WOMAn And TRAnSLATIOn: GeOGRAPHIeS, VOIceS, IdenTITIeS

“Gender and Translation in Catalan. Archaeological Groundwork for Assessing the State of Affairs” In the last twenty-five years the interest in translation studies and its relation to gender has given raise to abundant and diverse research. This article seeks to offer a panoramic vision of the intersection between gender and translation in the Catalan language context, a point of departure for future research. On the one hand, we bring the principal works, panoramic and specific, which are based on the recuperation of Catalan translation of women and their works. On the other, we review the theories which have brought about the intersection between gender and translation in Catalan. 1. Aquest article s’emmarca dins del grup d’investigació consolidat “Estudis de gènere: traducció, literatura, historia i comunicació” de la Universitat de Vic (AGAUR, SGR-833) i del Projecte d’Investigació I+D “Traductoras y traducciones en la Cataluña contemporánea (1939-2000)” (Ref.: FFI2010-19851-C02-02). Paraules clau: Història de la traducció. Traducció en català. Estudis de gènere. Gènere i traducció. Gènere i traducció en català.


Gender, sex and translation: preface
Much has been written about gender, sex and translation; and much more will be written.In particular, much has been written in the last few decades about women and translation.Since the appearance of two fundamental texts -Gender in Translation: Cultural Identity and the Politics of Transmission (1996), by Sherry Simon; and Translation and Gender: Translating in the 'Era of Feminism ' (1997), by Luise von Flotow-up until nowadays, a long list of publications, which explore increasingly more aspects, has followed.Nevertheless, we realize that, when in the early 21 st century we aim to reflect upon the intersection between woman and translation, we find ourselves immersed in an ambiguous territory that is difficult to define, that is suggestive yet full of possibilities and dangers too.Both translation and gender studies have proved to be courageous and daring disciplines, which have not hesitated to project themselves onto other epistemological horizons.Neither of them has remained inwards looking; instead, they have searched hard for new horizons and affinities.Deconstruction, post-colonialism, cultural studies and feminism, amongst others, are apt testimonies.
One of the most unique features of university studies in recent decades is the constant presence of women, both as the subject and object of research activity.This presence -sometimes as a source of progress and study, other times as a fad or perhaps as an anthropological cliché-has been sanctioned in the Western world by numerous positive discrimination legal measures.These measures aim at ensuring the equal presence of women in the public sphere (in parliamentary representation, in the councils of government agencies, in academic committees, etc.), and represent attempts to achieve equality between the sexes.There are times, however, when legislation comes against traditional ideas, sexual prejudices, literary metaphors, or the opacity of some professions.Any attempt to focus on woman and translation will have to incorporate these contradictions between the public and private spheres, as well as the burden of a long history of misunderstandings and prejudices.Clearly, whether out of political correctness or academic efforts, woman continues to have an enormous influence on our daily lives: as a physical reality, as a symbolic space, as an unexplored region, as a literary subject and object, as an inspiration for the theory and practice of translation.
Gender studies is detecting a new discourse about women as expert communicators (Cameron 2003, Talbot 2003), as women share a series of linguistic, discursive and communicative characteristics which make them more suited than men to work in many companies and organisations.Meanwhile, gender and translation studies have spent decades denouncing traditional misogynistic metaphors (Chamberlain 1988), dating back to the dawn of time, and, in the last couple of decades, are generating new metaphors that consider 'woman' and 'femininity' as positive and regenerative forces (Godayol 2000, Littau 2000, Shread 2008).Nevertheless, these new discourses on women do not bring with them a higher social status or level of employment, or a higher pay.Be that as it may, the presence of women as objects of study raises many expectations, as it is the gateway to areas that are so far (practically) unexplored.Without a doubt there is a need for further studies on women and their innumerable intersections.In particular, the gender/translation interdiscipline has been gaining critical consistency over the last few years, perhaps due to a hazardous combination of enthusiasm, intellectual rigour, fashion and maybe even political correctness.
Indeed, in recent years, the number of works on the following topics has multiplied -sexual identity in translation; writing and translating the female 'body'; issues related to grammatical gender when travelling from one language to another; the translation of sexist or misogynist texts; the sexist metaphors that have been used by translation since early studies; feminist translation; the translation of sacred texts; and so on.Several different events are an unmistakable sign of this interest: the publication of two monographs on woman and translation (a recent book by the University of Ottawa Press, and the present volume); a recently held international conference on woman and translation at the Universidad de Málaga; the international conference on gender, development and textuality in the Universitat de Vic in June 2011, which will devote a whole section to the importance of the translation of key texts for the development of women throughout history.If we additionally consider international encounters on the same theme, held in the past two years in Cosenza and Naples (in Italy) and Swansea (in Wales), we must conclude that something is moving in one of the interdisciplines -woman and translation-with more transgressive potential and more ideological implications among humanistic studies.
