ISSN 1392-0588
DARBAI ir DIENOS
2006.45
Milda D A N Y T E
Lithuanian Translations
of Canadian Literature
THE TRANSLATION OF CULTURAL REALIA
INTRODUCTION
Many recent approaches to translation
have been dominated by the concept that
translation is not only a linguistic pro­
cess but also a cultural one. Indeed, the
cultural elements of a source text are
often more resistant to translation than
linguistic ones. In a detailed study of
the translation of cultural allusions, Rit­
va Leppihalme (1997) remarks on the
complexity of the issues raised by such
references:
Allusions require a high d e g r e e of biculturalism of r e c e i v e r s in o r d e r to be u n d e r s t o o d
a c r o s s a cultural barrier. It h a s been a c c e p ­
ted for s o m e time that translators need to be
not just bilingual but bicultural in o r d e r to
fully u n d e r s t a n d the ST [ s o u r c e text] a n d to
be able to transmit it to the target a u d i e n c e
[...]. But w h a t about the TT [target text] rea­
d e r s ? Is it r e a l i s t i c to e x p e c t t h e m to be
bicultural also? (1997:4)
Translated texts are windows to other
Worlds for their readers, but it is Utopian
to assume that these windows can ever
be made completely transparent. Yet it is
also undeniable that readers form im­
pressions of foreign cultures through their
reading of translated literature. In addi­
tion, curiosity about one culture or an­
other is often part of the motivation for
reading a translated literary text.
Among Western countries, Canada is
one of those that is still not well known
to the Lithuanian reading public. This is
paradoxical, since immigration to Can­
ada from Lithuania has been considered
as an attractive alternative to settling in
the United States of America since the
close of the nineteenth century, and the
general perception of Canada is favour­
able. Unfortunately, there is a tendency
in Lithuania, as in much of the world, to
assume that the cultural specificity of
Canada and the USA is much the same.
Weak media coverage of Canada in world
news further blurs any distinctions. In
addition, while Lithuanians draw their
understanding of American culture from
a variety of sources, including cinema,
television and consumer products, there
are few such sources for Canadian cul­
ture. In this way, translated Canadian
texts assume a more important role than
they might otherwise have in forming
an image of Canada in the Lithuanian
consciousness.
The purpose of this article is to pro­
vide a preliminary analysis of Lithua­
nian translations of Canadian literary
texts, focusing on those published since
1986, and particularly on texts published
in the last decade, from 1996 to 2005.
After explaining the scope and method­
ology of this article, a brief review of
historical changes in the Lithuanian lit-
196
VERTIMO MENAS
erary market in the twentieth century,
and how these have affected the choice
of Canadian texts for translation will be
given. Then the article will look at the
different strategies employed by Lithua­
nian translators in dealing with culturespecific items in Canadian texts, using
the categories suggested by Eirlys E.
Davies (2003).
T H E S C O P E OF T H E A N A L Y S I S
According to data collected by Regina
Kvastytė of Šiauliai University and sup­
plemented by my own research, at least
45 book-length literary texts by Canadi­
an authors have been translated into
Lithuanian, beginning in 1930. This does
not take into consideration the transla­
ted stories, poems and selections from
novels that have been published in
Lithuanian periodicals, but it does in­
clude literature both for adults and for
children. Indeed, fiction for children
accounts for about half of the total num­
ber of publications.
This article is concerned with the strat­
egies being used by contemporary Lithua­
nian translators to deal with culturespecific items in Canadian literary works.
Therefore, it focuses mainly on texts
published in the last ten years (19962005). Thirty-one different Canadian texts
were translated and published in Lithua­
nia in this period. One novel, MarieClaire Blais' Soifs (first published in 1996,
in Lithuanian translation in 2000), was
translated from French; all the other
source texts were in English. It proved
possible to get copies of both the source
and target texts for 21 titles. Of these,
nine were examined more closely, six
novels for adults, Nino Ricci's Lives of
the Saints, Anne Michaels' Fugitive Pieces,
Jane Urquhart's The Underpainter, Irene
Mačiulytė Guilford's The Embrace, Mar­
garet Atwood's Oryx and Crake and Leo­
nard Cohen's Beautiful Losers, and three
novels for children, Mary Woodbury's
Brad's Universe, Katherine Holubitsky's
Alone at Ninety Foot and Jean Little's
Orphan at My Door. One translation from
the late Soviet period, Malcolm Lowry's
Under the Volcano, was added for com­
parison on the use of footnotes. The se­
lection was made to include a variety of
translators, novels both for children and
adults, and texts published over the
whole ten-year period.
THE CONCEPT
OF A L I T E R A R Y M A R K E T
Since in part this analysis studies the
historical context in which translations
of Canadian texts have been made, con­
cepts drawn from system theory have
been used. System theory, much as the
name suggests, interprets the culture of
a particular society as a network of interelated forces competing for influence and
power. These forces are categorized as
producers, consumers, markets, institu­
tions, products and repertoires, general
terms that allow system theorists to study
not only literary cultures but also any
aspect of culture (see Danyte 1999).
Furthermore, system theory differs
from traditional literary criticism in
making the author, text and reader only
some of the forces that interact in the
creation of a literary work. Often pro­
ducers (for example, publishing houses)
or institutions (for example, schools,
reviewers, government funding or cen­
sorship agencies) may be far more pow­
erful in determining what kinds of texts
are written or read. The effect of com­
peting forces within the literary system
is all the more obvious in the case of
translation, which always represents a
choice of one text from a much larger
Milda Danytė
LITHUANIAN TRANSLATIONS OF CANADIAN LITERATURE
number of possible source texts (Danyte 1999:38-39).
According to one of the major propo­
nents of system theory, Gideon Toury
(2000), this choice is governed by norms,
accepted codes of thinking in a society
that are less overt than rules, but which
still work powerfully at all stages of the
translation process (Toury 2000: 199).
Toury describes translation as a "normgoverned activity" which has to adjudi­
cate between two norm systems, that of
the source culture and that of the target
culture (Toury 2000: 200).
Major shifts in norm systems help to
account for the existence of very dis­
tinct periods in the history of Lithua­
nian translation of Canadian literature.
Thus it is important to place the analy­
sis in the context of three periods: the
interwar years of the Republic of Lithua­
nia (1919-1940), the period of Soviet
occupation (1944-1990) and the period
of the re-established republic (1990 to
the present).
TRANSLATION
OF C A N A D I A N L I T E R A T U R E
IN T H E I N T E R W A R P E R I O D
In the interwar decades o f the early
twentieth century, translation of foreign
literature, though a significant process.
Was hampered by unfavourable economic
and cultural factors. True, Lithuania did
make very rapid progress from being a
backward provincial colony of the czarist
Russian empire to a modern state very
open to cultural exchanges with Western
societies. Still, the number of people who
could afford to buy books was not large.
In addition, relatively few educated
people knew English, so that the stock
of potential translators from this lan­
guage was small. Lithuanian translators
Were more likely to know Russian and
197
Polish, if they belonged to the genera­
tion of people educated in czarist times,
or German and French, if they were
educated in the 1920s, when these were
the principal foreign languages taught
in Lithuanian schools.
