Clarice Lispector, J.M. Coetzee and the seriality of translation

Abstract

Drawing on the transnationally successful examples of Clarice Lispector and J.M. Coetzee, this article argues that it is through a critical combination of perspectives from world literature theory and translation studies (after the cultural turn) that we can arrive at a more precise understanding of how literary works enter multiple networks. Rather than reducing literature emerging from postcolonies to a matter of transferring local culture, literature should also be seen as a transnational, if locally inflected, culture of its own. The translatability of Lispector's and Coetzee's works is then possible to read in terms of how they participate in this particular culture. However, entering multiple networks also entails the loss of the writer's authority and necessitates the theorization of literary translation in terms of seriality and serial collectivity.

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