With this volume, we want to provide a global chart of a territory that has revealed itself to be both new and old at once.The result, as was predictable, is an irregular human map that is incomplete and in dizzying transition.We know that more and more people, from the theory and practice of translation, are trying to include a gender perspective.All of these people (mostly women, but also men) try, by various means, to make visible the mechanisms of construction of gender discrimination, of prejudice against men or women, and of day-to-day sexism.They are all committed to a project of equality, of respect for all sexual preferences and of the dignity of women and men.And in this, both translation -a great discourse of discourses-and translations -those texts which, already entered into the 21 st century, are still torn between being originals or mere copies, between being creative or subordinated discourses-play a fundamental role.For the immense majority of the population, translations are, by default, the only texts of their existence.
We wanted, then, to invite the growing community of translation researchers and practitioners to send us their reflections -whether theoretical or practical-on any of the numerous intersections that women and translation studies have generated.The result is this volume which you have in your hands, and which we have divided into three parts: (1) Geographies (2) Voices (3) Identities

Women and translation: a variable geography
One of the peculiarities of this volume is that it tries to trace a rough global geography of the woman/translation interdiscipline.The results are limited but encouraging.Up until now, some partial geographies are known in detail: that of the feminist translation in Quebec (Flotow 1991(Flotow , 1996(Flotow , 2006)); that of 20 th -century Catalan translators (Godayol 2008, Bacardí & Godayol 2008), that of the English translators since the 16 th century (Margaret Tyler, Elizabeth Carter, Eleanor Marx, Lady Gregory, and many others) (Simon 1996), that of 19 th -century German translators (Wolf 2005), that of Spanish and Brazilian authors like María Romero Masegosa y Cancelada (Smith 2003) or Nísia Floresta Brasileira Augusta (Dépêche 2002), etc.But despite these valuable contributions, we believe that we still need global overviews.
This is precisely what we have tried to do in this first section of MonTI 3, entitled GeoGraphies: to offer a global overview of women and translation studies in different geographical locations.For the first time, then, we have different global scenarios.Pilar Godayol offers what she calls an 'archaeology' of gender and translation studies in Catalan.Her aim is ambitious: to make a realistic diagnosis of the theory and practice of feminine translation in Catalan, and start an intercultural comparison with other geographical spheres.This project is part of the ongoing investigation by Pilar Godayol and other researchers from the universities of Vic and Barcelona.The case of Catalan, a national language without its own state, is significant, as we move from the 19 th century, in which no translation by a woman has been recorded, to the 20 th century, in which there is a long list of women who were, at a time, translators, writers and/or activists for Catalan culture.The names of Maria Aurèlia Capmany, Montserrat Abelló, Maria Àngels Anglada and Maria Antònia Oliver are among the most significant in the last century.In addition, we find lesser names which nevertheless have also contributed to shaping Catalan as a first class literary language.Right now, an important number of research papers and scholarly works are being developed revolving around these female translators.At the same time, Pilar Godayol herself has contributed many articles and books on gender and language.In particular, her book Gènere i traducció: Espais de frontera (2000) equates the notions of translation and gender as bordering areas, as spaces of hybridity and negotiation (see Camps, in this volume).
Sergey Tyulenev also offers us, for the first time, a global outlook of the situation in Russia, from the medieval period to the present.Despite the embryonic state in which this field finds itself in Russia, the author achieves a great work of synthesis.During the Middle Ages, despite the invisibility that extended over women, we know examples such as that of Evfrosinia of Polotsk (12 th century), who wrote sermons, prayers, and translations from Greek into Latin.The author situates the period of westernization of Russia during the 17 th and 18 th centuries, in which the role played by women was highly relevant.The author suggests that, in the Russian context, the term 'translation' has wide values, as it can be equated to the social activity through which new political, artistic and ideological elements are introduced into the Russian system, coming from the major European powers, especially France.Translation was used, therefore, to imitate and adopt foreign models, ranging from artistic movements (literary salons, Romanticism) to a large number of literary genres (odes, heroic verse, eclogues, etc.).Since the mid 19 th century, with the abolition of slavery and the improving situation of women in Russia, translators gained visibility and prestige: translators such as Elizaveta Ajmatova and Alexandra Kalmykova translated authors as significant as Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Daniel Defoe, Anthony Trollope, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola and many others.The 20 th century saw the access of women to education and the growing presence of women translators and interpreters in schools and translation agencies.Sergey Tyulenev offers, without a doubt, a complete and dense overview of the situation of women and translation in Russia.Never before had we had access to such an overview.
