Réflexion sur la traduction dans les œuvres de Joseba Sarrionandia

Abstract

This article aims to present the reflections on translation of Joseba Sarrionandia, a Basque writer and translator whose translational work remains largely unknown and unanalysed. One of the six members who formed the Pott literary group in the late 1970s, Sarrionandia criticises the narrow view on literature shared by his predecessors, who were wary of translation in their endeavour to keep their language and literature intact, far from any foreign traces. Sarrionandia, on the contrary, tries to appropriate the new literary trends of the European modernism in order to create a new Basque literature based on mixture and cross-cultural exchange. The activity of translation, conceived in centuries as a simple task of reproduction deprived of all creativity, acquires a new dimension in Sarrionandia's works and becomes a key instrument of literary creation. Far from seeking fidelity towards a sacred, unchangeable original, Sarrionandia sees translation as a process of appropriation and rewriting that constantly creates new originals.