Article published In: Translation and Interpreting Studies
Vol. 14:3 (2019) ► pp.351–371
From International Literature to world literature
English translators in 1930s Moscow
Published online: 13 November 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.18025.ost
https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.18025.ost
Abstract
This article conceptualizes translation within the theoretical framework of world literature and discusses the
role of translators in the multilingual leftist literary journal International Literature. It focuses on the
biographies and work of three translators into English: Leonard Mins, Niall Goold-Verschoyle and Anthony Wixley. Living in Moscow
in the mid-1930s, they contributed to the international circulation of authors that later became part of the canon of world
literature: Georg Lukács, Bertolt Brecht, and Isaac Babel. Exploring these translations within the historical context of Soviet
cosmopolitanism, this article aims to uncover the mechanism by which Moscow in this period became a temporary sub-center of world
literature.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Behind translators’ invisibility: The English translators of International Literature
- Leonard Mins, translator of Georg Lukács
- Niall Goold-Verschoyle, translator of Bertolt Brecht
- Translator’s invisibility and the case of Anthony Wixley, or Isaac Babel and International Literature
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
References
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