Gli "autori" del testo tradotto: fra creazione, scrittura e lettura

The “authors” of the translated text. As a general rule, a foreign text being read within a target literary and cultural system is one of the most interesting and topical questions in the field of comparative literature. Reading a translated text allows us to better focus both on the foreign author’s image and on the text itself, overcoming the borders of the country of origin. Reading a translated text also implies opening the reflection further, to include extra-textual actors and circumstances, such as the translator’s role, the publisher’s interest, the critics’ involvement: the functioning dynamics of the target system. Besides, focusing on the target system also requires a closer analysis of the received object, the translated text. This is exactly where the other aspect of this reflection arises: the relation established between the two “authors”, the author of the original text and the author of the translated one, the translator. From this point of view, the translated text bears the signs of this double enunciation and takes shape as hybrid conversational practice, of which the paratext – whereas present – is an important expression, a theoretical space of the negotiation justifying the translational choices made to preserve the intention, the spirit of the original text. It is also worthwhile mentioning the role – likewise important – played in this dialogue by the editorial constrictions: readability, normativity, moral, censorship and market are criteria and factors that the editorial world imposes more and more on the choices the translator makes. It is a further, external element that enriches this dialogue, shifting it into a vaster “society-understanding” context.