Therefore it is not surprising that Regina Kvastyte has found only three trans­
lations of Canadian literature in this
period, all of them the popular animal
stories of Ernest Thompson Seton (18601946). These translations were published
in 1930, 1933 and 1940. The image of
Canada which they fostered was that of
wild nature and animals, an image cur­
rent in Europe at that time.
TRANSLATION
OF CANADIAN LITERATURE
IN T H E S O V I E T P E R I O D
The shock to the Lithuanian cultural
system caused by the forcible incorpo­
ration of the state into the Soviet system
is reflected in the empty years from 1940
to 1956, when no Canadian texts were
published. Many intellectuals and stu­
dents fled the country and later immi­
grated to the West. In addition, so long
as Joseph Stalin was alive, translation,
like writing and publication in general,
became extremely risky enterprises.
Generally, priority by the new Commu­
nist regime was given to translation of
ideological texts and Russian literature.
As Eugenijus Matusevičius (1980) indi­
cates, translators for Russian had to be
hurriedly trained (Matusevičius 1980:
165). Most of the Lithuanian intellectu­
als who had not left the country were
forced into silence or some form of col­
laboration along ideological lines.
Many were imprisoned and interned in
Siberia. After Stalin's death in 1953, an
ideological thaw gradually occurred,
producing a somewhat more accommo-
198
VERTIMO MENAS
dating atmosphere for the translation of
foreign literature.
Nevertheless, throughout the Soviet
period, translation was considered sus­
picious whenever it introduced non-Com­
munist cultures into any of the Soviet
Union's languages. As Lithuania was
perceived as a westernized society that
was always potentially rebellious towards
Soviet norms, controls over translation
were severe. As a Western democracy
closely allied to the Soviet Union's chief
political and ideological enemy, the Uni­
ted States of America, Canada was held
to be culturally dangerous.
The first Soviet-period translation of
Canadian literature appeared only in
1956. This was Grey Owl's The Adven­
tures of Sajo and Her Beaver People (1935).
Although by 1956 it was known that the
writer who presented himself as a halfNative was actually an English immi­
grant named Archibald Belaney (18881938), the choice of an internationally
successful book on Native interaction
with animals fit in well with the stillprevalent conception of Canada as wild
nature. Another of Grey Owl's books.
Pilgrims of the Wild, was translated in
1958 and reprinted in 1987.
Over the next thirty years, nine more
Canadian books on animals, nature and
Natives were translated into Lithuanian.
These included three new titles by Ernest
Thompson Seton (published in 1958,1960
and 1961), along with an expanded edi­
tion of Seton's previously translated work
The Winnipeg Wolf (first published in
Lithuanian translation in 1930 and again
in 1974). The Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur
Stefansson's book on the Inuit was pub­
lished in 1975. An interesting addition
to the list of Canadian authors in Lithuaniiin translation was Farley Mowat (b.
1921), whose international bestseller
Never Cry Wolf was translated in 1973, a
decade after its first appearance in Cana­
da. Two more books by Mowat, A Whale
for the Killing (1972) and The Dog Who
Wouldn't Be (1957) appeared in Lithua­
nian in 1980 and 1986, respectively. In
1989, at the very end of the Soviet period,
a translation of Morley Callaghan's only
book for children, Luke Baldwin's Vow
(1948), was published.
Only two of the choices made in the
Soviet period offer a distinctly more
modern version of Canadian culture for
Lithuanian readers: a translation of Gabrielle Roy's Bonheur d'occasion (1945) was
published in 1978, while the Lithuanian
version of Malcolm Lowry's Under the
Volcano (1946) appeared in 1986. Natives,
animals and wild nature do not figure
in either of these novels: Roy's novel, a
groundbreaking event in Québécois li­
terature, depicts the working class in
Montreal in the 1930s, while Lowry's
novel, a masterpiece of modernist ex­
perimentation, is set in the same period
in Mexico.
The innovative feature of these selec­
tions for translation is that both novels
are complex modernist works of a kind
that was still regarded with suspicion
by regulating institutions in the Soviet
Lithuanian system. Both are pessimis­
tic in tone, a characteristic that was con­
sidered incompatible with the require­
ments of Soviet ideology. Indeed, Un­
der the Volcano is a highly experimental
work. It describes a day of drunken
wanderings through Mexico by a former
British consul and both in subject mat­
ter, style and the use of stream-of-consciousness narrative has been compared
to James Joyce's Ulysses. Such works
were often considered decadent in So­
viet criticism. Certainly, both Under the
Volcano and Bonheur d'occasion are far
from the old-fashioned realism that was
used by Seton, Grey Owl and Mowat,
and which was favoured by official
Soviet literary ideology.
Milda Danytė
L I T H U A N I A N TRANSLATIONS OF C A N A D I A N LITERATURE
However, both books can be seen as
poHtically left-leaning, something that
undoubtedly helped them gain appro­
val in the eyes of Soviet censors. Gabrielle Roy is sharply critical of the way
in which the Quebec working class is
regulated and abused by wealthy busi­
nessmen and the Roman Catholic Church.
This image of capitalism and Christia­
nity working together against the com­
mon man fits in well with Communist
ideology, although Roy's pessimistic
conclusion is not in line with the pre­
scribed tone for socialist realism. In a
brief afterword, the translator, Aldona
Adomavičiiitė (1978), tries to neutralize
this by emphasizing that a major charac­
ter, Emmanuel, enlists in the army "to
take up arms so that fascism would be
destroyed" (Adomavičiūtė 1978: 302;
translation mine). Actually, the novel
is not so simplistic. Emmanuel is de­
picted as feeling a certain loyalty to
France, but he joins the army more for
money than anything else, to guarantee
his wife a p e n s i o n if he is k i l l e d .
Meanwhile, the readers know that she
has married him only because she is
pregnant by a n o t h e r man, w h o has
left h e r . R o y p r e s e n t s E m m a n u e l ' s
enlisting as another example of how
power systems manipulate workingclass people. However, this was not an
interpretation of military service that a
translator working in a Soviet system
could refer to.
Similarly, in an afterword to Under the
Volcano, Violeta Tauragienė, the trans­
lator of Lowry's novel, feels the need to
balance assertions about the literary
merits of the text With ones emphasiz­
ing those features of its narrative that
fit in thematically with Communist ide­
ology. For example, she refers to Low­
ry's search for a "refuge [...] from the
hardships of Western civilization which
damage people" and to how the novel
199
depicts "the movement of all pre-World
War II Western civilization towards
destruction" (Tauragienė 1986: 316, 317;
translation mine). She also responds to
Soviet ideological norms by emphasiz­
ing what are really very minor events in
the novel, such as the appearance of
Mexican fascists and references to a com­
munist character who died in the Spa­
nish Civil War. To suggest that the novel
is more optimistic than is the case in
reality, she closes her afterword by re­
ferring to the image of young construc­
tion workers which appears at the very
beginning of the text. To the Western
reader, Tauragienė's afterword seems
an odd mixture of very intelligent com­
ments on the literary qualities and
themes of the novel along with stereo­
typical Soviet ideology that is not real­
ly part of Lowry's text. However, com­
ments like these by translators are what
Lithuanian writers and critics of the
time called 'lightning rods', designed
to protect the authors or translators of
literary works of merit from criticism,
censorship or more serious reprisals.
