Kafka Translated: How Translators have Shaped our Reading of Kafka

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Kafka Translated is the first book to look at the issue of translation and Kafka's work. What effect do the translations have on how we read Kafka Are our interpretations of Kafka influenced by the translators' interpretations In what ways has Kafka been 'translated' into Anglo-American culture by popular culture and by academics Michelle Woods investigates issues central to the burgeoning field of translation studies: the notion of cultural untranslatability; the centrality of female translators in literary history; and the under-representation of the influence of the translator as interpreter of literary texts. She specifically focuses on the role of two of Kafka's first translators, Milena Jesensk and Willa Muir, as well as two contemporary translators, Mark Harman and Michael Hofmann, and how their work might allow us to reassess reading Kafka. From here Woods opens up the whole process of translation and re-examines accepted and prevailing interpretations of Kafka's work.

Reviews

Though Kafka's language takes center stage in this insightful, well-researched book, Woods (former director, Centre for Translation and Textual Studies, Dublin City Univ., Ireland) Also provides a sustained analysis of the process of literary translation, putting the practice of literary translation into the service of textual criticism and interpretation. She compares the cultural and historical backgrounds of two of kafkas first translators, Milena Jesenka and Willa Muir, and contemporary translators, Mark Harman and Michael Hofmann, Transforming the polemics of competing or differing translations-what she calls the 'gotcha game' of finding errors- into positive dialectical process that yields refreshing insights into aspects of Kafka's writing. Woods is less interested in interpretive transgressions and infidelities to the source of texts than she is in exploring how supposed "mistakes can shed light on textual intricacies and interpretive resistance that confound Kafka's readers. Woods complements her literary analysis with an exemplary foray into the cinematic adaptation of Kafka work by focusing on controversial appropriations by such luminaries as Orson Welles, Federico Fellini, and Steven Soderbergh, who like their literary co-conspirators have shaped the way one reads and visualizes Kafka. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, general readers.-- -- E. WIlliams, Universidad de las Americas, Puebla (Mexico * CHOICE *
The highlight of Woodss book is the section on recent Kafka translations, including an interview with Hofmann, where Woods outlines the challenges of translation in passionate and empathetic terms. * Times Literary Supplement (reviewed by Carolin Duttlinger) *
Thoroughly researched ... [T]he meat of the book - and what makes it stand out as an original and significant contribution to Kafka scholarship - lies in the opening chapter ... [which] really does show 'How Translators have Shaped our Reading of Kafka'. * Translation and Literature *
This is a smart, timely, well-informed book that addresses, with a delightful polemical edge, some long-unexamined aspects of translation. Michelle WoodsIrish and Czechconnects so-called 'mistakes' in the translation of Kafkas novels and stories to intentions arising from the cultural history of the translator, with a real gain of understanding. In accurate, original, spirited prose, on the strength of erudite and witty close readings of Kafkas works, Woods explores the relation of text, translation, and translator in captivating new ways. -- Stanley Corngold, Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature, Princeton University, USA, and highly acclaimed translator of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and Kafka's Selected Stories.
A highly complex and thoughtful story that covers both the issues of translating and domesticating Franz Kafka into Czech and English. Insightful in theoretical framing and rich in contextual background material, it offers an original and comprehensive interpretation of Kafka. Delving deep into Kafkas fiction, which is accessible to any reader, Michelle Woods unveils the stories behind the texts through a dialogical reading that unfolds like a perfect detective story. -- Petr A. Bilek, Professor of Modern Czech Literature, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic
This is a book on interpretation, reception, adaptation, understanding, and reading Kafka. It is also a book on multilingualism and gender in Kafka. All this makes it an excellent book on translation. In highly readable prose, Michelle Woods accompanies the reader in an original under the skin biographical narration of four important Kafka translators: their stories illustrate remarkably the complex mechanisms of translation: how life, experience, love, are so decisive in a translators work and choices. At the same time they show how material and cultural pressures condition translators in their work. This is a ground-breaking volume that demonstrates how our readingsand not only of Kafkaare results of a complex interrelation of rewritings, be they narrations, critique, film adaptations, or translations. -- Siri Nergaard, Professor of Translation Theory, University of Bologna, Italy, and Editor-in-Chief of Translation.
Kafka Translated, as an intelligent and sensible study of Kafkas work through the lens of some of its translations, elegantly dismounts some traditionally accepted views in contemporary Kafka criticism and in the field of translation studies. Showing the crucial role played by translations and translators in our (even not specialized) understanding of Kafkas texts, Michelle Woods close analysis of Kafka's writing highlights the aporetical questions translation poses as a cultural and historically determined hermeneutical practice. Woods book is now an indispensable reading both in the field of contemporary literary criticism and translation studies. -- Susana Kampff Lages, Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Brazilian translator of Kafkas Amerika/The man who disappeared
In her intriguing book, Kafka Translated, Michelle Woods explores issues of translation at many levels, highlighting that translators bring a particular cultural identity and set of experiences to the task, making translation choices for specific reasons. She combines a nuanced look at the work and lives of four key translators of Kafka with broader investigations in the chapters that follow: of Kafkas fictional interpreters and depictions of muddled communication; of the insights that emerge from filmic adaptations of Kafkas works; and of how Kafkas works were translated to a global readership as Kafka became the icon we know him to be today. Woods manages to work quite successfully at the juncture between the critical and the popular, creating a book that both Kafka scholars and translation studies scholars will find illuminating in many ways (and useful in the classroom) and that a more general readership will find appealing and accessible. -- Marjorie E. Rhine * Monatshefte *
Woods shows us how translation is not entirely invisible to the readers eye and why translation matters to those who do not otherwise have access to the original language. The metaphor of translation as communication also comes into light in Woods discussion of Kafkas zoopoetics. The constant portrayals of animals communicating with humans, in Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis), Ein Bericht fr eine Akademie (A Report to an Academy), (in Woods examples), or even in other parables like Schakale und Araber (Jackals and Arabs), force audience members to think about linguistic transference through the power of metaphor. By reading Kafkas zoopoetics alongside existing translation theory, Woods opens translation up to a larger problem of communication, rather than just transferring text from one language to another. -- Adam J. Toth, The Pennsylvania State University, USA * Comparative Literature Studies, Vol 15, No. 1, 2016 *

Author Bio

Michelle Woods is Associate Professor of English at The State University of New York, New Paltz, USA. Previously she was Director of the Centre for Translation and Textual Studies at Dublin City University, Republic of Ireland. She is the author of Translating Milan Kundera (2006) and Censoring Translation: Censorship, Theatre, and the Politics of Translation (2012).