Untranslatability

This volume explores the notion of untranslatability from a wide variety of interdisciplinary perspectives and its implications within the broader context of translation studies. The book goes beyond traditional comparisons of target texts and their sources to investigate the myriad ways in which untranslatability is conceptualized and applied.

Duncan Large is Professor of European Literature and Translation at the University of East Anglia, and Academic Director of the British Centre for Literary Translation. His philosophy translations are published by OUP and Continuum; he is also joint General Editor of The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Motoko Akashi completed her MA in Applied Translation Studies at the University of East Anglia in 2013 and is currently completing a PhD in Translation Studies there. Her research focuses on the phenomenon of celebrity translators, and asks how their existence problematises our understanding of translator visibility. Wanda Józwikowska completed her PhD in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia in 2016, with a dissertation on "Polish-Jewish Fiction Before the Second World War: A Testing Ground for Polysystem Theory." She is currently working for SDI Media, a Warsaw-based localising company. Emily Rose finished her PhD in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia in 2018. Her thesis explores the translation of trans identity from English, French and Spanish. Her work has been included in Queer in Translation (Routledge, 2017) and a special issue of Transgender Studies Quarterly (November 2016).

Introduction Duncan Large, Motoko Akashi, Wanda Józwikowska and Emily Rose Part I: Theory and Philosophy 1. Humboldt, Translation and the Dictionary of Untranslatables Barbara Cassin 2. Untranslatability, Entanglement and Understanding Theo Hermans 3. On the (Im)possibility of Untranslatability Kirsten Malmkjær 4. The Untranslatable in Philosophy Duncan Large 5. Against the "Un-" in Untranslatability: On the Obsession with Problems, Negativity and Uncertainty Klaus Mundt 6. The Affront of Untranslatability: Ten Scenarios David Gramling Part II: Poetry and Prose 7. Translation and Mysticism: Demanding the Impossible? Philip Wilson 8. Remembered Hills: Tonal Memory in English Translations of Chinese Regulated Verse Simon Everett 9. "An English that is Sometimes Strangely Interesting": Ciaran Carson Mining Linguistic Resources Using Translation Helen Gibson 10. Surmounting the "Insurmountable" Challenges of Translating a Transgender Memoir Emily Rose 11. Is 'Fajront' in Sarajevo the Same as 'Closing Time' Elsewhere? On the Translatability of the Yugoslav Age of Rock and Roll into English Andrea Stojilkov 12. Resistance to Translation as Cultural Untranslatability: Inter-War Polish-Jewish Fiction in English Wanda Józwikowska Envoi: Beyond Literature 13. Untranslatability in Practice: Challenges to Translation and Interpreting Joanna Drugan