Two articles relate to the situation in Galicia.The first is by Olga castro, whose aim is to review the history of the Galician translation from two critical intersections: the discourses of gender and nation.Galicia is, like Catalonia, a nation without its own state, with a minority language spoken by about 3 million people.The author studies the socio-political and cultural context of Galicia at the beginning of the 20 th century, when translation into Galician was re-emerging while at the same time a nationalist political movement was being articulated around groups of intellectuals such as Irmandades da Fala or Xeración Nós.In this context, the translation was a means of recuperating the Galician language and culture, but also a space for the subordination of women, as the Galician nationalist movement of the early 20 th century adopted a masculinist approach.In this article a female genealogy of translation into Galician is started, which is associated with names such as Mercedes Fernández Vázquez Pimentel, Bouza Teruca Vila or María Barbeito.Since 1975 a movement has started to recover the national and cultural identity of Galicia, which favours the progressive -although gradual-participation of women in the gears of literary translation into Galician.The translator' s profession, as in many other parts of the world, is now feminized, but that still does not affect prestigious rewriting systems (e.g.literature) which continue to keep a clear tendency towards masculine domination.Olga Castro' s article shows us, passionately, a complex history which is situated at the crossroads of various margins -linguistic, cultural, historical, national, etc.The second article, which is signed by Patricia Buján and María Xesús nogueira, offers a complementary perspective to the previous one, and tries to recover the voices and texts of women writers (novelists, poets, playwrights, essayists) that have been translated into Galician.In a minority national literature, such as Galician, translation plays a fundamental role -it emerges as a first class creative force in strengthening its own literary tradition.Through this brief history, two attitudes are obvious -the women translators' personal interest, as well as the voluntary, pro-active attitude of those who have tried to translate some texts emblematic of women' s literature in other languages into Galician.By means of magazines -such as Dorna (1981), Festa da palabra silenciada (1983) or A trabe de ouro (1999)-or through collections -such as As Literatas-many women authors (Angela Carter, Virginia Woolf, Hélène Cixous, Jean Rhys, Katherine Mansfield, Marguerite Yourcenar, Kate Chopin and some others) were incorporated into the Galician language, more by personal effort than by editorial design.Recently, we are seeing how the recovery of a Galician female literary and/or translatological genealogy is dependent on the variable public sponsorship -e.g.Aphra Behn, Mary Wollstonecraft, Edith Wharton, Jane Austen, Rosalía de Castro, Concepción Arenal and others are some of the women authors whose knowledge is owed to initiatives promoted by the Galician Equality Service.This article, rather than a complete story, presents us with hints of a story that has started to write itself, but which finds not few obstacles.The authors highlight the well-known idea of the multiple marginality experienced by women' s literature and translation in Galician.
An article which opens the door to a new space is that of Arzu Akbatur, who shows us one of the consequences of cultural globalisation.Turkish literature, in order to survive internationally, needs to enter the market in the English language, the true lingua franca of our time.Since the 1980s, according to the author, an important growth in English translations has been noticed (especially works by Latife Tekin, Bige Karasu, Orhan Kemal, Orham Pamuk and Elif Şafak), which continued to increase further from 2006 with Orhan Pamuk himself being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.This activity has been reinforced by the creation of bodies and awards which aid the international circulation of Turkish literature.Within this promising yet modest view, the space which women occupy remains very small.Only a few female novelists (such as Latife Tekin, Aysel Özakin, Adalet Ağaoğlu, Elif Şafak and Pınar Kür) have succeeded in crossing the border to English, while many other novelists and poets have yet to be translated, or appear only in a few collective anthologies.We once again are faced with the eternal history of female invisibility.As in other geographical areas, much remains to be done: firstly, a sufficient number of female Turkish writers (novelists, poets, essayists) must be consolidated; secondly, these authors must achieve recognition in English; and thirdly, the translation of said works should be carried out by women.As in other similar cases, the history of Turkish literature (and translation) by women is one of absence.This section ends with an article by nuria Brufau, which offers a thorough and generous re-look at the academic answer to feminist translation.As it is well known, during the 1970s and 1980s a group of feminist writers from Quebec (Louise Bersianik, Nicole Brossard, Denise Boucher, France Théoret, Madeleine Gagnon, amongst many others) initiated a radical writing project which attempted to subvert the dominant patriarchal language and reflect female identity clearly.Some of the traits of Quebec feminist writing were a militant bilingualism, which looked to restore and reinstate the cultural Francophone experience; and the influence of North American feminist paradigms (with authors such as Robin Lakoff, Mary Daly or Dale Spender) as well as French ones (represented by Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva).If we add to this feminist effervescence the impact of post-structuralism (Barthes, Foucault, Derrida) and of new translation theories, which were undergoing a cultural or ideological turn, it would not surprise us to see how