Censoring Translation: Censorship, Theatre, and the Politics of Translation

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A play is written, faces censorship and is banned in its native country. There is strong international interest; the play is translated into English, it is adapted, and it is not performed. Censoring Translation questions the role of textual translation practices in shaping the circulation and reception of foreign censored theatre. It examines three forms of censorship in relation to translation: ideological censorship; gender censorship; and market censorship. This examination of censorship is informed by extensive archival evidence from the previously unseen archives of Vclav Havel's main theatre translator, Vera Blackwell, which includes drafts of playscripts, legal negotiations, reviews, interviews, notes and previously unseen correspondence over thirty years with Havel and central figures of the theatre world, such as Kenneth Tynan, Martin Esslin, and Tom Stoppard. Michelle Woods uses this previously unresearched archive to explore broader questions on censorship, asking why texts are translated at a given time, who translates them, how their identity may affect the translation, and how the constituents of success in a target culture may involve elements of censorship.

Reviews

"Censoring Translation, by Michelle Woods, offers an insightful, provocative, and often amusing investigation of the translation of Vaclav's Havel's plays into English. Woods's sophisticated treatment of the subject moves far beyond the question of overt repression, offering a more complex understanding of censorial power, one that recognizes the enormous influence of market forces, gender, and Cold War politicson both sides of the Iron Curtainin shaping the selection of texts for translation, the choice of a translator, and the overall translation approach taken. Woods reveals economic censorship to be often more severe and distorting than the traditional political variety and especially effective in framing and silencing the voices of "minor" nations and of female translators. This book will fundamentally change the way you think about censorship and translation." -- Brian James Baer, Professor of Russian and Translation Studies, Kent State University, Founding Editor of Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS).
"This fascinating book traces the complexities of translating and staging the work of one Czech playwright, the late, great Vaclav Havel for English and American audiences. Woods raises important questions about the politics of translation and exposes just how forms of censorship can operate in both totalitarian and commercially-driven environments." -- Susan Bassnett is Professor of Comparative Literature in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick, UK
"Censoring Translation is a testimony to the vigor of translation studies as the new interdiscipline that emerged in recent decades and has radically changed the ways in which we view translations and translators. As one of the promising scholars of her generation, Michelle Woods gives us a very readable, well-informed, insightful discussion on Vaclav Havel's work as a playwright and the politics involved in the dissemination of his work in the Anglo-American context, with particular emphasis on the fundamental role played by one of his main translators, Vera Blackwell." -- Rosemary Arrojo, Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Binghamton University, State University of New York, USA
"This book is an important contribution to research on socio-economic and political constraints on translation, in general, and a thought-provoking, well-informed study on theatre censorship, in particular. Through her incisive comparison of Vaclav Havel's confrontations with official censors in his native Czechoslavakia and the market pressures on English-language translators of his plays, Woods further nuances the critical vocabulary of translation censorship." -- Denise Merkle, Professeure titulaire, Universit de Moncton, Canada, and co-editor of The Power of the Pen. Translation and Censorship in Nineteenth-century Europe.

Author Bio

Michelle Woods is Assistant 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).