Downplaying Modernism: The translation of A Scots Quair into Skócia lánya: politics, publishing and dialects in the Hungarian translation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s fiction

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
My paper offers an exploration of the Hungarian translation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s novel A Scots Quair [Scots for ‘A Scottish Book,’ 1934], which appeared in Hungarian as Skócia lánya (1960). A canonical work of Scottish literary modernism, the trilogy focuses on the life of a Scottish woman in agrarian North East Scotland in the first three decades of the 20th century, using a synthetic, non-regionally bound, Scots language invented by Grassic Gibbon. Translated into some European languages in the late 20th century, historical translation studies note that the Hungarian version was the earliest among them. This presentation offers an exploration of the political context of British novels’ translation and publication in post-1956 Hungary, which duly reflects the cultural and aesthetic preferences of the period. Furthermore, the paper will analyse the linguistic solutions employed by the translator Klára Szöllősy to the challenges offered by the non-standard use of language.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Zsuzsanna Varga holds undergraduate degrees in English, Hungarian and Portuguese, a masters in Library and Information Studies and PhD in English literature.