T r a n s l a t i o n s p e c i a l i s t s like J u d i t h
Inggs (2003) who analyse how censor­
ship worked in communist societies have
attested to the stringent ideological re­
quirements made for translated litera­
ture. The fact that even as late as 1978
and 1986 it was still necessary to inter­
pret a foreign work within communist
ideology demonstrates the power of
norms at work in the Lithuanian trans­
lation system of the day.
The low number of Canadian texts
translated over five decades of this pe­
riod (12 titles in all) indicates the cau­
tion with which Soviet institutions
viewed the importation of Canadian
culture. In addition, in this period there
is a notable lag in time between the ori­
ginal publication of the Canadian text
and its appearance in Lithuanian. Ga-
200
VERTIMO MENAS
brielle Roy's novel had to wait 33 years
for translation, while the more experi­
mental Under the Volcano was approved
only four decades after it first appeared.
Even with culturally less sensitive
works like those of Farley Mowat, there
is a substantial lag in time between the
appearance of the source text and its
translation. Never Cry Wolf was published
in Lithuania in 1973, ten years after this
lively account of Mowat's investigations
of wolf habits in northern Canada be­
came an international bestseller. The se­
cond Mowat text was published in
Lithuanian in 1980, eight years after its
first appearance. Six years later, a much
earlier Mowat work, his fictionalized ac­
count of his childhood and family pet.
The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, was transla­
ted. However, this was nearly 30 years
after its first publication in Canada in
1957. Thus, unlike the usual pattern in
free-market countries, where success with
one book by a particular author means
the rapid translation of earlier texts,
Soviet norms so complicated the publi­
cation of any foreign text that even an
approved author's works were not pub­
lished quickly.
Overall, the translation of Canadian
literature into Lithuanian in the Soviet
period was slow and limited in quanti­
ty, especially given that translation was
professionalized and active at this time.
The major image of Canada that most
translations projected was still that of a
world of nature and animals.
TRANSLATION
OF CANADIAN LITERATURE
IN T H E L A S T D E C A D E
With Lithuania's successful bid to re­
establish its independence and the col­
lapse of the Soviet Union, state controls
over the literary system disappeared with
startling rapidity. State publishing houses
like Vaga and Vyturys, responsible for
the publication of most Canadian texts
in the previous decades, now were priva­
tized, while new publishers and prin­
ters, many of them fly-by-night opera­
tions which quickly went bankrupt,
sprang up all over the country. Again,
as at the start of the Soviet period, there
was a pause of several years before Ca­
nadian literature began to be translated
and published again.
Nevertheless, once such publishing
began in 1996, it was on a scale far greater
than in the Soviet period. Publishers'
lists for translations, which had been
dominated by works from the so-called
"brotherly republics," now were full of
texts from Western countries. Certain
features of what Lithuanians refer to as
'wild capitalism' did show themselves.
Some new publishers rushed out reprints
of Soviet-translated texts, not always with
full legal rights. The 1956 translation of
Grey Owl's The Adventures of Sajo and
Her Beaver People was reprinted in 1996,
while the following year one of the later
Anne novels from L.M. Montgomery's
series, Anne's House of Dreams (original­
ly published in 1917 ) was dressed up
by the Kaunas publisher Tyrai with a
cover featuring a bosomy blonde and
cowboy, quite inappropriate to the gen­
teel text about middle-class life in the
small villages of Prince Edward Island,
a Canadian Atlantic province. In ano­
ther case, a new publisher, Viktorija,
brought out a reprint of the translation
of R o y ' s Bonheur d'occasion
in 1944
without reference to the original publi­
cation in 1978 by Vaga.
At the same time, major new Canadian
novels were published. One of the more
academic of the new publishers, Tyto
Alba, produced one major translation
by the excellent professional translator,
Valdas V. Petrauskas, after another:
Milda Danytė
LITHUANIAN TRANSLATIONS OF C A N A D I A N LITERATURE
Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient
in 1996, Nino Ricci's Lives of the Saints in
1997, Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace in
1999, Marie-Claire Blais' Soifs in 2000.
Fron\ 2002 Petrauskas' translations have
continued with what is probably finan­
cially the most successful of the new
publishers. Alma littera: Jane Urquhart's
The Underpainter in 2002, Margaret At­
wood's The Blind Assasin in 2003 and
Oryx and Crake in 2004.
As often occurs with the translation
of foreign literature, translators in
Lithuania have played a significant part
in the choice of texts. In Petrauskas'
case, new historical c i r c u m s t a n c e s
favouring Lithuanian emigration had a
major role in bringing this translator to
Canada. Here a new player entered the
Lithuanian literary system in the shape
of the Canada Council for the Arts,
which, along with the Canadian Departnient of Foreign Affairs and Interna­
tional Trade has funded all of Petraus­
kas' translations.
The long gap between the publication
of the original text in Canada and its
translation into Lithuanian has now dis­
appeared. Currently, a wait of about three
or four years is usual, very much in line
with the practice of many European coun­
tries. The common pattern is that the
new novel appears in Canada, wins
awards and critical attention over the
next year or so, and then is translated
into Lithuanian two or three years later.
In some cases the gap is smaller still: for
example, Petrauskas' translation of At­
wood's novel. Oryx and Crake, appeared
in 2004, only one year after its original
publication and a year ahead of the
French translation of the novel.
Since 1996 Canadian fiction has been
taken up by a variety of publishers of
Varying reputations: Anne M i c h a e l s '
Pugiiivc Pieces (1996) in 2000 by Charib­
de and Yann Martel's Life of Pi (2001) in
201
2004 by Jotema. Other publishers have
gone back to earlier works: Gardenija
published Atwood's second novel Sur­
facing (1972) in 2 0 0 1 , Tyto alba two
novels by Douglas Coupland, Life After
God (1994) and Generation X (1991), both
in 2005, and Baltos Lankos the classi­
cal Beautiful Losers (1966) by Leonard
Cohen in 2005.
About five years after the sudden
boom in the translation of Canadian
fiction for adults, an increase in the
numbers of Canadian texts for children
can also be observed. Here the impetus
can be attributed to rising Lithuanian
prosperity and a corresponding growth
in the children's literature market that
rivals the adult one in economic signif­
icance. As research carried out in 2003
and 2004 by Viktorija Korsukova shows,
in Lithuania children's literature is one
of the most profitable areas of sales for
bookstores, and the majority of the new
publications, from picture b o o k s to
novels for teens, are translations (Kor­
sukova 2005).
As with adult books, certain publi­
shers have made Canadian children's
texts one of their specialties. Alma lit­
tera has brought out translations of the
first two books in the Anne series by
L.M. Montgomery in 2001 and 2005.
