ON LITERARY TRANSLATION AND IDENTITY OF THE TRANSLATOR

It is widely believed that a literary translation is by definition a poor version of the original. On the other hand, the idea that equivalence is the decisive criterion when evaluating and judging literary translations is also very persistent. This article defends the thesis that equivalence is a fallacy and proposes another perspective. Translation is, actually, writing. Or to be more specific: translation is writing with two voices, the writer's voice and the translator's own voice. In fact, the translator belies the original, making literary translations the literary discourse par excellence: besides belying reality, just like every literary text does, a literary translation belies the original text.