experience and having a degree in translation and/or the source language, which contributed to my decision to pursue a master’s degree in Translation, which I will be doing at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California beginning in Fall 2020. My internship was slated to start in May 2019. At that point, I hadn’t yet decided on translating Superheldinnen, but I had read some of the book, and knew that the majority of the plot took place around Siebenbrunnenplatz which is in the fifth district of Vienna. Shortly before the end of the Spring 2019 semester, I received my housing assignment, and my apartment in Vienna was on Siebenbrunnengasse - I would spend the summer living right in the neighborhood where this book takes place. It felt like a sign that ultimately Superheldinnen would be the perfect choice for my project because I would be able to learn so much by immersing myself in the community where this book takes place. My months living in Vienna were a wonderful experience, both for gaining a first-hand view of the online translation business, as well as for learning about the community where the novel for my thesis takes place. The characters shop at the same grocery store, Billa, that I shopped at, and ate at the same restaurants in the square. I got to experience Café Sette Fontane (whose name means ‘seven fountains’, which is also the translation of ‘Sieben Brunnen’, the name of the square Siebenbrunnenplatz) where the three main characters spend so much of their 4 time deciding how to help others using their abilities. This gave me a really unique connection to this book and allowed me to better understand the cultural aspects of the story that I needed to translate into the English version. My experience living on Siebenbrunnengasse ultimately led to my decision that Superheldinnen would be the perfect book for my translation project, both because of its content and my own personal connection to its location. I was very excited to start working on my translation, and in reflection upon this experience, I know that this book was the perfect choice for this project. Biographical Information about Barbi Marković The back cover of the book offers a short introduction to the author, translated here: “Barbi Marković was born in 1980 in Belgrade, and studied German language and literature in Belgrade and Vienna. In Belgrade, she worked as an editor at Rende Verlag. She has been living in Vienna since 2006, and in 2011/2012 she was a writer-in-residence in Graz, Austria, the results of which were published in 2012 as “Graz Alexanderplatz”.