Mažasis Vyturys has published a whole
series of books for the teens, along with
picture books, some of them funded by
the Canada Council. Most of these are
recent Canadian publications which have
done well in Canada: for example, Gayle
Friesen's fancy's Girl, first published in
1998 and nominated for a Governor-Gen­
eral's Award, and translated into Lithua­
nian in 2002; or Katherine Holubitsky's
Alone at Ninety Foot, first published in
2001 and winner of numerous awards,
published in Lithuanian in 2002.
Another major publisher of Canadian
children's books is Gimtasis žodis which.
202
VERTIMO MENAS
in 2005, publislied five new Canadian
titles, all recent books. Again, part of
the incentive seems to be Canada Coun­
cil funding for some of these books.
With much freer access to informa­
tion about recent titles in Canadian li­
terature and a market driven by readers'
preferences, the choice of Canadian
texts for translation has changed radi­
cally from the e a r l i e r p e r i o d s sur­
v e y e d . Instead of animals. Natives and
wild natural landscapes, translations
from 1996 feature a complex Canadian
society, as well as Canadians acting in
the world at large. Urban or suburban
settings have largely replaced rural ones.
Personal relationships within specific
social structures are the dominant fo­
cus of these books. Nor is Canada pre­
sented as a country without a history:
many of the novels, including some of
those for children, are set in earlier his­
torical periods.
At the same time, there are limitations
to the information the Lithuanian pub­
lic gets from the chosen texts. The Ca­
nada it reads about is a white, middleclass, Anglo-Celtic Canada. With the
exception of Lithuanian-Canadian Irene
Guilford's The Embrace, even the immi­
grants described in Alias Grace, The Ac­
cidental Orphan and Orphan at Mij Door
are English immigrants of the nineteenth
century. By and large. Natives and vi­
sible minorities do not figure in these
books except as very minor characters.
Nor do many working-class characters.
Culturally speaking, the texts that have
been translated represent an elite, Eng­
lish-speaking vision of Canadian society.
Only one novel by a québécois writer
has been translated in these last ten years,
and only one, an older work by Leonard
Cohen, has any reference to FrenchEnglish issues that trouble Canada's
politics today.
Given the variety of Canadian litera­
ture today, there seems to be some kind
of filtering process going on in the se­
lection of these particular texts for trans­
lation. Gideon Toury's theory of norms
offers a possible explanation. Toury
(2000) argues that translation is affect­
ed by a double set of norms, those of the
source culture and those of the target
culture (2000:200). Certainly, Canadian
media and cultural institutions like li­
terary reviewers and critics pay more
attention to those works that are cen­
tred on white Anglo-Celtic society and
its history. At the same time, the choice
made by Lithuanian translators and
publishers not to translate successful texts
by well-known writers of colour like Neil
Bissoondath or Rohinton Mistry or Na­
tives like Thomas King, all of whose
novels have received awards and criti­
cal attention in Canada,is probably con­
nected to the racism against visible mi­
norities observable in Lithuanian socie­
ty today. Just as Soviet institutions pre­
ferred to see Canada as wild aninials
and nature, so current ones prefer an
Anglo-Celtic Canada. The paucity of
translations from French, on the other
hand, is more likely due to the smaller
number of translators working in Lithua­
nia from that language and their focus
on contemporary literature from France.
The selective process has also created
a particular image of Canadian literature
in the qualitative sense. Funding by Ca­
nadian governmental agencies favours
elite literature. Since Canadian popular
genres are not translated, the impression
is given that Canada produces a more
serious and complex kind of writing,
rather different from the new British or
American literature, which appears most
often in Lithuania in the form of detec­
tive fiction, 'chick lit', romance or best­
sellers with a transitory reputation.
Milda Danytė
LITHUANIAN TRANSLATIONS OF CANADIAN LITERATURE
CURRENT THEORY
ON T H E TRANSLATION
OF C U L T U R E - S P E C I F I C ITEMS
In Translation in a Postcolonial
Context
Maria Tymoczko (1999) describes the
literary text as "saturated with semiotic significance and emblematic of the
culture as a whole"; she goes on to state
that "cultural elements with a literary
Work are métonymie evocations of the
culture as a whole, including its ma­
terial culture, history, economy, law,
customs, values, and so on" (Tymocz­
ko 1999:45). Translators face not only
the problem of correctly interpreting
such evocations, but also of transmit­
ting them in a meaningful way to rea­
ders. However, as T y m o c z k o writes,
^ h e n the source and target cultures
do not overlap significantly, transla­
tors who try to explain too much run
the risk of creating an "information
load" that is "intolerably h i g h " ( T y ­
moczko 1999:47).
Translation theorists have been grap­
pling with the issues raised by culturespecific items for several decades, but
no consensus on ways of categorizing
translation strategies has yet emerged.
The very notion of cultural reference is
i^ot always defined in the same way.
Birgit Nedergaard-Larsen (1993) and
Javier Franco Aixela (1996) point out that
't should include features of the particuLy language itself. Nedergaard-Larsen
gives as an example the " t u / v o u s " dis­
tinction, which is intimately bound up
^ith concepts of class distinctions, fami­
ly relations and relations between supe'•'or and inferior in the workplace (NeJl^'rgaard-Larsen (1993): 210).Neverthep-'ss, in this article the discussion will
hmit itself lo the more usual concept of
"^"•tural reference as including proper
'\^nies, objects, customs, literary allu'^•"ns and the like.
203
Some analyses of how specific trans­
lations deal with such cultural referen­
ces use a subject-oriented categorization.
Though this may sometimes be interes­
ting, using a more abstract categoriza­
tion of the strategies used by translators
is more fruitful, as it allows the critic to
compare strategic preferences from one
translator and one culture to another.
Unfortunately, different specialists on
translation have come up with a confu­
sing variety of terms to describe strate­
gies. Many of these begin by viewing the
distance between the source culture and
the target culture as a continuum, a line
on which different translation decisions
can be placed. Thus some translation stra­
tegies are held to prioritize the source
culture while others adapt the original
text to make it more easily readable by
the target audience. Most such efforts to
place strategies on a continuum go back
to the categorization of strategies deve­
loped by J.P.Vinay and J . Darbelnet in
their 1958 classical textbook of transla­
tion. Stylistique comparé du français et de
l'anglais: metliode de traduction (Vinay and
Darbelnet 1958: 217). The debt is evident
in Sandor Hervey and Ian Higgins 2002
edition of Thinking French Translation: A
Course in Translation Method, as in the
categories developed by Mona Baker
somewhat earlier (1992). Baker's catego­
ries are among the fullest. The main prob­
lem with most of her terms, neverthe­
less, is that they are wordy and cumber­
some: for instance, "translation by a more
general word" and "translation using a
loan word plus explanation" (Baker
1992:26). Some are difficult to distinguish:
for example. Baker's concepts of "trairslation by a more general word" and "trans­
lation by a more neutral word" in prac­
tice are often the same (Baker 1992: 26,
28). Some significant strategies used by
non-English translators, like the use of
footnotes to explain a cultural reference.
