Publications
Publication details [#16636]
Milton, John and Paul Fadio Bandia, eds. 2009. Agents of translation (Benjamins Translation Library 81). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. vi+337 pp.
Publication type
Edited volume
Publication language
English
Keywords
Main ISBN
9789027216908
Edition info
ISBN e-book: 978 90 272 9107 3
Abstract
Agents of Translation contains thirteen case studies by internationally recognized scholars in which translation has been used as a way of influencing the target culture and furthering literary, political and personal interests. The articles describe Francisco Miranda, the 'precursor' of Venezuelan independence, who promoted translations of works on the French Revolution and American independence; 19th century Brazilian translations of articles taken from the Revue Britannique about England; Ahmed Midhat, a late 19th century Turkish journalist who widely translated from Western languages; Henry Vizetelly , who (unsuccessfully) attempted to introduce the works of Zola to a wider public in Victorian Britain; and Henry Bohn, who, also in Victorian Britain, (successfully) published a series of works from the classics, many of which were expurgated; Yukichi Fukuzawa, whose adaptation of a North American geography textbook in the Meiji period promoted the concept of the superiority of the Japanese over their Asian neighbours; Samuli Suomalainen and Juhani Konkka, whose translations helped establish Finnish as a literary language; Hasan Alî Yücel, the Turkish Minister of Education, who set up the Turkish Translation Bureau in 1939; the Senegalese intellectual, Cheikh Anta Diop, whose work showed that the Ancient Egyptians had African rather than Indo-European roots; the Centro Cultural de Évora theatre group, which introduced Brecht and other contemporary drama into Portugal after the 1974 Carnation Revolution; 20th century Argentine translators of poetry; Haroldo and Augusto de Campos, who have brought translation to the forefront of literary activity in Brazil; and, finally, translators of Bosnian poetry, many of whom work in exile.
Source : Publisher information
Articles in this volume
Ramicelli, Maria Eulália. Translating cultural paradigms: the role of the Revue Britannique for the first Brazilian fiction writers. 43–61
Uchiyama, Akiko. Translation as representation: Fukuzawa Yukichi's representation of the "Others. 63–83
Merkle, Denise. Vizetelly & Company as (ex)change agent: towards the modernization of the British publishing industry. 85–105
Demircioglu, Cemal. Translating Europe: the case of Ahmed Midhat as an Ottoman agent of translation. 131–159
Paloposki, Outi. Limits of freedom: agency, choice and constraints in the work of the translator. 189–208
Bradford, Lisa Rose. The agency of the poets and the impact of their translations: Sur, Poesía Buenos Aires, and Diario de Poesía as aesthetic arenas for twentieth-century Argentine letters. 229–256
Reviewed by
Poupaud, Sandra. 2012. Review of Agents of translation. In Brems, Elke, Reine Meylaerts and Luc van Doorslaer, eds. The known unknowns of Translation Studies. Special issue of Target 24 (1): 143–148.