The Ways of Self-Translating Nancy Huston: Estrategias De Autotraducción
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Facultad de Filosofía y Letras Departamento de Filología Moderna Nancy Huston: The Ways of Self-Translating Nancy Huston: Estrategias de autotraducción Marlisa Amanda Richters 2012 Nancy Huston: The Ways of Self-Translating Nancy Huston: Estrategias de autotraducción A thesis submitted by Marlisa Amanda Richters in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of a Doctor in Philosophy in English Philology at the Universidad de León. Directed by Julio César Santoyo Mediavilla. Universidad de León Facultad de Filosofía y Letras Departamento de Filología Moderna Marlisa Amanda Richters 2012 To my parents i Acknowledgements I would like to thank Julio César Santoyo Mediavilla for agreeing to be my mentor and for all the invaluable help and encouragement he has given me, as well as the loan of materials and his generosity with time. Special thanks also go to Matthew Roth for his willingness to answer questions at all times and for supplying me with numerous articles and doing some proof-reading. I dedicate my work to my parents, without whom I would not have been able to complete my doctorate studies. The list of helpful things they have done for me is never-ending. I am thankful to my husband and my children for their love and support. Furthermore, I appreciate all the love, prayers and encouragement from my family members and friends all over the globe. iii Table of Contents Dedication..........................................................................i Acknowledgements..........................................................iii I. Introduction..................................................................1 II. Self-Translation in Perspective .................................5 2.1. History of Literary Self-Translation.....................5 2.2. The Present Situation............................................9 III. Theoretical Framework..........................................13 IV. Nancy Huston...........................................................21 4.1. Biography of Nancy Huston...............................21 4.2. Bibliography of Nancy Huston...........................58 1. Fiction..................................................................58 A. Novels..............................................................58 B. Plays and Filmscripts........................................59 C. Books for Children and Teenagers...................59 2. Non-Fiction.........................................................60 A. Essays and Articles...........................................60 B. Translation of Others........................................64 C. Prefaces by Nancy Huston................................65 3. Other....................................................................65 V. Plainsong....................................................................67 v 5.1. Bibliographical References................................69 5.2. Summary.............................................................70 5.3. Analysis..............................................................71 5.4. Conclusions......................................................131 VI. Slow Emergencies..................................................139 6.1. Bibliographical references................................141 6.2. Summary..........................................................142 6.3. Analysis............................................................143 6.4. Conclusions......................................................197 VII. The Mark of the Angel..........................................205 7.1. Bibliographical References..............................207 7.2. Summary..........................................................208 7.3. Analysis............................................................209 7.4. Conclusions......................................................250 VIII. Conclusions.........................................................255 IX. Secondary Bibliography.......................................265 1. Articles and Books about Nancy Huston.............265 2. General Background............................................268 3. List of Electronic References..............................270 X. Textual Appendix....................................................273 10.1. Plainsong/Cantiques des plaines ...................274 10.1. Slow Emergencies/La virevolte .....................292 10.3. L'Empreinte de l'ange/Mark of the Angel.......300 vi I Introduction “Do you know Nancy Huston?” After asking a large number of people this question – family and friends who live in France, expatriate Canadians living in Spain and in Germany, even new people I meet, particularly if they are readers – my conclusion has been that Huston is fairly unknown to the average reader. As a matter of fact, I have only met one person so far, a Frenchwoman living in Belgium, who reads her regularly, and avidly at that. And yet, at the age of 58, Huston has a long list of works to cite, including twelve novels, all of which she has translated, several books comprising her numerous essays, and such diverse publications as film scripts, in one of which she also plays a minor role, or plays such as Jocaste Reine, also translated into English, or the musical Angela et Marina: Tragicomédie musicale – not to mention the translations of other authors' books. The name Nancy Huston crossed my path while teaching French literature at the University of León several years ago. The textbook I was using was wonderfully suited to introducing French literature to intermediate students. French writers, but also French-writing authors, among them Nancy Huston, are introduced with a short extract of one of their major works and some questions for reflection. The extract by Huston was taken from her collection of essays entitled Losing North, originally written in French as Nord Perdu. I found the extract in question intriguing – 1 in it she spoke about how a different language brings with it a new world view. As a result I ended up buying the book in order to be able to read all she had to say on the topic. The reading was thoroughly enjoyable and spoke to me on a very personal level. The obvious reason for this is that I am not only an expatriate, living in Spain at the moment, but also bilingual in English and German, having spent most of my childhood in Germany with American parents. Huston's biography, which is to be found in chapter 3, explains why Huston became a writer in France and in French, and the analysis of her novel Plainsong will give insight into why she started translating her own works on a regular basis. But what Losing North, and its counterpart Nord Perdu for that matter, express very well is what it is to be an expatriate. In the chapter called Orientation she writes: “Even with a French childhood, there are any number of people who have a hard time feeling French! Without one, it's impossible.” (p. 7). I have come to the conclusion that I feel my character to be more German than American, because I spent my formative years in Germany. However, until I saw it in writing, I was unsure if my analysis was isolated, i.e., limited to my own experience, or more general. In the chapter Disorientation Huston expresses the thought that “here you set aside what you used to be..., there you set aside what you've become...” (p. 11). In other words, your life in the “other place” has very little bearing on your life here; which also explains why expatriates generally find each other abroad. As the saying goes: 'Birds of a feather flock together.' If, furthermore, two foreigners are from the same country, there is the advantage of being able to speak and reminisce about 'life back home.' And on goes the list of points that Huston makes, with which I found myself agreeing at every turn of the page. 2 But apart from the relative obscurity of Nancy Huston – in fact, she has won a large number of prizes in France and abroad, on both sides of the Atlantic – and the evident connection I feel to her 'plight' as an expatriate, there is a third issue that made me choose Huston for my dissertation: my status as a bilingual speaker. She considers herself a 'false bilingual,' to use her own term, with which she means that she reached bilingualism at a later stage in life and not as a child. For her, the two languages are completely separate: “I often have the feeling that they “sleep apart” in my brain. Far from being comfortably settled in face to face or back to back or side by side, they are distinct and hierarchized: first English then French in my life, first English then French in my writing. The words say it well: your native or “mother” tongue, the one you acquire in earliest childhood, enfolds and envelops you so that you belong to it, whereas with the “adopted” tongue, it's the other way around – you're the one who needs to mother it, master it, and make it belong to you.” (p. 47). Despite being a 'false bilingual,' Huston has a fantastic command of both languages, and is able to play with them, make puns, and use them in any way she chooses. I, on the other hand, would be considered by Huston as a 'true bilingual,' having grown up with two languages. I believe my bilingual status is the reason for my love of languages. It was therefore a logical conclusion for me to search for a topic which would allow me to use more than one language. Given my present situation, in which I am teaching French part-time at the local university, it seemed an appropriate choice to make English and French the two languages to work with. With these