Literary Translation and Cultural Mediators in 'Peripheral' Cultures

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. General Introduction. Literary Translation and Cultural Mediators. Toward an Agent and Process-Oriented Approach

   • Diana Roig-Sanz, Reine Meylaerts

   Pages 1-37

3. Mediators

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 39-39

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   2. Early Institutionalised Promotion of Translation and the Socio-Biography of Emil Walter, Translator, Press Attaché and Diplomat

      • Ondřej Vimr

      Pages 41-68

   3. Edoardo Weiss, A Triestine Translating Freud

      • Sherry Simon

      Pages 69-90

   4. Spanish Discovers Yiddish: The Cultural Policies of Salomon Resnick in Argentina in the Interwar Period

      • Alejandro Dujovne

      Pages 91-111

   5. Xiaoshuo yuebao (1921–1931) as a Cultural Mediator of Small Literatures in China

      • Yehua Chen

      Pages 113-155

   6. Mashal Books as Cultural Mediator: Translating East Asian, Middle Eastern, and African Literatures into Urdu in Lahore

      • Karen Thornber

      Pages 157-182

   7. Politics of Translation: How States Shape Cultural Transfers

      • Johan Heilbron, Gisèle Sapiro

      Pages 183-208

4. Mediation Processes

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 209-209

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   2. From a Slave to a Translator: Conflicts and Mediation in Fatma-Zaïda’s Translation of the Quran

      • Rim Hassen

      Pages 211-234

   3. Mediating Flemish Folk Songs Across Cultural Borders During the Nineteenth Century: From Patrimonial Monuments to Musical Propaganda

      • Lieven D’hulst

      Pages 235-262

   4. From Binarity to Complexity: A Latourian Perspective on Cultural Mediators the Case of Georges Eekhoud’s Intra-National Activities

      • Maud Gonne

      Pages 263-289

   5. Moving “Out of the Laager” and “Betraying the Tribe”: André Brink as Cultural Mediator

      • Lelanie De Roubaix

      Pages 291-317

   6. “Let’s Make Peru Peruvian Again”: Cultural Mediators and Indigenous Literature

      • Helena Usandizaga

      Pages 319-347

5. Back Matter

   Pages 349-373

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This book sets the grounds for a new approach exploring cultural mediators as key figures in literary and cultural history. It proposes an innovative conceptual and methodological understanding of the figure of the cultural mediator, defined as a cultural actor active across linguistic, cultural and geographical borders, occupying strategic positions within large networks and being the carrier of cultural transfer. Many studies on translation and cultural mediation privileged the major metropolis of Paris, London, and New York as centres of cultural production and translation. However, other cities and megacities that are not global centres of culture also feature vibrant translation scenes. This book abandons the focus on ‘innovative’ centres and ‘imitative’ peripheries and follows processes of cultural exchange as they develop. Thus, it analyses the role of cultural mediators as customs officers or smugglers (or both in different proportions) in so-called ‘peripheral’ cultures and offers insights into an under-analysed body of actors and institutions promoting intercultural transfer in often multilingual and less studied venues such as Trieste, Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires, Lima, Lahore, or Cape Town.

• Translation
• Mediation
• Bruno Latour
• Cultural transfer
• André Brink
• Book fairs
• Politics
• Diplomacy
• Economics
• translation studies

“Due to the book’s innovative multidimensional and multilingual approach, together with its insightful contribution to ongoing debates about actor-network theory (ANT) and gender issues, it can be recommended for scholars working not only in Translation Studies, but also in interdisciplinary studies on culture and society in general.” (Ekaterina Grineva, Connections, January 29, 2021)

“This book is quite valuable for readers interested in world literature, translation, cultural history, or cultural transfer to unravel extensive cultural movements across languages by mediators of multiple roles in peripheral cultures in discursive and nondiscursive modes.” (Jianwei Zheng and Wenjun Fan, International Journalof Communication, Vol. 14, 2020)

• Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

  Diana Roig-Sanz

• KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

  Reine Meylaerts

Diana Roig-Sanz is a Ramón y Cajal senior research fellow at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain, and a Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Internet Institute, at the University of Oxford, UK. Her research interests include cultural history and sociology of translation and digital humanities and big data approaches applied to the study of translation and cultural history. 



Reine Meylaerts is Professor of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies at KU Leuven, Belgium, where she teaches European Literature, Comparative Literature and Translation and Plurilingualism in Literature. Her current research interests concern translation policy, intercultural mediation and transfer in multilingual cultures, past and present.

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