204
VERTIMO MENAS
do not fit comfortably in any of Baker's
categories.
Therefore, for the purposes of this
present article, the terms used by Eirlys
E. Davies (2003) in her recent study of
the translation of culture-specific items
in the Harry Potter books, v^rill be adop­
ted. Davies' terms are developed after a
review of those used by a wide number
of theorists, including Hervey and Higgins, Aixela, Peter Newmark, Gideon
Toury, Lawrence Venuti and others.
They have the advantage of being ab­
stract and simple in formulation. Ac­
cording to Davies, then, translation strat­
egies used for dealing with cultural
references can be categorized as pre­
servation, addition, omission, global­
ization, localization, transformation and
creation (Davies 2003: 72-89).
STRATEGIES
IN L I T H U A N I A N T R A N S L A T I O N S
OF C A N A D I A N LITERATURE
When Davies' categories are applied to
an analysis of recent Lithuanian trans­
lations of Canadian texts, it becomes
evident that certain strategies are more
popular than others. In addition, this
analysis reveals signs of change in such
preferences among translators. In ge­
neral, Lithuanian translation practice at­
tempts to respect the source text in a
fundamental way, translating as much
as possible of the meaning. Thus those
strategies that freely re-interpret the text,
like omission, creation and globaliza­
tion, were not found in significant num­
bers in most of the translated texts that
were analysed closely.
For example, omission is rarely prac­
tised systematically by these Lithuanian
translators to deal with culture-specific
items. The term in Davies' usage refers,
as the word itself suggests, to the lea­
ving out of problematic cultural refe­
rences which cannot be easily explained
and which the translator judges unne­
cessary for the overall meaning of a
particular passage or indeed for the
whole text (Davies 2003: 80). One transla­
tion which is an exception to usual Li­
thuanian practice in this respect is leva
Venskevičiutė's version of Jean Little's
Orphan at My Door; the Home Child Dia­
ry of Victoria Cope (2001). This is part of
a a series of historical novels for teena­
gers published under the general title
"Dear Canada." Each novel is written in
the form of a diary, supposedly by a girl
involved in the problems of a specific
period of Canadian history and includes
historical materials such as maps, photo­
graphs and explanations of the historical
situation.Orp/w)z at My Door explains the
way in which so-called "Home children,"
British orphans, were sent to Canada to
work as servants. Many were treated as
inferiors and even abused. Thus the no­
vel reveals a part of Canada's past that
has not been discussed before.
It is interesting to observe how the
translator and the publisher. Gimtasis
žodis, use omission as a strategy to re­
package the novel for the Lithuanian
children's market. The series title "Dear
Canada" disappears entirely, while the
title is modified to remove the words
"home child," words which also disap­
pear from the text. In addition, all the
historical materials which make the book
so suitable for use in Canadian schools/
are removed. The text at once becomes
more fictional and less historical. While
its appeal to Canadian children is in part
its re-interpretation of the Canadian past/
Canadian cultural references are much
more muted in the Lithuanian versionCreation, by which Davies means "th^
invention of CSIs [culture-specific items)
not present in the original text" (DavieS
2003: 89), is also not a common strategy
Milda Danytė
LITHUANIAN TRANSLATIONS OF CANADIAN LITERATURE
in the translations under examination.
Creation is not quite as radical a re­
writing of the source text as the term
inay suggest. Davies has in mind what
Mona Baker and others call the strategy
of "compensation" (Baker 1992:78). This
IS a major strategy in the translation of
poetry, for example, in which patterns
of sound effects are impossible to du­
plicate exactly where they occur in the
source text but can be introduced in
slightly different places. Creation is also
used to translate humourous texts, when
puns and wordplay are created to com­
pensate for their loss at specific points
in the text. In translations by Lithua­
nians, creation is found in many chil­
dren's books. For example, the metrical
effects, rhymes and wordplay used by
Liuda Petkevičiūtė in her delightful trans­
lations of picture books for the publi­
sher Trys Nykštukai provide many ex­
cellent examples of creation.
One can find some examples of a less
'radical strategy, globalization, though
'his too seems to be foreign to the norms
°f Lithuanian translation practice. Davies
defines globalization as "the process of
•replacing culture-specific references with
ones which are more neutral or general"
(Davies 2003: 83). Often this takes the
form of using a superordinate instead
of a specific term: for example, a "can^y" rather than a "Mars bar". Some minor
examples of globalization appear in Vir^ l i j u s Čepliejus' translation of Mary
•Woodbury's novel for teenagers. Brad's
'Jniversc. The "chocolate pecan pie" of
^ne source text (Woodbury 1998:39) be­
comes the less specific "šokolodinis rie­
šutų pyragas" (back-translation: choco/'te nut cake), while a specific size of
Joards, "one by four planks" (Wood^"••y 1998: 104) becomes simply "len" s " (back-translation: boards) in Lithua(Čepliejus 2001: 46; 104).
t)avies' other kinds of strategies, pre­
"''"»'1
205
servation, addition, localization and
transformation, are easily found in the
texts under review. The simplest tactic
for a translator would seem to be pre­
servation. Davies comments: "Faced with
a reference to an entity which has no
close equivalent in the target culture, a
translator may simply decide to main­
tain the source text term in the transla­
tion" (Davies 2003: 72-73). Preservation
is called "transference" by Newmark and
"cultural borrowing" by Hervey and
Higgins (Davies 2003:73), while Mona
Baker (1992) calls it the use of loanwords
(Baker 1992: 25). It is a common strate­
gy in French translation from English,
probably because many English words
are familiar to French readers but, until
recently, has not been considered ac­
ceptable in Lithuanian translation from
English. Normally even English-language
place names are lithuanianized phonologically and given inflected endings.
Currently, preservation o f names is the
subject of controversy in Lithuania, as
print media differ in their treatment of
foreign names of people and places.
Most still follow the older practice of
phonological and grammatical adapta­
tion, while some have taken to using
only minimal case-endings without
changes in the spelling of the core parts
of the words.
Still, influenced by Western European
practice, the strategy o f preservation
seems to be gaining ground in Lithua­
nian translations of foreign literature.
In the texts surveyed more closely for
this article, preservation of place names
and some brand names is used exten­
sively by Jūratė Juškienė in her 2000
version of Anne Michaels' Fugitive Pie­
ces and in Dalia Cidzikaitė and Aušra
Velickaitė's 2002 translation of Irene
Guilford's Tlie Embrace. Both novels re­
fer frequently to real streets, buildings
and commercial enterprises in the city
206
VERTIMO MENAS
of Toronto. In her translation of Michaels'
novel, Juškienė uses preservation for the
names of restaurants (Diana Sweets and
Royal Diner, for example) and for those
of factories (General Electric, Victory
Mills and Lakeshore Cement, for exam­
ple) (Juškienė 2000: 73, 79, 83). The foreignness of these names is signaled,
however, for the Lithuanian reader by
the use of italics.
