Véronique Béghain

Jack London’s Transfictions

Between 1918 and 1942, Louis Postif, sometimes collaborating with Paul Gruyer (who died in 1930), translated and published a large selection of Jack London’s works in French. While Postif can be credited with introducing the French public to London’s work, one is tempted to describe some of his translations (or co-translations) as “transfictions,” London’s writing being transformed to the point that, at times, it can be read as a form of fictional translation or translational fiction. This presentation will examine Postif’s translation strategies and choices by resituating them in their epoch, in their context of reception and in the literary histories of the two countries, while, at the same time, exploring the tension between fact and fiction in the construction of the “good translator” figure around Postif’s name, a construction that would have a lasting influence on his successors.

Keywords: Jack London, translation-introduction, retranslation, modernism, avant-garde

Biography

Véronique Béghain is a Professor of Literature and Translation in the Department of Anglophone Studies at the Université Bordeaux Montaigne and, since 2010, Director of the Professional Master 2 Program in Literary Translation, where she is in charge of the English section. She holds an HDR (habilitation in research supervision) from the Université Bordeaux Montaigne, a PhD in Anglo-American Studies from the Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, a DESS in Literary Translation from the Université Paris 7, and a DEA in American Literature from the same university. She has translated works by Charlotte Brontë and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among others, and her most recent work “Traduction et livrets d’opéra : collaboration au carré ou double sujétion” is forthcoming.