Valeria Sperti

Fictional translators in the novels of Nancy Huston

Between the publication of Cantique des plaines in 1993 and Danse noire in 2013, Nancy Huston developed an important critical reflection on bilingualism and divided identity, while the issue of self-translation remained secondary. My presentation analyzes the evolution of the notion of linguistic division in Huston’s novels and demonstrates how themes of translation and self-translation become increasingly important. The audible friction between languages plays an essential role in maintaining the reader’s interest, and instances of cultural interference abound, leaving traces that reveal an interesting linguistic and semantic dissonance. In her most recent novels – particularly Infrarouge and Danse noire – Huston makes interlinguistic translation and its commingling with intersemiotic translation the two integral elements of her transfiction to the point that translation begins to approximate an autobiographeme.

Keywords: Nancy Huston, interlinguistic translation, intersemiotic translation

Biography

Valeria Sperti is an Associate Professor of French and Francophone Literature in the Department of Humanities at the University of Basilicata, in Italy. She holds a Post-Doctoral Degree in French and Francophone Language and Literature from the The University of Naples Federico II, a PhD in Francophone Literature from the University of Bologna, as well as an MA in Modern Languages and Literature from the Université de Provence, in France and an MA in Foreign Languages and Literatures from the University of Venice. Her research interests include twentieth- and twenty-first-century French literature and literary theory and francophone literature and culture.