| dc.description.abstract | Translation can be regarded an intrinsically political act. Whether it is undertaken for reasons of activism, as a form of cultural diplomacy, from a love of literature, or as an instrument of colonisation, the asymmetric balance of power between dominant and dominated languages inevitably can move translated fiction beyond purely literary concerns. Taking the extra-literary motives behind translation as its point of departure, this PhD explores the ways in which Anglo-Russian politics and ensuing political bias influences the translation of contemporary Russian fiction into English. To discover these points of confluence, I compare the commission, translation, marketing, and reception of novels from two politically opposed groups of Russian writers: “liberals” Vladimir Sorokin, Ludmila Ulitskaya and Mikhail Shishkin, and “nationalists” Zakhar Prilepin, Mikhail Elizarov and Roman Senchin.
Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s research into the publishing industry in 1990s France, I site the field of contemporary Russian-English translated fiction within the global literary market. I apply an agent-based microhistorical methodology as advocated by Jeremy Munday in order to identify the macro-literary dynamics that govern this particular translation field. By creating translation histories around contemporary Russian novels that have been largely marketed via politicised paratexts in the UK and US, I ask why certain texts are translated rather than others, why some translations are more commercially successful, and to what extent political bias and economic constraints govern the translation process. My research is primarily informed by thirty-eight interviews with editors, literary agents, translators, and Russian authors. These reveal the under-researched gatekeeping processes both within Russia and the Anglophone literary market. Combined with close textual and paratextual analysis of translations from my six key authors, and an evaluation of their extra-literary activities, this study locates the points of confluence between the realms of Russian-English translated fiction and contemporary geopolitics. | en_GB |