an important group of female Canadian translators (among them Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood, Barbara Godard, Alice Parker, Sherry Simon, Luise von Flotow, Howard Scott and Marlene Wildeman) started to produce in the 1980s a series of assertive, interventionist and deliberately feminist translations which display a profound complicity between author and translator.This phenomenon, which we now know as feminist translation, was, therefore, born in Quebec in the 1980s as a result of a fortunate crossroads which brought together the Canadian écriture au féminin, the second wave of feminism (Anglo-Saxon feminism coupled with French feminism which centred on écriture féminine), the cultural or ideological turn in translation studies, post-structuralism and deconstruction.These feminist translators made the most of the potential which both translation and gender offered them to investigate questions of identity in language, with the objective of overcoming the traditional subordination of women in discourse and in translation.For the feminist translator, translation is a political activity which pursues the maximum visibility for women, both in and through language.The article by Nuria Brufau documents the impact of said paradigm in the Spanish state, since the first studies undertaken (Nikolaidou & López Villalba 1997;Vidal 1998;Godayol 2000) up to the present day, when dozens of publications on the topic exist (we will mention, among others, the work of Santaemilia 2003Santaemilia , 2005;;Godayol 2005Godayol , 2008;;Martín Ruano 2005, 2008;Vidal 2007;Castro 2008Castro , 2009;;Brufau 2010).Feminist translation is a brave paradigm, with its ups and downs, but which undoubtedly involves a positive reappraisal of traditional sexist and misogynist metaphors in the history of translation (see Chamberlain 1988); and which simultaneously generates positive rewritings of the attitudes, bodies and texts of women, so much so that Vidal Claramonte (1998: 201) states that neither 'woman' nor 'translation' constitute now spaces of subordination, but, much to the contrary, alternative sources of textual/ sexual power.
In short, in this section we have looked at various snippets from a small yet growing geography.For the first time we have a general panorama of the relationships between woman and translation in Russia, Spain, Galicia and Catalonia.We also have a partial yet significant panorama of Turkey.Each situation is different and the coupling of woman with translation means something different in various part of the world.We also find ourselves with an intersection between spaces which are more or less well known, between global and local spaces.On the one hand, there are certain places (the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Western Europe) in which the presence of women in translation studies is increasing, to a greater or lesser degree.They are privileged places, in democratic societies where sexual equality is a socially accepted value.In these countries the relationship between women and translation involves an intensification of democratic values and a recovery of the hidden history of women, as we can see in the paradigmatic work of Luise von Flotow (1991Flotow ( , 1996Flotow ( , 2006) ) or Pilar Godayol (2000Godayol ( , 2008)).Studies such as Wolf & Messner (2001), Santaemilia (2003Santaemilia ( , 2005)), Wolf (2005), Sardin (2008) or Palusci (2010) allow us to reconstruct a past that has become less and less fragmentary.In contrast to these enlightened places, there remain other dark or invisible places, of which we know almost nothing.These are mainly countries where, in many cases, there is no democratic tradition or there is no history of women studies.In fact, both women and translation studies are still subjected the prejudices, taboos and difficulties.We hope that this volume serves, modestly, to open up new spaces: in this volume, and for the first time, we get a glimpse of the situation in countries such as Russia (Tyulenev), Turkey (Akbatur) and China (Yu).
In the studies of women and translation there are central and peripheral geographies.In this volume we discuss a variable yet increasingly extensive geography: our knowledge of countries, languages and women is continuously growing.Both the idea of women and translation are -with as many exceptions as you would like-linked to the ideas of plurality, democracy, subversion, suggestion and revolution.So, we can recover -by means of translation-an increasing catalogue of women authors that did not have an adequate distribution in their time, of under-valued translators and of genealogies of creative women that originated literary or artistic traditions.The recovery of said women authors or translators could only enrich the literary or cultural, social or political heritage of a country.Ultimately, the complicity between translation and women studies should serve to widen the known geography of our discipline, but not to fall into an easy, remedial hagiography.

Woman and translation: intersections (voices)
The convergence of women and translation studies allows us to test or analyse a large variety of critical intersections.It allows us to question a wide variety of voices, aspects and identities.For many centuries, woman and translation have been found together in a variety of physical and symbolic spaces.Translation, as is well known, has constituted one of the few creative outlets available to women in previous centuries; on the contrary, literature has traditionally been considered a masculine prerogative.For many centuries, therefore, the figure of the translator has been associated with femininity and has constituted a space of codified social subordination (see Maier 1992).We have also mentioned the long-held tradition of misogynistic and sexist metaphors which Western culture has generated, ranging from the belles infidèles to Steiner' s hermeneutics (see Chamberlain 1988).Ultimately, both translation and woman have travelled across parallel symbolic spaces.
