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TRANSLATIONS 115 Runnells, Rory, ed. A Map of the Senses: Twenty Years of Manitoba Plays. Scirocco. 520. $24.95 Sears, Djanet. Testifyin=: Contemporary African Canadian Drama, Vol. 1. Playwrights Canada. 656. $49.95 Sherman, Jason. It=s All True. Playwrights Canada. 136. $14.95 B Patience. Playwrights Canada. 128. $14.95 Taylor, Drew Hayden. alterNatives. Talon. 144. $16.95 B >The Boy in the Treehouse= and >Girl Who Loved Her Horses.= Talon. 160. $16.95 Thom, Molly. The Bush Ladies: In Their Own Words. Scirocco. 72. $12.95 Thompson, Judith. Perfect Pie. Playwrights Canada. 104. $13.95 Vaughan, R.M. Camera, Woman. Coach House. 72. $17.95 Walker, George. Heaven. Talon. 128. $16.95 Walmsley, Tom. Blood. Scirocco. 72. $12.95 Wex, Michael. I Just Wanna Jewify: The Yiddish Revenge on Wagner. Canadian Theatre Review 103 (Summer 2000), 50B9 Widdicombe, David. >The River Lady= and Other Plays. Icarus. 136. $16.95 Wilson, Jonathon. Kilt. Playwrights Canada. 104. $13.95 Translations JANE KOUSTAS A recent issue of the translation journal Meta (45:1, April 2000) commemorates the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Literary Translators= Association of Canada (Association des traducteurs et traductrices littéraires du Canada). The establishment of this organization in 1975 signalled that literary translation, an important activity in Canada since the early days of the nation, had achieved professional status. The progress made in the field since the era when, for example, Gabrielle Roy was given the GovernorGeneral =s Award in 1947 for >her= The Tin Flute, a translation by Hannah Josephson, can be attributed largely to associations like these and their members. Grants, prizes (including the LTAC=s own John Glassco award), the inclusion of the translator=s name on book covers, and research in the field, such as the special issue of Meta, the ongoing work of Ellipse and Translit, and the ground-breaking scholarship featured in TTR , have brought literary translation to the forefront of all serious discussion of letters in Canada. It is worth noting that the Blue Metropolis Festival held in Montreal, 11B16 April 2001, featured sessions on translation. In this issue of Meta, contributors such as Patricia Claxton discuss the Association. Other articles discuss the rich history of literary translation such as Judith Woodsworth=s study of the little-known Watson Kirkconnell, ongoing work such as Nicole Côté=s look at her own translations of Jane Urquhart or Betty Bednarski=s consideration of Jacques Ferron, translation problems such as 116 LETTERS IN CANADA 2000 Agnes Whitfield=s study of the importance of syntax, and the need to achieve greater recognition for translators, as Robert Paquin and Beatriz Zeller illustrate. In her insightful contribution to this issue, entitled >Entre la transparence et l=opacité: traduire l=altérité québécoise,= Patricia Godbout cites a 1968 paper by Philip Stratford : La traduction est un pont entre les gens, et au Canada nous avons grandement besoin de plus de ponts et de ponts plus solides de ce genre [Y]. Nos hommes politiques, économistes, historiens, commissaires des enquêtes royales sont traduits. Mais, à long terme, quand il s=agit de connaître un autre peuple, de savoir ce qu=il pense, sent, imagine, pour connaître ses réactions et ses souvenirs, il est beaucoup plus important de traduire nos poètes, dramaturges, romanciers, essayistes et journalistes. The celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Literary Translators= Association of Canada suggests that the challenge launched by Stratford has indeed been met: the literary translations produced by the contributors to this issue of Meta alone number no less than sixty to and from several languages. Furthermore, as the present article suggests, Stratford=s goal has perhaps even been surpassed. As Sherry Simon notes in her contribution, >The Paris Arcades, the Ponte Vecchio,= in addition to having built bridges that connect communities, Canadian writers and translators have created intermediate, dynamic spaces like the arcades evoked by Walter Benjamin or Italy=s >inhabited= bridges where shopkeepers, residents, and passers-by mingle and indeed live. Unlike bridges that merely connect and hence delineate two separate communities, these open, vibrant structures >bring duration to the experience of passage.= (The title of Simon=s article refers to Gail Scott...

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