Shifting the Ground of Canadian Literary Studies

Archivable Concepts: Talonbooks and Literary Translation

173 Archivable Concepts: Talonbooks and Literary Translation Kathy Mezei In an enigmatic sense, which will clarify itself perhaps … the question of the archive is not, I repeat, a question of the past. It is not the question of a concept dealing with the past that might already be at our disposal or not at our disposal, an archivable concept of the archive. It is a question of the future, the question of the future itself, the question of a response, of a promise and of a responsibility for tomorrow.The archive: if we want to know what that will have meant, we will only know in times to come. Perhaps. (Derrida, Archive Fever 36) As the process through which ideas and styles are incorporated into the fabric of Canadian society and culture,translation plays a crucial but generally unacknowledged role. Often perceived as subservient or invisible (translators’ names are frequently omitted from the covers and even title pages of books), translation is, on the contrary, a highly creative, influential , and serious art form.Translation has influenced canon formation and the revisiting of concepts of originality and rewriting in Canadian literary practices and institutions. For example, a controversy erupted over the appropriateness of Nancy Huston’s 1993 Governor General’s Literary Award in French language fiction for Cantiques des plaines,which she had self-translated from the English original, Plainsong. Huston has in fact self-translated several of her novels from French into English and vice versa. In this case, Quebec writers and intellectuals questioned whether a translated novel could be deemed an original work of fiction and argued that novels under consideration should be written in the language of the award. 174 Mezei The study and practice of translation have also drawn attention to minority/dominant culture dynamics, gender marking and bias, and cultural policies and cultural transfer.1 Its mandate and impact go far beyond that usually assigned to it by official bilingualism and the subsequent traffic between French and English,institutionalized by the federal government in agencies such as the federal Translation Bureau, French immersion programs and schools, bilingual signage, and the translation grants section of the Canada Council.Since Canadian life involves interactions among a vast number of immigrant and First Nations languages, many of the books, performances, and films that make up Canadian culture are produced through or inflected by a transaction with another language , culture, or medium.These interactions include both conventional translation and the broader category of “cultural translation” through which languages and cultures are written into Canadian literary works. For a fuller picture of the making of modern Canadian culture and “the question of the future itself,” it is therefore vital to record the variety as well as the vitality of these interactions, to analyze the wide range of cultural artifacts that are the product of translation,to explore the ways in which translations involve strategies of appropriation or distancing, and, finally,to develop and interpret an archive of Canadian translation activities .2 These must be undertaken not only, as Derrida notes throughout Archive Fever, A Freudian Impression, as a record of our cultural memory and impressions but also as a promise and a responsibility for tomorrow.3 Experiments and bold initiatives in producing and theorizing Canadian feminist literary translation, postcolonial and minority literatures , and the politics of translation have drawn much international attention to Canadian literary translation practice and have influenced the direction of transnational translation studies. For example, in Contemporary Translation Theories, Edwin Gentzler acknowledges the contribution of Canadian translators to translation theory:“the complicated question of Canadian identity—problems of colonialism, bilingualism , nationalism, cultural heritage, weak literary system, and gender issues are involved—seems to provide a useful platform from which to begin raising questions about current translation theory” (184). In her critical introduction to Comparative Literature, Susan Bassnett referred to a Canadian school that conceptualizes translation as political activity . Comparing Brazilian and Canadian translation theorists, Bassnett observed that both groups are “concerned to find a translation practice Archivable Concepts 175 and terminology that will convey the rupture with the dominance of the European heritage even as it is transmitted” (157). Both the Encyclopedia of Literary Translation into English (2000) and the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (2008) feature substantial articles on translation in Canada. In IntroducingTranslation Studies:Theories and Applications (2000), Jeremy Munday’s section on “Translation and Gender” acknowledges the vitality of feminist translation and focuses...