University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/71208 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. OTHERNESS IN TRANSLATION: CONTEMPORARY GERMAN PROSE IN BRITAIN AND FRANCE Wiebke Sievers A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Translation Studies University of Warwick Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies May 2003 .. CONTENTS IN"TRODUCTION 1 1 OTHERNESS IN"TRANSLATION THEORIES I0 1.1 'SO VIELE ORDNUNGEN, SO VIELE FREMDHEITEN': BERNHARD WALDENFELS.12 1.2 'UBERSETZUNG UND ANEIGNUNG': THE NATION IN TRANSLATION 19 1.2.1 '[Der} Kreis der Obersetzermuhen': Friedrich SChleiermacher 24 1.2.2 'Enrichissement de notre langue': Antoine Berman 30 1.2.3 'A Glimpse of a Cultural Other': Lawrence Venuti 34 1.3 'A KIND OF PERMANENT EXILE': BEYOND THE NATION IN TRANSLATION 37 1.3.1 'Ober die Unverstiindlichkeit': Friedrich Schlegel 39 1.3.2 'Die Fremdheit der Sprachen': Walter Benjamin 41 1.3.3 'Les limites du concept courant de traduction': Jacques Derrida 47 1.4 RESPONDING TO OTHERNESS IN THE STUDY OF TRANSLATIONS ...••....•............. 55 2 OTHERNESS IN"TRANSLATION PRACTICE: CONTEMPORARY GERMAN PROSE IN BRITAIN AND FRANCE 60 2.1 SELLING THE OTHER: MARKET CONDITIONS AND LITERARY TRENDS ...•.......... 62 2.1.1 'Self-Satisfied Rubbish'? German Literature in the Foreign Market Place 63 2.1.1.1 'Translations are very hard to sell': The Marginalization of Translation in Britain 68 2.1.1.2 A Wide Field: The Central Significance of Translation in France 74 2.1.1.3 Globalization and Translation: The Confirmation of Long-Term Trends 78 2.1.2 The Cold War Other: Literary Trends at the End of the Cold War 80 2.1.2.1 The German or the Communist Other? Herta Muller's Receptions 84 2.1.2.2 The Evil Other vs the Otherness of the Self: The Uses of Otherness as a Selling Device .. 93 2.1.3 Ideology, Genre, Language: Determining Dimensions ofOtherness 107 2.2 CAUGHT IN THE COLD WAR: MONlKA MARON 109 2.2.1 Revealing Antagonisms: Flugasche in the West German Press 111 2.2.2 The Construction of a Dissident: Flight of Ashes 119 2.2.2.1 Fighting the Battle of the Righteous: Josefa Nadler 120 2.2.2.2 The Reduction of Diversity: Josefa's Colleagues 130 2.2.2.3 The Influence of Gender Discourses: Josefa's Partner 135 2.2.2.4 Newspeak and the Song of Songs: The Omission ofIntertextual Allusions 141 2.2.3 Realism vs Surrealism: The Defector vs La Transfuge 143 2.2.3.1 Social Criticism vs Surreal Imagination: The Marketing Strategies 146 2.2.3.2 The Defector and La Transfuge: Die Uberlauferin in English and French 150 2.2.4 Emphasizing the Otherness of the French Self: Rue du Silence, No.6 164 2.2.5 From the Clearly Delimited Other to the Otherness of the Self. 167 2.3 GENOCIDE AND THE FANTASTIC: EDGAR HILSENRA TH 169 2.3.1 A (Fairy)-Tale about Genocide: Hilsenrath 's Miirchen in the German Press 173 2.3.2 Defamiliarization and Analogy: Hilsenrath's Response to the Claim of Otherness. 179 2.3.2.1 Orientalism and Fairy Tale: Otherness as an Organizing Priniciple 180 2.3.2.2 The Armenian Genocide and the Shoa: The Otherness Underlying the Self 218 2.3.3 Fairy Tale vs History: The Loss of the Wider Implications of Hilsenrath 's Novel... 230 2.4 'EXPRESSING AN IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBILITY OF BEING': ANNE DUDEN 233 2.4.1 Reviewing the Ineffable: Anne Duden's Ubergang in the German Press 235 2.4.2 Female Autobiography vs Ambiguity: Ubergang in the Light of its Publications 240 2.4.3 The Borderlines of Translation Practice: Ubergang in English and French 248 2.4.3.1 Minimizing the Caricature of Normality: Exaggeration and Repetition in Translation 250 2.4.3.2 Closing Doors to Excluded Possibilities: Ambiguity and Polyphony in Translation 262 2.4.4 Questioning Dominant Concepts of Translation 278 3 TOWARDS A CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE IN TRANSLATION 280 4 APPENDIX: THE CORPUS 286 4.1 TRANSLATIONS PUBLISHED IN BRITAIN 288 4.2 TRANSLATIONS PUBLISHED IN FRANCE 298 5 BIBLIOGRAPHY 326 ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: Flux of Translations in France, Britain and Germany .4 Figure 2: Translations of Contemporary German Prose in Britain and France 65 Figure 3: German, French and English Covers of Herta Muller's Der Mensch ist ein groj3er Fasan auf der Welt ; 98 Figure 4: Covers of Herta Muller's Herztier and The Land of Green Plums 101 Figure 5: Covers of Richard Wagner's Ausreiseantrag and Exit 101 Figure 6: Cover of Libuse Monikova's The Facade 105 Figure 7: Covers of Libuse Monikova's Die Fassade and La Facade 105 Figure 8: Cover of Monika Maron's Flugasche 112 Figure 9: Cover of Monika Maron's Flight of Ashes 112 Figure 10: Covers of Monika Maron's Die Uberliiuferin and The Defector ~ 148 Figure 11: Cover of Monika Maron's La Transfuge 148 Figure 12: German, English and French covers of Edgar Hilsenrath's Das Miirchen vom letzten Gedanken 200 Figure 13: Cover of Anne Duden's Traversee 247 Figure 14: Covers of Anne Duden's Ubergang and Opening of the Mouth 247 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would never have been completed without the help of a number of people. Special thanks go to my supervisors Piotr Kuhiwczak and Georgina Paul. I am grateful to the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Warwick, the. German Department at the University of Nottingham, the German Department at the University of Bradford and the Department for Germanic Languages at the University of Gent for the opportunity to present and discuss my work. I would also like to express my gratitude to Anne Duden and Monika Maron for their willingness to supply information on the evolution of the translations of their works. Without the funding of the German Academic Exchange Service and the support of Professor Seidel and Professor Gomille at the University of Diisseldorf I would not have been able to finance this project. Last but not least, I would like to thank my friends for their invaluable assistance: Liliana Feierstein, Vera Gerling, Julie Gregson, Gerald Hodl, Rachel Palfreyman, Ulrike Putter, Veronika Zangl. DECLARATION This thesis is my own work. It has not been submitted for a degree at another university. Selected material included in this thesis has appeared in the following publications: Wiebke Sievers, 'German Identities in Transition? The Translation of Contemporary German Prose in Britain and France', in German-Language Literature Today: International and Popular?, ed. by Arthur Williams, Stuart Parkes and Julian Preece (Oxford: Lang, 2000), pp. 31-42. Wiebke Sievers, 'Im interkulturellen Dialog: Monika Maron in englischer und franzosischer Ubersetzung', in Monika Maron in Perspective, ed. by Elke Gilson (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002),pp.225-254. Wiebke Sievers, 'Grenzen der Ubersetzung: Anne Dudens Ubergang in englischer und franzosischer Sprache', in Anne Duden: A Revolution of Words, Approaches to her Fiction, Poetry and Essays, ed. by Heike Bartel and Elizabeth Boa (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003), pp. 102-122. ABSTRACT Drawing on contemporary approaches to otherness, this thesis aims to show that, despite the growing interest in so-called foreignizing translation strategies, the current theory and practice of translation in Western Europe is to a large extent still caught in nationalist self- confirmation. In the first part of my study I expose the nationalist agenda underlying the influential theories of translation developed by Antoine Berman and Lawrence Venuti by contrasting them with the ideas formulated by Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida. Basing their arguments on Friedrich Schleiermacher's essay on translation, both Berman and Venuti intend to undermine the nationalist stance of current translation practice by replacing it with the belief that translation primarily serves to further the understanding of the foreign other. However, this seemingly noble purpose ultimately veils the fact that the foreign other is a construct which is devised by and thus confirms the national community receiving the translation. Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida, by contrast, whose ideas were anticipated by Friedrich Schlegel, believe that the aim of translation is to reveal the otherness of the translating self. Based on these theoretical premises, I examine the significance of otherness in the current practice of translation. This case study focuses on the multidimensional reduction of otherness, as it becomes apparent in the translation of contemporary German prose in Britain, in particular, and to some extent also in France in the two decades preceding and following German unification (1980-1999). In a general overview which compares the selection of texts chosen for translation, the strategies used for their publication as well as the reception of these texts in the press, I conclude that three factors are of particular importance for the rejection of and the ensuing delimitation from German otherness in British and French translations during this period: ideological, generic and linguistic otherness. These particular areas are then further explored in the detailed studies on Monika Maron, Edgar Hilsenrath and Anne Duden. My case study proves that the translators and/or publishers of these authors tend to reject or appropriate those elements of their texts which would highlight the otherness underlying the British and French selves.