When dealing with translation, some authors have expressed their preference to remain uninvolved in the translation of their work, even if they speak the language it is being translated into, and prefer not to be an ‘intrusive author’ (Stavans). Many multilingual authors struggle finding their own voice when self-translating and end up rewriting and changing the original. As stated by Ilan Stavans, “in self-translation, [...], there is an unavoidable temptation – indeed, a compulsion- to rewrite the original, to improve upon the source” (7). When writing, an author may not be aware of their intent when choosing words and often cannot control how these words are read or interpreted. The original may already be a form of translation in that the author is applying meaning to specific words, which also reflects the idea that the translators’ choices are subjective, time and culture bound. This makes the study of self-translation even more complex and interesting, because it becomes an intensified version of this notion. The goal of this panel is to explore the study of self-translation and the possibility that there is no such thing as an original but only a myriad of (self) translations. It will do so by presenting three different perspectives: a self-analysis of self-translation, an analysis of another author’s self-translation, and an analysis of self-translation as collaborative work rather than individual work. All of these different perspectives will lay the basis for an engaging conversation and contribute to the scholarship on the complexities of self-translation.

Alexander Dickow will begin by discussing his own creative output as a writer of poetry and fiction in French and English. In 2008, he published Caramboles, a collection of poems in French and English. The collection does not distinguish between “originals” and “translations”; different parts of the book present the French text first, others the English text first; indeed, some texts were written in English first, others in French. But in either direction, these poems are not translations in the traditional sense: many might be considered “adaptations”; some comment implicitly on the process of translation or on the interrelation between versions. Translation is an occasion to play with linguistic chassés-croisés (crisscrossings). The specular logic of the mirror image, the deceptive duplicate or the decoy is everywhere at work, such as in Caramboles’ central tale in verse, Prince/Dragon, a parodic fairy tale in which the titular characters are shown to be as reversible as the languages that tell their stories. Yet as in a funhouse, these “textual mirrors” may deform the objects they reflect.

Burcu Gursel will explore another aspect of self-translation by focusing on an author and his self-translated work while focusing on themes like transimperialism, colonialism, slavery, and the role of intellectuals, especially in the Ottoman Empire and Europe. One among many elite Ottoman writers whose mothers were former slaves from the Caucasus, Hamdullah Suphi (1885-1966) became a central and controversial figure of Turkish nationalism. Like his uncle Sami Paşazade Sezai, Hamdullah Suphi attempted to immortalize the mother in intimate biofiction. In his biographical poem, “My Mother’s Trouble” (1910) his mother recounts her abduction and entry into the rich household of Suphi Pasa. When she gets pregnant again two decades after her first-born, she remembers the mistreatment of her surviving children in the household and attempts abortion. The poem strikes a rare tone of autobiographic intimacy as she struggles with her ambivalence. Even more strikingly, the poet’s self-translation of the poem into French, “Le Chagrin de ma mère” modifies the most critical sections of the poem. Burcu Gursel’s study first discloses, then interpreters this riddle where the mother asserts a decisive agency against abortion in the French version, but in the “original,” published Turkish version, the poet confers a proprietary agency to the mother over her son’s body.

In closing, I will offer my own experience with a different side to self-translation that adds another layer of complexity by focusing on translation as collaborative work rather than individual work. More specifically, I will talk about a translation into English of Un perfetto idiota (2017) by Frank Iodice, which was commissioned to several translators whose work was supervised by bilingual and multilingual individuals, including the author himself. From a first draft obtained after one year of various collaborations, the author started a new translation work. While completing this task, a number of questions arose pointing to the possibility that there is no such thing as an original but only a myriad of (self) translations.

3 presentations, 18 minutes each, 15 minutes discussion