Handmaidens to Translators versus Feminist Solidarity – Opposing Politics of Translation in the Galician Literary System

Authors

  • Maria Reimondez Independent Researcher

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21992/T9V04J

Keywords:

Translation, Feminism, Postcolonialism, Galician

Abstract

Lori Chamberlain’s eye-opening article “Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation”, originally published in 1988, first described translators in general as “handmaidens to authors”. This fruitful analysis helped open up interesting avenues for feminist translation. On the one hand, it highlighted the need for a reformulation of the actual theoretical concepts underlying traditional translation theory; while on the other, it opened up questions regarding the status of women translators in practice. However, further studies have questioned this idea of the translator as female and inferior. For example, postcolonial approaches have shown that Western translators have usually exercised their power to interpret the Other in ways that were complicit with colonial endeavours. It is in this framework that this article explores the power implications of translation for the Galician literary system. The Galician literary system may be interesting as it can be seen as a non-hegemonic system (inside Europe) or a hegemonic one (outside Europe). The analysis of two translations, that of Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea by Manuel Forcadela, and that of Sandra Cisneros’ Loose Woman by Marilar Aleixandre shall explore two opposing trends. The first one is a trend in which the discourse of the non-hegemonic position of Galician actually allows for patriarchal and colonial interventions in translation, while the other one takes feminist solidarity as a base for a relationship with the female postcolonial Other.

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Author Biography

Maria Reimondez, Independent Researcher

María Reimóndez is a Galician professional interpreter and translator, scholar, author and gender and development expert. She is currently writing her PhD dissertation on issues related to ideology in translation and interpreting from the critical point of view of feminism and postcolonial studies, and has published extensively on such topics. She has investigated the links between language hegemony and translation and also the position of feminist translators in the Galician literary system. Some of her scholarly works have been published in Interventions and in volumes such as Violencias (In)visibles, coordinated by Belén Martín Lucas. She is also the founder of the Galician Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (AGPTI) and has translated, amongst other works, Little Theatres (Teatriños ou aturuxos calados, 2007) by Erín Moure, Kvetch (staged by Teatro do Morcego in 2009) by Steven Berkoff or The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave (Mary Prince: Unha escrava das Indias Occidentais), Plácido Castro translation award in 2009. She has co-authored the volume Feminismos (Xerais 2013) with Olga Castro, a global overview of feminist theories in the world.

Published

2015-06-15

Issue

Section

TRANSLATION STUDIES