Lyudmila Razumova | King's College London (original) (raw)

Papers by Lyudmila Razumova

Vladimir Nabokov et la traduction, 2021

Les études du travail de collaboration de Nabokov avec ses traducteurs ainsi que ses nombreuses i... more Les études du travail de collaboration de Nabokov avec ses traducteurs ainsi que ses nombreuses interventions éclairent probablement davantage son style que ses écrits théoriques sur la traduction. Même si Vladimir et Véra Nabokov tenaient à corriger la traduction des œuvres de l’auteur en français et dans toutes les langues qu’ils maîtrisaient, Nabokov, un auteur interdit en URSS, était incapable de contrôler la traduction de ses romans de l’anglais vers le russe. Cet article s’interroge sur le statut des traductions russes de Nabokov et examine les perspectives théoriques principales concernant le choix du style : faut-il se servir du style et du vocabulaire de Nabokov russe ou faut-il traduire Nabokov en tant qu’écrivain américain ? L’article se concentre ensuite sur la comparaison de deux traductions de Pale Fire: celle de Véra Nabokov (Бледный огонь, 1983) et celle de Serguei Ilyin et Aleksandra Glebovskaya (Бледное пламя, 1997). En examinant les choix des traducteurs en ce qui concerne quelques traits stylistiques et langagiers, nous cherchons à comprendre pourquoi les traductions d’Ilyin sont perçues comme les plus nabokoviennes par la majorité du public russe. Afin de comprendre ce phénomène, nous proposons d’inscrire les traductions russes de Nabokov dans l’histoire de la traduction littéraire en Russie avant et après la perestroïka.
Malgré l’aversion proclamée de Nabokov pour les interprétations qui portent sur le contexte historique, nous avançons que dans ce cas le contexte des traductions ainsi que le parcours personnel des traducteurs jouent un rôle essentiel.

Autotraduction aux frontières de la langue et de la culture, 2013

The paper dwells on the polyvalence of self-translation in the work of translingual authors (rang... more The paper dwells on the polyvalence of self-translation in the work of translingual authors (ranging from a rhetorical device mimicking multilingual conversations or imaginary languages to ways of circumventing censorship or editorial pressures) and draws most of the examples from works of Nabokov, Beckett, and Nancy Huston. Since their creations take shape not only in the space between two languages (langue, in Saussure’s terms), but in intertextual and intratextual crevices, between multiple langages and genres even within one language, I designate a consistent practice of writing in two or more languages and self-translating as translingual writing and examine self-translation as one of its modes.

Brian Fitch and Michael Oustinoff's major studies of bilingual writing and self- translation rightly stress the difficulty of finding an appropriate, all-encompassing theoretical model for the enterprise of self-translation. Since each translation is driven by different needs and impulses, I find it more productive to study the role of self-translation within the ensemble of the authors' work, to historicize and to contextualize each instance of self-translation and to examine the changing functions and audiences of self-translated texts. Whenever possible, I compare and contrast the authors’ views on translation of other writers with their self-translating strategies.

The article discusses the most recent books on multilingualism and transculturalism. It focuses o... more The article discusses the most recent books on multilingualism and transculturalism. It focuses on two edited volumes: Languages of Exile: Migration and Multilingualism in Twentieth-Century Literature, edited by Englund and Olsson (2013) and Transcultural Identities in Contemporary Literature, edited by Gilsenan Nordin, Hansen, and Zamorano Llena (2013).

Books by Lyudmila Razumova

(M)other Tongues: Literary Reflections on a Difficult Distinction.Ed. by Juliane Prade, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013

Thesis Chapters by Lyudmila Razumova

This dissertation addresses the phenomenon of literary bilingualism in the late 20th – early 21st... more This dissertation addresses the phenomenon of literary bilingualism in the late 20th – early 21st centuries. It investigates why and to what effect language is appropriated by individual authors in different historical situations, and how a body of work produced by the same author in two languages articulates the relationship between the nation and the world. I posit that sustained practice of bilingual writing charts a special space on the maps of national and world literature and presents an important dimension of emergent cosmopolitanism. Existing literary and social practices inform and develop the notion theoretically and practically and illuminate new dimensions of cosmopolitanism as a constant and deep engagement with the other. I argue that the unease with the status of bilingual writing derives largely from the Romantic model of mapping language to a nation.
I treat cosmopolitanism as a deliberately chosen state and a laborious search for a new sense of home and identity in the multiplicity of texts. My study focuses on narrative, thematic and linguistic strategies that the writers of my investigation employ to create a new linguistic persona in a world that is rethinking the very notion of linguistic and national identity. Instead of suggesting another framework for theorizing cosmopolitanism, I demonstrate how these strategies employed by bilingual writers can precede shifts in the individual and public imagination. To begin, I construct a framework for theorizing literary bilingualism by borrowing selected categories from the methodology of linguistic personality in cognitive linguistics and modify them for bilingual writers. Then, I closely read the authors’ selected texts in both languages and examine the changing idea of exile and belonging for the three writers. Chapters two and three dwell on the formal writing and reading strategies that the authors devise in order to correlate several realities, to disrupt narrative stability, and to underscore the simultaneous presence of multiple discourses and languages that never dissolve into pathology. Finally, I review problematics of self-translation and discuss how the authors’ interlingual practices illuminate its major theoretical issues.

Book Reviews by Lyudmila Razumova

The South Carolina Review, 2011

Review of Dmitry Zlotsky's Monster: Oil on Canvas