Literary Translations at War: Mapping World War 2 in Europe (1939-45)

Introduction

While the history of translation is a field in Humanities that has known a significant increase recently worldwide, a European history of literary translation during the war has yet to be written. Due to the importance of power relations, ideology, censorship, and propaganda, the practice of literary translation and European translators in wartime is a particularly interesting configuration, but it remained relatively unexplored so far on a truly European level. Few comprehensive researches have been carried out on literary translation in Europe during this constrained historical context, unlike on translation practices during peacetime.

Research Questions

What was translated (how and by whom) whilst wars were destroying bonds between people and states? What meaning does one then invest translation with?

Focus of the Project

Focusing on World War II, a very significant period of 20th century European history, the TranslAtWar (Literary Translations at War) research project aims at investigating how literary translation then contributed to the understanding of History in the making, and, reciprocally, how History contributed to the analysis of multiple forms of literary translation.

Objectives

The project seeks to:

1. Question the circulation of ideas and culture through translation.
2. Take a close interest in the role of the agents of these circulations, both male and female translators, during wartime.
3. Examine the impact that the practice of translation in such exceptional historical circumstances had on the intellectual and cultural development of several countries.
4. Analyze what it is likely to have contributed given their position (central or peripheral) in the world of European literature.

Methodology

Under my supervision and taking advantage of long-standing international partnerships and expertise, this innovative project aims at writing a new page of European history and, eventually, promoting the emergence of a new disciplinary field at the crossroads of translation studies and war studies.