Nowadays, one as much as the other claims with increasing insistence a central place in language and culture, in research, in the collective imaginary.We find ourselves in a time of paradoxes, contradictions and challenges.It seems that both women and translation studies have abandoned marginal spaces in order to settle down in a (controversial) social and critical central space.Women have found in translation a means of expression through which to (re)define reality, develop their expressive sides and affirm their creativity.Translation has found in women studies a wider horizon of individual and collective recognition, a prospect for effective equality between sexes, races and identities.Both disciplines help to channel the same feeling of solidarity, the same creative drive.The concept of woman unites two activities (translating and writing) which women -those who translate as well as those who are translated-claim as (re)writings, as creative and assertive acts.If in the past the intersection between woman and translation was a field in which prejudices and social taboos were thrown, now it is a combative inter-discipline, which wants to transform marginality into a cultural value; the act of translation into a militant gesture; and the construction of feminist identities into a plural exercise in political, sexual and artistic self-affirmation.
The second part of this monograph (Voices) is an example of the wealth of associations between woman and translation.Rim Hassan explores the difficulties experienced by various contemporary translators in their translations of the Qur'an, Islam' s holy book.It is well known that the Qur'an, just like other sacred texts, was conceived in a patriarchal society and that its language and imagery reflect male dominance as well as the subordination of women.The first translation of the Qur'an into English was by a woman (Umm Muhammad) and was published in 1995.Since then three others have been published (Camilla Adams Helminski, in 1999;Taheereh Saffarzadeh, in 2001;and Laleh Bakhtiar, in 2007).This prompts us to discuss how the voice of female translators has been projected within their translations of the sacred text of Islam, and in particular, how they have solved the grammatical gender differences between Arabic and English, and how they have treated the 'generic' masculine pronouns.Without a doubt, this translating activity for women is a consequence, whether directly or indirectly, of the new social spaces women are occupying today.There are, however, remarkable differences between the different contexts of translation.For example, Umm Muhammad (who lives in Saudi Arabia) and Saffarzadeh (who lived until his death in Iran) maintain the most traditional and patriarchal aspects of the text that is being translated.In contrast, Helminski and Bakhtiar, who live in the United States, try to use gender-inclusive terms, so as to imply a female presence in religious texts.It is very clear that the task of translating the Qur'an has not yet reached the level of existing awareness and debate around inclusive and gender-neutral translation of the Bible, but is a step towards women' s re-reading of religious traditions.In both cases, there are still prejudices and resistance, as made clear in the Liturgiam Authenticam pastoral instruction issued by the Catholic Church in 2005, which condemns Bible translations made in the previous 25 years that did not follow the Vatican dictates in terms of language and interpretation (see von Flotow 2005).
The article by Jorge Braga shows, firstly, the growing interest of Anglo-Saxon culture in the classic comedies of the Spanish Golden Age, and secondly, the desire to make a re-interpretation of women' s roles in literature in light of current times and societies -the British and North American-which are committed to equality between the sexes and reject patriarchal attitudes.From this dual perspective, a wide-scale re-reading of the plays of Calderón de la Barca, María de Zayas, Lope de Vega or Tirso de Molina is being carried out, as well as an adaptation for the contemporary Anglo-Saxon audience.This is a huge challenge for translators, due to the special treatment that classic Spanish drama gives to the issues of honour, female sexuality, the traditional subordinate role of women in the plot of the comedias, etc.This study shows how these adaptations for the contemporary scene are a radical rewriting of the role of women in the Golden Age.On the one hand, female characters are given more important roles and are attributed more liberal attitudes to love and sex, the situation of women in the 17 th and 18 th centuries is discussed more openly, women are granted to use more daring language, and even in some cases scenes are invented where the female body is shown freely.On the other hand, however, references to women' s 'honour' and to the patriarchal values of that society are minimized.These results challenge some of the notions -such as fidelity or reproduction-which have also been challenged by feminist translation, post-colonialism and deconstruction (see Vidal 1998), and they put us in a scenario where translation -through this deep diachronic adaptation-is transformed by women into a creation and transformation of the original, into a conscious manipulation of an entire historical period.
In the following article resounds the voice of a feminist, assertive woman translator.María del Mar Rivas presents to us Olive Schreiner, a South African author and activist who fought for the rights of women from the late 19 th to early 20 th century.One of her major works was Women and Labour (1911), a passionate, suffragist book that advocates that women need full access to education and work.The only Spanish translation was published in 1914 by Flora Ossette.The title, La mujer y el trabajo: Reflexiones sobre la cuestión feminista, tells us what kind of a translator she is: an interventionist translator, "visibly feminist" (as stated by Rivas), who omits, adds, and reorganizes not only isolated words or concepts but also expressions, comments or full paragraphs.The translator is pervasive throughout the Spanish text which, once again, contradicts the traditional stigma of the invisibility of all the translators.It is another example of the unstoppable process of re-reading and re-discovering the voices of women through translation, which again raises questions about the limits -which nowadays are very fuzzy-of the concept of translation, which is almost synonymous with the concepts of writing or manipulation.
