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Reading has long been a subject of fascination for me: what exactly do we mean by it? What do we mean by ‘close’ reading? And is translation anything other than a reading for a particular audience, or audiences, of readers? Translating five of Colette’s works over the last couple of years (for Penguin Classics) has further fed my interest. The lively – often extravagant – debates about AI and machine translation have rumbled in the background.
Colette was writing for a heterogeneous audience (unlike many of her contemporaries) not least because of commercial/financial pressures. There are complexities in her writing that the translator has to understand. And choices have to be made. Colette’s syntax can have political corollaries. And philosophical significance can be abstracted from her poetics.
I’d like to think aloud about the ways in which translating Colette has enriched – and sometimes confused – my ideas about translation. And to explain my title with examples from Colette’s works.
Belinda Jack is a writer, translator, and academic. She is currently a Professor at Christ Church College, University of Oxford, and was a Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College from 2013 to 2017. She is the author of six books, including The Woman Reader, George Sand: A Woman’s Life Writ Large, and an Oxford University Press VSI, Reading.
