Skip to main content

Distributed for University of London Press

Possible Worlds

Jorge Luis Borges’s (Pseudo-) Translations of Virginia Woolf and Franz Kafka

Distributed for University of London Press

Possible Worlds

Jorge Luis Borges’s (Pseudo-) Translations of Virginia Woolf and Franz Kafka

This volume reevaluates and overturns the assumed hierarchical relationship between original text and translation with an approach that places source and target texts as equal. Combining the translation strategy of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, the theoretical approaches of Walter Benjamin and Michel Foucault, and the exponents of Possible World Theory, the author examines Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and Franz Kafka’s short stories in detail. Rather than considering what may be lost in translation, this study focuses on why we insist on maintaining a border between the textual phenomena of “translation” and “original” and argues for a mutually enriching dialogue between two texts.

120 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2020

Institute of Modern Languages Research

Literature and Literary Criticism: Germanic Languages


University of London Press image

View all books from University of London Press

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Universe as a Library of Translated Worlds

1. Myths of Margins and Pseudo-Truths: What Is a Translation?

2. Many Possible Worlds of Originals and Translations

3. The Pitfalls of Authenticity: Collaborative Authors and Self-Translators

4. Orlando in Argentina: Who is Reading My Translation?

5. The Double Standard of Fidelity: The Malaise of A Room of One’s Own

6. Expressionist Transformations and the Laws of Perfection: Borges Translates Kafka

7. Putting the (Textual) World in Order

Conclusion: Translation Means Change

Be the first to know

Get the latest updates on new releases, special offers, and media highlights when you subscribe to our email lists!

Sign up here for updates about the Press