Katrien Lievois

The pseudo-translation translated. The Dutch and German translations of Andreï Makine’s La fille d'un héros de l'Union soviétique.

Pseudo-translations raise questions that challenge our very conceptions of literature and translation. Paradoxically, it is precisely the fact that pseudo-translations are not real translations, but must reproduce all of their characteristics, that has attracted the interest of translation scholars. Notably, however, the translation of pseudo-translations has received much less attention in Translation Studies. In my view, not only the pseudo-translations themselves but also, and even more so, their translations can tell us much about the perception of translation in a particular period and context. After presenting Andreï Makine’s first pseudo-translation La fille d'un héros de l'Union soviétique (1990), I will undertake a more detailed analysis of the peritextual traces of pseudo-translation in the Dutch (1997) and German (2002) translations of the novel in question.

Keywords: pseudo-translation, Makine, peritext

Biography

Katrien Lievois is a Lecturer in the Department of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. She holds a PhD in Romance Languages and Literature from Ghent University, where she also obtained an MA in Romance Philology. She is currently Director of the “Literature and/in Translation” section of the TricS (Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies) research group and Managing Editor of Linguistica Antverpiensia NS – Themes in Translation Studies. Her research focuses on the post-colonial text, irony and satire in French and francophone literature, and pseudo-translation.