Faire américain

Fabbricare testi e autori: tradurre

Lucia Quaquarelli, Adrien Frenay, Université Paris Nanterre

lucia.quaquarelli(at)parisnanterre.fr; af(at)parisnanterre.fr

Abstract: Through the study of French and European editorial strategies from the interwar period onwards, the article aims at showing a) that translation plays a paramount role in the European production of an American-style noir novel; b) that acknowledging this role entails to reassess some of the traditional categories used by traductology, such as those of author and authority, uniqueness of the work or original text.

We observe that the European editorial design of an American authenticity is not so much a matter of a referential adequacy to the American socio-cultural context or of respect for the original work as a search for a "translation effect" (pseudonymity, pseudo-visibility of the translator, pseudo-translation) which guarantees a "series effect". When this "translation effect" grounds the americanity of the series on a limited number of signs (pseudonyms, titles, covers) whose objects they designate (hypothetical authors, original works, places) remain unavailable and which finally function only within the architextural world of criminal fiction, translation becomes, more than the mere transition from one culture to another, an essential narrative element in the making of the noir novel in France and in Europe.