Similarly, the two translators of The
Embrace leave unchanged the name of
the Toronto newspaper The Telegram,
as well as those of factories where the
characters are said to work (Canada
Packers, Nielsen's) and place names
(Roncesvalles Avenue, Wasaga Beach)
(Cidzikaitė and Veličkaitė 2002: 50-52,
137). In this translation, italics are not
used to signal foreign place names, but
are for companies and newspapers (only
the newspaper titles are italicized in
the source text).
It should be noted that Juškienė uses
preservation only for very specific Ca­
nadian place names set in Toronto (for
example. Baby Point, Scarborough Bluffs,
Davenport Road, Mt. Pleasant Road)
(Juškienė 2000: 79, 83 103). Place names
that have a long tradition of use in Lithua­
nian are adapted: for example, "Amster­
damas" for Amsterdam, "Paryžius" for
Paris (Juškinė 2000: 102). The lack of
consistency demonstrated in both trans­
lations is typical of a period of transi­
tion between two sets of norms, with
the translators apparently not certain of
how far to go in using preservation.
A sense of transition can also be found
when looking at how Lithuanian trans­
lators today use the strategy of addi­
tion. This is a useful formulation which
covers all kinds of supplementary ma­
terial used to explain the culture-speci­
fic item to target readers. Addition may
take the form of what Aixela calls an
"intratextual gloss" (Aixela 1996: 62), a
word or phrase within the text itself, as
well as all forms of extra-textual glos­
ses, from footnotes and vocabulary lists
to prefaces and afterwords. Davies (2003)
points out that in some cultures provi­
ding such extra-textual information is
considered normal, while in others it is
not. Lithuanian translators have long
shown a particular fondness for the ex­
planatory footnote. In this respect they
are similar to the Chinese who, as Davies
notes, use footnotes even in translations
of children's Hteraturo (Davies 2003:7778 ). Meanwhile, French or English gen­
erally reserve footnotes for scholarly
editions of canonical texts. In Lithua­
nian practice the footnote is used to trans­
late any foreign words used in the text,
as well as to provide information about
cultural references.
Footnotes, then, can be understood as
a long-standing norm for translators in
Lithuania. The Canadian texts analysed,
however, show a variety of responses to
this norm. For example, older transla­
tions that have to deal with many fo­
reign words and cultural references do
use a large number of footnotes. Thus
Violeta Tauragienė's translation of Un­
der the Volcano, which appeared at the
close of the Soviet period in 1986, and
Valdas V. Petrauskas' translation of Lives
of the Saints, published in 1997 at the
beginning of the new period, both sup­
ply a copious number of footnotes. It is
true that both novels are particularly
rich in foreignisms, as the first is set in
Mexico and the second in Italy. The re­
sults arc translations that seem visually
overloaded with footnotes. Of the 188
pages of the Lithuanian version of Lives
of the Saints, for instance, 86 have foot­
notes, often more than one. In the tran­
slation of Under the Volcano, there are
often three to five footnotes to a single
page. For example, pages 308 and 309,
which face each other, force readers to
Milda Danytė
L I T H U A N I A N T R A N S L A T I O N S OF C A N A D I A N LITERATURE
look down from the narrative eight times.
Whether so many footnoted explanations
are necessary is a moot point. The En­
glish-language readers of the original
texts would not have understood all the
Spanish or Italian terms used in these
books. It seems that English readers are
willing to put up with a degree of opaque­
ness that is considered unacceptable to
Lithuanians.
More recently, however, a tendency
among Lithuanian translators away from
the use of footnotes can be observed.
Petrauskas uses footnoting more lightly
in more recent translations. In his 2002
translation of Jane Urquhart's The Un­
derpainter foreign words are often sim­
ply put in italics, as they are in the source
text. Now footnotes refer only to culturespecific items of particular significance.
In Petrauskas' latest translation, that of
Atwood's Oryx and Crake, published in
2004, only three footnotes appear.
A less intrusive variant of footnoting
is to place the notes at the end of the
text. This system, used occasionally in
Soviet publications, is used by Aistė
Ptakauskaitė in her 2005 translation of
Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers, a novel
With many foreign words and cultural
r e f e r e n c e s . E v e n here P t a k a u s k a i t ė
ntinimalizes the interfering effect of note
numbers in her text by choosing to sup­
ply notes only when the cultural refer­
ence is both obscure to Lithuanian read­
ers and significant to the meaning of the
narrative. In conversation with the au­
thor of this article, the translator indi­
cated that the decision to place notes at
the back rather than use footnotes was
her own, as she was concerned not to
disrupt the effect of the colloquial tone
of the novel.
Preliminary research suggests that
footnoting is rapidly becoming outda­
ted in Lithuanian practice. Among the
Canadian texts that were examined, a
207
good number have no footnotes, as is
also evident by a spot-check of transla­
ted novels available in Lithuanian book­
stores. Here one can speak of a change
in norms that is probably due to the
influence of Western practice.
Another of Davies' strategies, locali­
zation, is even more commonly used by
Lithuanian translators than addition. By
this term Davies (2003) signifies the sub­
stitution of a culture-specific item in the
source text with one similar in kind but
more familiar to target readers in the
target text (Davies 2003:83-84 ) . This is
probably the single most important stra­
tegy for Lithuanian translators, as it in­
cludes phonological adaptation of proper
names into the target language. Typi­
cally, the Lithuanian translators phonologically adapt all the names of charac­
ters and place names. In addition, as
Lithuanian is a heavily inflected lan­
guage, grammatical localization is ne­
cessary to allow names to have the ne­
cessary grammatical links with other
words in the same sentence. Thus Shakes­
peare is "Šekspyras" in Lithuanian; the
" - a s " nominative ending indicates a
masculine name.
Examination of the Canadian texts
translated in the last ten years shows
that this is one of the most imperative
norms for Lithuanian translators today.
For this reason the main character in
Alone at Ninety Foot, Pamela Collins, is
lithuanianized as "Pamela Kolins." The
hero of the picture book The Subway
Mouse, Nib, appears as "Nibas." Brad
Greaves of Brad's Universe becomes "Bredas Grivzas," Anne Shirley of Anne of
Avonlea becomes "Anė Širli", Victoria
Cope of Orphan at My Door turns into
"Viktorija Koup." Pi does remain "Pi"
in the Lithuanian verson of Life of Pi,
but the tiger Richard Parker is given as
"Ričardas Parkeris." As there is no "w"
in the Lithuanian alphabet, Ellen Win-
208
VERTIMO MENAS
ter of The Accidental Orphan becomes
"Elen Vinter."
Although to English readers more fa­
miliar with cultures like French which
preserve the original forms of names,
Lithuanian policy may seem odd and
extreme, historically it is not unusual in
translation practice. Aixela (1996) ex­
plains that phonological and other forms
of adaptation were common in Spanish
translation up to the 1950s. Luca Manini
attests to a similar practice in Italian
translation, again up to the mid-twen­
tieth century (Manini 1996:171-173),
while Lia Wyler indicates concern in Bra­
zil today that translators not anglicize
Brazilian Portuguese through the use of
loanwords or English syntax (Wyler 2003:
10). Like many language cultures, Lithua­
nians are worried that the influence of
the English language within translated
literature may weaken the specificity of
the national language.
