Alexandra Hillinger

Translators’ prefaces in translations of Les Anciens Canadiens: Transforming the message

In 1863, Philippe Aubert de Gaspé published Les Anciens Canadiens, the first commercial success of the territory today designated as Quebec. This novel was subsequently translated into English three times. The retranslations were accompanied by translators’ prefaces. In his 1890 preface, Charles G.D. Roberts praises the novel and highlights its relevance for English Canadians seeking to better understand their French compatriots. Roberts makes no mention of the first translation. Jane Brierley later took the initiative to retranslate the work in 1996. In her preface, she provides a textual analysis that focuses on the weaknesses of the two previous translations. Having translated two other works by Aubert de Gaspé, she claims to have found a suitable English voice for the author. Our presentation will shed light on the key ideas in the two prefaces. While Roberts seems to emphasize the novel’s historical and cultural importance, Brierley justifies the necessity of a retranslation. We will discuss external factors that contributed to their different approaches.

Alexandra Hillinger is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of French Studies (Individualized Program) at Concordia University. Her SSHRC-funded research explores the relation between “self” and “other” in anglophone Canada’s reception of the translations of the first French-Canadian novels published in the nineteenth century. She is on the Executive Committee of the Concordia University Graduate Students Association in Translation and the Organizing Committee of the Voyages in Translation Studies annual student conference. She is also part of the editorial team of the journal TTR (Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction : Études sur le texte et ses transformations).