In her article, Madeleine Stratford offers an account of the lyrical voice of Argentinian poet Alejandra Pizarnik , by discussing the original Spanish text (Árbol de Diana, 1962) and its translations into French, English and German.It analyzes the various personal pronouns in which this lyrical voice is manifested, as well as their translations.This is a complete study, incorporating various languages, which is attentive to every nuance that can be expressed concerning the female poetic subjectivity.The personal pronouns are sensitive loci from where we can reflect about the emotional and ideological values that each language associates with women and femininity.

Woman and translation: intersections (identities)
And finally, in the third section (identities), we witness various contributions that revolve around the concept, construction and representation of female identity(ies).Both gender and translation studies have been dealing in recent years with the processes of discursive construction of identities, both male and female.We have shifted from a static, universal consideration of categories such as femininity or masculinity -which von Flotow (1999) calls the first paradigm of gender and translation studies-to a second paradigm where identities are unstable, artificial, fluid constructions.While the first paradigm examines the low representation of women writers/authors in translation, or the invisibility of women translators throughout history, or patriarchal concepts or metaphors in the history of ideas about translation, the second paradigm explores a wide range of gender (or sexual) identities. 1  Through language and translation we negotiate, reinforce, consolidate or destroy a wide range of identities which are no longer stable but a product of social construction, sometimes of a strategic use or a representation (see Butler 1990, Santaemilia & Bou 2008).
These concepts, which come from gender studies, are still emerging in translation studies, thus often falling inadvertently into an essentialist approach.So there are many publications that make the category 'woman' as universal and uniform, in parallel to the existence of a single 'femininity'.These studies, though very valuable to retrieve the plurality of women who were lost in translation -to borrow the title of Sophia Coppola' s hit movie Lost in Translation (2003), which was curiously never translated into Spanish-, analyse woman unproblematically and, therefore, they miss the communicative potential of both language and translation.For lack of critical tradition, many of the studies that revolve around the convergence between woman and translation would be in the first of the paradigms identified by von Flotow (1999), including many feminist translation studies.
All identities are always unstable processes, in transition, governed by historical and socio-ideological conditions, which are the result of negotiations and discursive struggle.Language and translation are, therefore, two of the privileged sites of struggle and conflict in shaping our identities.We are always defining -or shaping or modifying-our identities, and that is why both language and translation are two fundamental discourses in the 1.It has also been suggested (Castro 2009) that there is a third paradigm, or third wave, in gender and translation studies.Its focus on discourse as the unit of analysis and its conception of identity as a process or a representation are its main features.
contemporary world.Metaphors or myths also help to build our identities, both individual and collective.While in the past twenty centuries the metaphors that defined women and feminity were deeply sexist (see Chamberlain 1988), in the last two decades the association between women and translation studies is generating new metaphors that see women as a positive force: translation as a feminist practice that lies at the margins, at the border (see Godayol 2000); Pandora as multiplicity of meanings (see Littau 2000, von Flotow 2007); translation as a 'metramorphosis' that, in the form of a female matrix, allows difference, creativity and interdependence (see Shread 2008, von Flotow 2008).Thus translation can help either to consolidate an identity or to demolish it, either to reinforce a stereotype or to disclose its artificial and contingent nature.
Assumpta camps, in the first article of this section, focuses her study on the Chicana writer Sandra Cisneros, who lives between Mexico and the United States, on that border that is not only physical but that is also somewhere in between two cultures, two languages, two identities.Her literature is a hybrid product, showing a willingness to integrate both sides of the border, and able to transform the margins and the border into a critical space from which to reflect on the construction of feminine identity.This article, however, analyses the translation work of Liliana Valenzuela, who has turned two of Cisneros' s books into Spanish [Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1981) and Caramelo or Puro Cuento (2002)].Translating the frontera narratives means, for Valenzuela, situating herself also in the same intermediate space: between Mexico and the United States, between creation and reproduction, between English and Spanish.From these intersections, she can articulate a discourse as a visible translator, who aims at a symbiosis with the author.The border as a translatological metaphor (see Godayol 2000) continues to show us the potentialities of translation as a creative and subversive activity.
To this metaphor we can add many others that translators have been creating in recent decades.The very concept of 'translation' -as one would have expected, regarding its etymology-has become a literary topic and a source of inspiration, sometimes almost a universal metaphor.In eleonora Federici' s article we see how translation -and its practitioners-has been compared to travellers, explorers of intertextual maps, nomads by obligation, magicians, musical adaptors, and many others.All these figures highlight how the translator is considered a mediator, and translation as a dialogue between cultures, languages, genders and identities.Little by little we come to recognise translation as playing a central role in our culture, to the point where it becomes one of the key "metaphors we live by" (Lakoff & Johnson 1980).For feminism and gender studies, in particular, translation is a privileged path to describe, (re)create and interpret the voices and the identities of women.And, more generally, translation constitutes a subversive manipulation of conventional language and a way of representing the difference between the sexes and cultures.The author equates the activities of writing, translation and criticism, and in all three stands out the active and creative participation of women.
