Translation and translators in the eyes of literary reviewers: A content analysis of book reviews of literary works translated into English

Abstract

Book reviewers play a gatekeeping role in a given literary community, and their reviews provide insights into their attitudes and reactions towards literary works. This study aims to explore to what extent literary translation and translators are visible in book reviews of literary works translated into English and in what aspects book reviewers comment on the translation of literary works. 84 reviews were analysed against a construct for evaluating reviews of translated literary works. The results indicate that, compared with previous findings, the role of literary translation and translators is increasingly visible. The results also suggest that, different from previous studies, the proportion of comments with substantiations is increasing and reviewers begin to focus more on the translation process than on the translation product. Such a change signals a shift in the expectations of the gatekeepers of the anglophone literary community about the reception of foreign literary works from a product-oriented criterion emphasising readability to a more comprehensive and dynamic model. This shift unmasks the role of literary translation and translators in the international circulation of literary works and may reduce the severity of the anglophone cultural hegemony resulting from the prior preference for fluent domestication of foreign works.