Shakespeare has a toothache

Presentation

In order to understand what the act of translating entails, we need to deconstruct the process in all its states, for it turns out to be essentially plural.
Where do we translate? The fields of publishing, criticism and academia vie for an authority that they deny to translators, who are urged to be modest and transparent.
Who translates when you translate? There are a surprisingly large number of players involved in translation, not only in the paratext, but also in the text itself. Obsolete conceptions of language and "Ainsi Nommée Littérature" impose choices that all too often lead to the annexation of the original.
What do we translate when we translate? It's time to free the translator from linguistic determinations to consider the object to be translated in all its states: text, book, commodity.

Once we've defined "translating" as a fundamentally literary operation, we need to define methodologies for carrying out a transfer of sociality in a single operation. Every trace, clue and value in the translated text must be matched by a trace, clue and value. Including what is revealed by the rhythms, materiality and history of the literatures thus named, all too often erased.

Interview

Author and writer

Marie Vrinat-Nikolov is professor of Bulgarian language and literature and head of the master's program in literary translation at Inalco. She is the author of numerous publications on the thought of translating and has translated novels, collections of short stories and poems, and plays by Bulgarian authors into French.

Patrick Maurus is professor emeritus of Korean at Inalco, translator and collection director at Actes Sud.

238 pages
16 x 24 cm
Publication: 24/05/2018
ISBN: 9782858312443