Bel Paese or Spaghetti noir? The image of Italy in contemporary Italian fiction translated into Danish

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Abstract

Translations participate in the construction of the images of foreign cultures, and texts that reinforce the national stereotypes are often those selected for translation. Are there recurrent features in Italian literary texts translated into Danish that reveal what is perceived as ‘typically’ Italian in the eyes of Danes? I will look at translations of contemporary Italian narrative, relying primarily on the website of the Danish public libraries, bibliotek.dk, that contains keyword categorizations and evaluations produced by the librarians in order to “mediate” between the foreign texts and the Danish readership. The paper will draw on the notions of image construction and national stereotypes (cf. Beller & Leerssen 2007) and of the metynomic nature of translation (cf. Tymoczko 1999).
Translated title of the contributionBel Paese eller Spaghetti noir?: Italiensbilledet i moderne italiensk fiktionslitteratur oversat til dansk
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationInterconnecting Translation Studies and Imagology
EditorsLuc van Doorslaer, Peter Flynn, Joep Leerssen
Number of pages17
VolumeTranslation Liberya 119
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company
Publication dateFeb 2016
Pages163-179
ISBN (Print)9789027258601
ISBN (Electronic)9789027267719
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2016

Keywords

  • Faculty of Humanities
  • Italian noir
  • Danish Public Libraries
  • Selection for Translation
  • Metonymics of Translation
  • National stereotypes
  • Contemporary Italian Narrative

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