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Ethics and Aesthetics of Translation

Exploring the Works of Atxaga, Kundera and Semprún

Ethics and Aesthetics of Translation engages with translation, in both theory and practice, as part of an interrogation of ethical as well as political thought in the work of three bilingual European authors: Bernardo Atxaga, Milan Kundera, and Jorge Semprún. In approaching the work of these authors, the book draws upon the approaches to translation offered by Benjamin, Derrida, Ricoeur, and Deleuze to highlight a broad set of ethical questions, focused upon the limitations of the monolingual and the democratic possibilities of linguistic plurality; upon our innate desire to translate difference into similarity; and upon the ways in which translation responds to the challenges of individual and collective remembrance. Each chapter explores these interlingual but also intercultural, interrelational, and interdisciplinary issues, mapping a journey of translation that begins in the impact of translation upon the work of each author, continues into moments of linguistic translation, untranslatability and mistranslation within their texts and ultimately becomes an exploration of social, political and affective untranslatability. In these journeys, the creative and critical potential of translation emerges as a potent, often violent, but always illuminating, vision of the possibilities of differentiation and connection, generation and memory, in temporal, linguistic, cultural and political terms.
 

288 pages | 6.14 x 9.21 | © 2018

Free digital open access editions are available to download from UCL Press.

Philosophy: General Philosophy


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Table of Contents

"Introduction

Translation: perspectives on language and on life
1. Bernardo Atxaga’s Obabakoak: towards a minor literature
of translation
2. Milan Kundera’s Le Livre du rire et de l’oubli:
a hospitable translation
3. Jorge Semprún’s Quel beau dimanche!:
a ‘relevante’ translation
Epilogue
On violence and vision: translation and Europe "

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