The Biographer and the Translator: Translating Literary Biography

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the various styles operating in the genre of literary biography by analyzing and translating The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes by Janet Malcom as the source text. The main research question of this thesis is: How can the translator adequately capture the individual styles of both the literary biography's author and the biography’s subjectmatter? This question is answered by using secondary literature on translation theory within the field of informative and literary texts, particularly biographies. James Knowlson’s Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett and its translation by Martine Vosmaer and Karina van Santen (Tot roem gedoemd: Het leven van Samuel Beckett) are used as parallel texts that will inform this investigation.