Vanessa Leonardi and Annarita Taronna present a discussion of the use of the so-called feminist translation strategies.As we know, the feminist theories of translation have bequeathed to us some well-known strategies of textual intervention: according to von Flotow (1991), the main feminist strategies of translation are the use of textual compensation; the use of prefaces and footnotes; and the 'hijacking' of the original meaning.According to Massardier-Kenney' s (1997) reformulation, there are author-centred (recovery, commentary and resistancy) and translator-centred (collaboration, commentary and the use of parallel texts) strategies.All of these techniques have been accused of universalism, elitism, inconsistency, opportunism, and of handling concepts ('woman', 'woman translator' or 'feminine writing') in an essentialist way.Particularly harsh has been the criticism or suspicion that has been awakened by von Flotow' s 'hijacking'.One of the harshest critics of this procedure, which involves an appropriation of the original text for feminist goals, is that of Rosemary Arrojo, who accuses it of being 'violent' and of showing a double standard in measuring the work of patriarchal and feminist translators (see Arrojo 1994).For Moya (2004) it could constitute a display of 'translator' s fundamentalism' or of 'overtranslation'. For Eshelman (2007: 17), the feminist translators' 'hijacking' makes up an 'extreme practice' that has rarely been used, and always in collusion with the authors of the original text.In this article, Leonardi and Taronna analyse in detail two works (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time [2003] by Mark Haddon, and Orlando [1928] by Virginia Woolf) and their translations into Galician, Spanish and Italian, and they assess the decisions taken by the translators.Both men and women seem to move the texts they translate into their own ideological positions, their own sexual stereotypes: any (gender, sexual) identity seems inseparable from any activity of (re)writing.This is an area that deserves a great deal of reflection: Do men and women translate in the same way?Do female translators manipulate the text?And male translators?In any case, it seems that there is a need to judge both male and female translators by the same standards.
The last three articles of this monograph deal with the translation of sexuality, one of the areas in which translation is most closely linked to the process of identity construction.Our sexuality is, without a doubt, the most intimate indicator of our identity, and its translation constitutes therefore a source of internal conflict and of ethical and moral dilemmas (see Santaemilia 2005Santaemilia , 2008)).Pascale Sardin studies the Anglo-American translations of three works by Annie Ernaux (Passion simple, 1991;L'événement, 2000;and L'occupation, 2002).This female French novelist is characterised by an autobiographical writing which reflects, in a crude and objective manner, female sexuality.Her narrative project goes on to mention the female body (and the male) and the bodily processes in a clear and direct, almost clinical, manner, avoiding euphemisms.In the English translations, we observe a series of options (simplification, beautification, specification, etc.) that remind us constantly that translating the body and sexual activity is not a neutral act, but rather an act onto which the prejudices and fears of translators or of the British (and American) editors are projected, and even the 'translation norms' (Toury 1980) dominating in the receiving cultures.Sexually explicit terms constitute a highly sensible matter, which travels with difficulty to (an)other language(s), and is subjected to an unpredictable range of censorship(s) and self-censorship(s).However, in the last few years a change can be observed in these norms, as is demonstrated by the growing popularity of literature that constantly stretches the limits of the representation of female sexuality (see the examples of French authors like Virginie Despentes, Camille Laurens, Catherine Millet or Annie Ernaux herself, or the Spanish authors Almudena Grandes or Lucía Etxebarria) and maybe also by an editorial industry that is committed to a growing vulgarisation of the translation of sexual terms (see Santaemilia 2009).
Zhongli Yu provides us with a view of an area practically unknown until now: women and translation studies in China.Specifically, the analysis of three Chinese translations of Simone de Beauvoir' s chapter devoted to lesbians in Le deuxième sex (1949).Simone de Beauvoir is known for the articulation of gender studies and, in particular, for the study of feminine identity as a historial and socio-ideological construct.Yu' s article serves to alert us, once again, of the importance of 'context' for each translation: the context (historical, political, social, moral, etc.) serves to explain the type of translations that occur at a given time and why certain versions of certain texts in certain historical periods are permitted or prohibited (see von Flotow 2005).The author notes the lights and shadows of the situation in China: while, on the one hand, there is a recent upsurge of interest in gender and translation, on the other hand, topics such as the translation of sex are still taboo.The author compares a translation by two women (Zhuying Sang and Nan Shan, 1986) with two translations by men (Tao Tiezhu, 1998;and Li Qiang, 2004).After a comparative analysis, the author concludes that there are clear differences between male and female translators when handling lesbianism -female translators remain faithful to the original text and appear sensitive to issues of lesbianism and female sexuality; male translators, by contrast, show signs of misunderstanding some of the matters and they occasionally translate poorly, even resulting in 'patriarchal' translations.Possible causes of these differences point towards language proficiency, gender identity or sexual orientation.These are, without a doubt, notes for a future and more detailed analysis of the relationship between translation and sexuality.
