Lessons Experimental Translators Can Learn from Finnegans Wake

Inspiring translators by making specific experimental writing strategies available to them, this book reimagines experimental translation through close readings of Finnegans Wake.

Robinson’s engagement with translational aspects of Finnegans Wake provides rich and useful insights into experimental translation that encourage new approaches to translation theory and practice. The author analyses Joyce’s serial homophonic translations, portmanteau words, and heteronyms along translational lines (following Fritz Senn, Clive Hart, Patrick O’Neill, and others), and offers a showcase translation of Walter Benjamin’s “Task of the Translator” using all three experimental techniques borrowed from the Wake.

The book will be a valuable addition to any postgraduate course in translation theory, literary theory, and Joycean literature. Translation scholars, students, and researchers will find this text a compelling read.