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TRANSLATIONS 381 simple Marie Rousseau. lEn tout cas, moi j'ai fini d'jouer,' cfait-eUe, et elle enleve sa perruque rousse. 'Pour toi, c'est camme si l'monde existait pus, tu vis camme dans un reve, tu vis camme dans ·un monde de fantomes, tu penses atoutes sortes d'affaires, pis tu finis par les croire,' dit-elle a Antoine (p 47). Cet Antoine-Ia est Ie double, Ie jumeau d'Antonin , qui a une Gabriella pour lui tenir la main et Ie regarder lire ou ecrire par-dessus l'epaule. Monsieur Zero est un spectacle realiste (interrogatoire ), surrealiste (Madame fait reconduire Ie chef de police par son chat). Le Dr jacqueline Perron, psychiatre, a un faible pour Antonin et son reuvre, Monsieur Zero, miroir en trompe-I'cril, gu/eIle lit et vito Antonin tue Ie Dr Gauthier, viole Ie Dr Perron, entre Buxtehude et Bob Dylan, james joyce et I'empereur de toutes les Autriches. jack, Arnest et Emile, fideles compagnons gu'on a vus en ouvriers, ala taverne, dans les placards, en policiers, jouent ici Ie r61e de voyeurs deguises en entrepreneurs de pompes funebres. Antonin ne peut rien faire en paix, en secret, sauf, ala fin, l'amour avec Ie DrPerron-une fcis Antoine mort au moment precis ou il terminait son roman: 'Monsieur Zero est mort a vingt heures quarante ce soir .. .' Antoine et Antonin se contredisant. s'annulant l'un I'autre - 'Ce que je deteste en lui, c'est moi ...: dit Antonin - il reste Monsieur Zero, leur somme negative. Translations JOHN J. O'CONNOR Claims for the importance of literary translation in Canada have been strongly supported in recent years by the number of significant works translated into both English and French. Such is the case this year for all the translations examined in this review: Ellipse 20 and 21; the poetry of Paul-Marie Lapointe; Philip Stratford and Michael Thomas, eds, Voices from Quebec: An Anthology of Translations; Roland Giguere's Mirar and Letters to an Escapee; Andre Major's The Scarecrows of Saint-Emmanuel; Anne Hebert's Children of the Black Sabbath; Gabrielle Roy's Garde>! in the Wind; Albert Laberge's Bitter Bread; five plays by Michel Tremblay; David Fennario's Sans parachute; and Sheila Watson's Sous I'reil de Coyote. These texts seem to me not only the most important, but also the best, of the many literary translations published in Canada this year. In order to judge their merits, each has been juxtaposed with the original work. After a concurrent reading of each pair of texts it is possible to evaluate the translator's achievement and his faithfulness to the form and meaning of the original. No one genuinely interested in the bilateral translation of Canadian literature can wisely ignore the unique contributions made to this activ- 382 LETTERS IN CANADA 1977 ity by the journal Ellipse. The very name, identicalin French and English, signifies the happy co-existence of two equal centres within one harmonious structure. In the two issues published in 1977, Ellipse continues its singular dedication to the accurate and informative translation of Canadian poetry by many of the country's best translators. In Ellipse 20 Richard Giguere rightly argues that the journal still has a very important role to play, an opinion supported by Yves Merzisen in Ellipse 21: Dans un pays soi-disant bilingue, Ellipse est un instrument irrempla~able parce qu'i1 remplit une certaine mission, dans la penombre, peut-etre, mais une mission neanmoins vitale et combien difficile: montrer en filigrane que I'inspiration poetique - SOllS Ie couvert de deux langues et de deux cultures differentes - a neanmoins ses racines dans un pays commun. Like all the contributors to this issue, Merzisen defends the particular importance of translation as a profession in Canada, and the necessity of exercising care and conscientiousness in this work. This difficult but vital mission is carried out with respect to the poetry of jean-Aubert Loranger and W.W.E. Ross in Ellipse 20, where Loranger 's work is represented by nine poems and a prose excerpt, Ross's by twenty-two poems. The enti're issue presents sensitive, accurate translations of the...

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