Cultural Studies paper by Sherwood, Peter
Inside Animalinside, Ottilie Mulzet's Translation of László Krasznahorkai's Text in the Krasznahorkai-Neumann Volume ÁllatVanBent. (Accepted)
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
Building on the pioneering translations of László Krasznahorkai's novels by the poet George Szirtes, Ottilie Mulzet's versions of Krasznahorkai's Seibo There Below (2013) and, most recently, Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming (2019) have firmly established him as by far the best-known Hungarian writer in the English-speaking world. The critic Rita Horányi has called Mulzet's early translation of the very short but dense text ÁllatVanBent (2010) as Animalinside, "the most successful English translation of Krasznahorkai's work", while pointing out that sometimes "the translation suggests that the original text uses language in a manner that is more deliberately strange than is actually the case." (Horányi 2018). This paper is a detailed, holistic examination of Mulzet's treatment of the text of ÁllatVanBent and makes a clear case for the truth of Horányi's latter statement (and, more broadly, against Mulzet's aggressive foreignization of the text), thus also challenging Horányi's former claim.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
I spent 42 years teaching mainly Hungarian language and culture at the Universities of London and North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I have compiled bilingual dictionaries, written a textbook, and published dozens of articles and reviews, as well as translating numerous works from Hungarian, including novels, short stories, excerpts from books, poems, memoirs, and film scripts, among other genres. Awards received include the Officer's Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit (2007) and, most recently, the László Országh Prize of the Hungarian Society for the Study of English (2016).