Within the context of East European
cultures, where this practice is tradi­
tional, the Lithuanian position is mod­
erate. In Czech and Latvian publish­
ing, for example, the names of foreign
authors on the coveVs of books are also
localized phonologically and gramma­
tically. For example, on Czech editions
of the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling
is given as "J.K. Rowlingova." In the
Soviet period, this was also common
practice in Lithuania: Grey Owl became
"Grėjus Aulis" (1958), Farley Mowat was
"Farlis Movėtas" (1973), Gabrielle Roy
was "Gabrielė Rua" (1978), Malcolm Lowry was "Malkolmas Lauris" (1986) and,
in a clear misunderstanding of how his
surname was pronounced, Morley Callaghan became "Morlis Kalagenas" (1989).
This particular error illuminates the con­
stricted world in which Soviet transla­
tors from English worked, cut off as they
were from most normal channels of com­
munication with the cultures and authors
they were translating. In the 1990s, with
political independence and a literary
market free of many earlier restrictions,
the practice of lithuanianizing authors'
names on book covers was quietly
dropped, though within the text this form
of localization of names continues to be
the norm for the names of characters.
Even inside the text Lithuanian trans­
lators adapt names less in one respect
than, for example, the Czech, as they do
not add the standard endings on wo­
men's surnames which distinguish mar­
ried from unmarried women. For Lithua­
nian translators the common practice is
to add case endings only to the first
name of a female character. For exam­
ple, in Petrauskas' translatin of The Blind
Assassin, the main characters are two
sisters, Laura and Iris Chase. Their names
are localized as "Lora" and "Airisė Čeis."
Male characters, on the contrary, have
both names given case endings (for
example, Richard Griffen in this novel
becomes "Ričardas Grifenas").
Another kind of localization that is
very commonly found in these transla­
tions of Canadian texts concerns sys­
tems of measurement. The metric sys­
tem has long been in force in Lithuania,
though words like colls (inch), peda
(foot), jardas (yard) and mylia (mile),
which are never used to indicate mea­
surements, survive in dictionaries as
loanwords from an earlier period. This
does not mean that these words com­
municate any precise meaning to most
Lithuanians today. The Canadian situa­
tion is more complex, with both the of­
ficial metric system and the unofficial
older British or imperial system of mea­
sure existing side by side in the last
several decades. While only an older
generation of Canadians understand
what a pint or gallon is, and distances
are measured only in kilometers, inches,
feet and yards still appear in Canadian
Milda Danytė
LITHUANIAN TRANSLATIONS OF CANADIAN LITERATURE
speech and writing. Moreover, close
contacts with the United States of Ame­
rica means that Canadians frequently
encounter the older system.
Given that Canadian culture tolerates
a mingling of systems of measurement,
it is not surprising that in recent fiction
one finds inches and feet on one page
and centimeters and metres on another.
In the texts examined, Lithuanian trans­
lators have felt free to switch from one
system to another or not as seemed best
in each particular instance. For example,
in Brad's Universe, Mary Woodbury gives
distances when the characters drive in a
car or on a bicycle in kilometers (for
example, W o o d b u r y 1998: 2 5 - 2 6 ; 5 4 ) ,
while the astronomic calculations that
fascinate Brad appear more often in
miles (Woodbury 1998: 24 ) . Vergilijus
Čepliejus generally translates each item
as it comes, only rarely converting the
older system to metric measurement.
When he does this, it is presumably
because he wishes to be sure his readers
get a clear picture of what is being de­
scribed. For example. Brad's father is a
very tall man, expressed in the source
text as "a six-foot man" (Woodbury
1998:14). Here Čepliejus localizes the
measurements, with Brad reflecting about
the man he has not seen for a long time
and finds hard to describe: "apie kone
dvimetrinį vyriškį" (back-translation:
about a man of approximately two me­
tres) (Čepliejus 2001:16).
Similarly, Ugnė Vitkutė does not al­
ter the reference to feet in translating
the title of Katherine Holubitsky's no­
vel for teenagers. Alone at Ninety Fool.
"Ninety Foot" is the name of a steepsided ravine in the Rocky Mountains
with water rushing through it. Vitkutė
uses addition to explain that this place
has a pool or damned-up area of water,
but leaves the measurement system as it
is: Vienatvė prie Devyniasdešmties Pedų
209
tvenkinio (back-translation: solitude at
Ninety-Foot Pool). She gives no expla­
nation of how high ninety feet are, though
some pages later, she does use addition
in the form of a footnote to explain how
many metres 160 feet constitute (Vit­
kutė 2002: 31).
More radical forms of localization are
labeled transformation by Eirlys Davies
(2003). She sees these as instances in
which the original name or culture-spe­
cific item is changed in translation in a
way that "could be seen as an alteration
or distortion of the original" (Davies 2003:
86). Such a strategic decision, Davies
suggests, is made when a translator ju­
dges that the cultural reference is too
puzzling for the target readers but can­
not be left out entirely (Davies 2003:
86). Although it is not always easy to
distinguish instances of transformation
from those of localization, transforma­
tion inevitably changes meaning to a far
greater extent than localization or glo­
balization, for it supplies a culture-spe­
cific item that has its own implications
and suggestiveness, ones that were not
intended by the original author.
Lithuanian translators use transforma­
tion most often in the cases of meaning­
ful names. Although most of the names
in the Canadian texts that were examined
are non-meaningful, there are some ex­
ceptions, especially when dealing with
nicknames. For example, in Atwood's
The Blind Assassin the girls call one of
their governesses "Miss Violence." Val­
das V. Petrauskas turns this into "pa­
nelė Ragana" (Miss Witch), which is ap­
propriate to the character, but has a dif­
ferent resonance. In the novel Alone at
Ninety Foot, the pupils give the derisive
nickname "Wally the W h i z " to their
awkward but intellectually clever ma­
thematics teacher (Holubitsky 2001: 40).
Vitkutė effectively transforms this as
"Proto Gumbas" (literally, lump of brain)
210
VERTIMO MENAS
(Vitkuė 2002: 40). Excellent exanaples of
the use of this strategy are to be found
in Petrauskas' masterly translation of
Atwood's Oryx and Crake, a science-fic­
tion novel depicting a future world full
of genetically engineered hybrid animals.
Atwood invents names for these crea­
tures, and Petrauskas proves very re­
sourceful at finding convincing Lithua­
nian versions.
A particularly interesting cross-cultural
problem is raised by the translation of
the unusual first name of the main char­
acter in Ellen Schwartz' teen novel Starshine! In the opening chapter the girl
explains how much she hates the name
"Starshine" which her hippie parents
invented for her at birth, calling it ugly
and explaining how children at school
make fun of her. Ina Marčiulionytė finds
a good equivalent for it, "Žvaigždunė",
incorporating the meaningful element
"star" ("žvaigždė" in Lithuanian). The
problem is that, unlike Canadian En­
glish culture, Lithuanian culture not only
tolerates but likes meaningful names for
girls, especially those referring to na­
ture. Thus the Lithuanian teen readers
of this novel may be puzzled by Starshine's deep discomfort, as their own
names are likely to also contain refe­
rences to natural phenomena: for exam­
ple, Auksė (gold). Aušra (dawn). Audra
(storm), Vasarė (summer). Miglė (mist).