In the last article in this volume, carmen camus takes us into the world of translation in a dark period of Spain' s recent history: the dictatorship of Franco (1939Franco ( -1975)).This is a study of the effects of censorship in the Spanish translation of Horseman, Pass By (1961), the first work of American novelist Larry McMurtry, translated by Ana María de la Fuente in 1963.It is a hard, realistic western that inspired the film Hud (1963), directed by Martin Ritt and starring Paul Newman.The analysis focuses on the rape of Halmea, the black housekeeper, by Hud, the ranch owner' s son, and explores the translation of violence against women in westerns, The translation is, oddly, made by a woman, in a period of official censorship.The existence of such censorship activates, almost automatically, a more or less veiled sort of 'self-censorship' which leads the (woman) translator to meet the translation requirements (or 'norms') of the regime.Thus, contrary to the original intention, the Spanish version ends up conforming perfectly to the dictatorship: in particular, violent expressions are moderated and vulgar and obscene language is toned down.Instead of condemning the injustices suffered by women, as was intended by McMurtry, the world of male power implicit in westerns is promoted.In Ana María de la Fuente' s translation, the passage of Halmea' s rape is more in line with the expectations of the time regarding the behaviour of the two sexes: men are tough but not violent, while women are secondary and selfless creatures, who devote their efforts to the home and whose sexuality is wholly subordinate to men' s.

Woman and translation: a look into the future
We see the association of women and translation studies as exciting and promising.For a start, it has brought many positive elements.Women have become more visible in the whole creative process surrounding translation; and every single woman claims her own space either as a writer, translator, critic, literary character, or symbol.In a similar way, it has brought about a positive re-reading of the traditional misogynistic metaphors about translation.We also have a higher appreciation of the attitudes, bodies and texts of women, whether original or translated.In a text, woman claims to be both subject and object, translating and translated, active and passive, secondary and protagonist: gender studies feels the need to break away from the traditional dichotomies that have stalled Western life and thought for centuries.As a result of this, women gain a new authority -i.e. on the one hand, they acquire the status of authors, (co)creators of meaning, and on the other hand, they can show their authority, that is, their social and cultural power.However, the practice of authority is always controversial, as manifested in the reservations expressed by Arrojo (1994: 154) and others, who consider the interventions of feminist translators -who have reached the greatest visibility in this field to date-as acts of "castration" or "invasion".One immediate consequence of this visibility process that we have described is the discovery of a genealogy of women (whether translators or not) who, for at least three or four centuries, have used translation to claim varying degrees of presence in social, literary, cultural or political scenarios.
But we are also aware that there are many areas yet to be explored, that we must explore further critical complicities.It is evident that translation studies must adopt a more complex definition of 'gender', as many translation researchers are still using it as a static category, as a mere synonym for 'sex'.Gender is a socio-ideological construction which derives from biological sex, and its analysis is more productive if we link it to concepts such as race, social class, or sexual identity -in short, if we study what has been labelled as 'intersectionality' (see Brufau 2010).
Nevertheless, the woman/translation intersection generates, at least for now, a subversive space of affirmation, protest or criticism; of a recovery of the past; of a questioning of what is usually assumed in silence; of ethical issues; of a regeneration of debates; of social justice, sexual equality, and respect for differences and identities.It is a space that does not need introductions, excuses, apologies or justifications (Bacardi & Godayol 2008: 46), that is entering a stage of maturity which includes both (self) criticism and contradictions.In the past, both disciplines were fatally linked to failure and marginalization; today, in contrast, they are committed to denouncing absolute stereotypes, canons, paradigms, definitions and traditions.
Our task will be to maintain the diversity, force and even the contradictions that invite us to think in terms of difference, to accept contributions from many other disciplines, to expand the critical horizons of our field.The 'era of feminism' announced by von Flotow (1997) heralds a positive future, but also threatens us with some dangers: self-complacency, uncritical hagiography, essentialism, or excessive fragmentation.For the moment, it is a challenging area with fuzzy edges, but with great critical and assertive potential.2009) "(Re)examinando horizontes en los estudios feministas de traducción: ¿hacia una tercera ola?" MonTI 1. pp. 60-86.(Ed.África Vidal & Javier Franco).chAmBerlAin, Lori.(1992 [1988]) "Gender and the metaphorics of translation".