FROM THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF (AUTHORIAL) TRANSLATION

The author of the study, which is a part of the forthcoming monograph Literary Production and Language, reflects on authorial translation on the background of the reception of bi- and multilingual literary production. On the example of Kundera's essayistic production in French and Czech she demonstrates how difficult it is to ascertain the status of the text, i.e. whether it is an original or a translation. This issue is the determining factor in translating this kind of texts into a third language. It is fundamental to detect the nature and the mode of literary production in the author's bi- and multilingual situation, which is characterized by a fabric of various texts and modes of translation (pre-text, work, text, intertext, metatext, translation, authorial translation, second-hand translation, indirect translation), as well as the relation of the author to the text which is designated as an authorial translation, i.e. to ascertain whether it should be considered an original or not. This also bears on the instruction for translation into a third language. The author of the study concludes that the theoretical reflection does not bring a clear answer, and neither do so the authors who ontologically delineate themselves, define themselves in relation to the language and space, despite the openness and unlimitedness of this space, which de facto does not require this limitation. From the theoretical reflection and from the viewpoint of the text follows a notion of textual chain whose every unit carries within itself the potency of the original as well as of the translation, regardless of these chains' formation as a network (in the sense of Genette's plural immanence) or as a horizontal progression (also, for example, in the optic of Genette's palimpsests and transtextual relations). The situation changes from the viewpoint of the author of the literary text. Ignoring the author's attitude and the status which he awarded to the original and to the (authorial) translation (which is not always the case in practice) impends that the notions of authorship and textual identity will oscillate.