Vakarė (evening) and so on.
Using Davies' categories does help
identify certain broad tendencies in
Lithuanian translation practice. StiU, as
Gideon Toury (2000) points out, the stra­
tegies used by a particular translator
"cannot be expected to be fully systemic.
Not only can his / her decision-making
be differently motivated in different
problem areas, but it can also be un­
evenly distributed throughout an assign­
ment" (Toury 2000: 208) The same con­
clusion is reached by Paulo Asadi and
Candace Seguinot (2005) in their study
of how professional translators work.
Moreover, there are many norms as­
sociated with the work of translators that
are not always sufficiently valued in
theoretical analysis. One of the most sig­
nificant, as Isabelle Desmidt (2003:174)
remarks, is the factor of time. In Lithua­
nia, where literary translators are poor:
ly paid and usually translate as a se­
cond job, it is imperative to work as
fast as possible. This means that many
translations are carried out rapidly with
only occasional forays to research a
culture-specific item. When such an item
can be located quickly in print or on­
line reference works, the translator can
choose to use whatever strategy seems
best. In many cases, however, when in­
formation about the item cannot be
found quickly, then it must either be
lithuanianized phonologically, omitted
or guessed at. Thus a large element of
chance enters the translation process.
The result is a text that seems based on
strategic choices on some pages and not
on others.
CONCLUSION
As the analysis has shown, the transla­
tion of Canadian literature into Lithua­
nian has expanded rapidly since renewed
political independence brought an end
to ideological censorship and instead
allowed a free-market publishing sys­
tem to develop. The readiness of the
Canadian government to fund transla­
tion also encourages publishers to take
up recent Canadian fiction, both for
adults and children. In this way, Cana­
dian literature, which occupied a very
minor and marginal place in the Lithua­
nian literary system in the interwar and
Soviet periods, while not as conspicuous
as, say, Scandinavian and French litera-
Milda Danytė
LITHUANIAN TRANSLATIONS OF CANADIAN LITERATURE
ture, now definitely figures among the
translated literature available to Lithua­
nian readers.
The image of Canada presented in these
translated texts has also changed since
the earlier period, when nature, wild
animals and Natives were the dominant
themes. Now Canada is most often de­
picted as a modern urban society. Some
texts also offer Lithuanians insights into
Canada's history.
The strategies used by Lithuanian
translators to deal with culture-specific
items in these texts have also changed
to some extent during the period stu­
died. Fidelity to the source text still re­
mains a basic principle of Lithuanian
translation practice, with more aggres­
sive strategies like omission and trans­
211
formation less used than ones like addi­
tion and localization. Still, even here the
sense that translation in Lithuania to­
day is in a transitional phase is felt. In
general, from norms that require trans­
lators to domesticate texts, Lithuanians,
especially younger translators, are mo­
ving to a qualified kind of foreignization which preserves more and more
elements of the English language.
This analysis has been a preliminary
one which overviews translation of Ca­
nadian literature into Lithuanian. Fur­
ther studies, especially ones that focus
more closely on the work of particular
translators and specific texts, are needed
to reveal more about the delicate pro­
cess by which Canadian culture enters
the Lithuanian cultural system.
PRIMARY SOURCES
A d a m a v i č i ū t ė , A. 1 9 7 8 . Netikėta laimė. Transla­
tion of Bonheur d'occasion by Gabrielle Roy.
Vilnius: Vaga.
Bėkštienė, Vida. 2 0 0 5 . Metro peliukas. Transla­
tion of The Subway Mouse by Barbara Reid.
Vilnius: Gimtasis žodis.
Čepliejus, Virgilijus. 2 0 0 1 . Bredo visata. T r a n s ­
lation of Brad's Universe by M a r y W o o d b u r y .
Vilnius: M a ž a s i s v y t u r y s .
Cidzikaitė, Dalia and A u š r a Veličkaitė. 2 0 0 3 .
Glėbys. Trans, of The Embrace by Irene Guil­
ford. Vilnius: Baltos lankos.
Holubitsky, Katherine. 2 0 0 1 . Alone at Ninety
Foot. Victoria, C a n a d a : O r c a Books.
Kaslauskaitė, J ū r a t ė . 2 0 0 1 . Sugrįžimas. Trans,
of Surfacing by M a r g a r e t A t w o o d . Kaunas:
Gardenija.
Kudirkaitė, Kristina. 2002. Atsitiktinė
našlaitė.
Trans, of The Accidental Orphan by C o n s t a n c e
H o r n e . Vilnius: Mažasis v y t u r y s .
Juškienė, Jūratė. 2000.Atmintis
bcgle. Transla­
tion of Fugitive Pieces by A n n e M i c h a e l s .
Vilnius: Charibde.
I-ittle, Jean. 2 0 0 1 . Orphan at My Door: The Home
Child Diary of Victoria Cope. M a r k h a m , C a n a ­
da: Scholastic C a n a d a .
Liūtas. V.1997. Svajonių namai. Trans, of Anne's
House of Dreams by L . M . M o n t g o m e r y . Kau­
nas: Tyrai.
Marčiulionytė, Ina. 2 0 0 5 . Žvaigždunė. Trans, of
Starshinel By Ellen S c h w a t z . Vilnius: G i m t a ­
sis Žodis.
Mažonienė, Edita. 2 0 0 4 . Pi gyvenimas. Trans, of
Life of Pi by Y a n n Martel. Kaunas: J o t e m a .
Michaels, A n n e . 1 9 9 6 . Fugitive Pieces. Toronto:
McClelland and Stewart.
Petrauskas, V a l d a s V. 1996. Anglų ligonis. Trans,
of The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.
Vilnius: Tyto alba.
P e t r a u s k a s , V a l d a s V. 1 9 9 7 . Šventųjų
gyveni­
mai. Trans, of Lives of the Saints by Nino Ricci.
Vilnius: T y t o alba.
Petrauskas, Valdas V. 1999.Grns . Trans, of Alias
Grace by Margaret A t w o o d . Vilnius: Tyto Alba.
Petrauskas, Valdas V. 2 0 0 0 . Geismai.. Trans, of
Soifs by Marie-Claire Blais. Vilnius: Tyto alba.
Petrauskas, Valdas V. 2002. Dailininkas.. Trans,
of The Underpainter by Jane U r q u h a r t . Vilnius:
A l m a littera.
P e t r a u s k a s , V a l d a s V. 2 0 0 3 . Aklasis
žudikas.
Trans, of The Blind Assasin by M a r g a r e t At­
w o o d . Vilnius: A l m a littera.
Petrauskas, Valdas V. 2 0 0 4 . Oriksė ir Gricžlys.
Trans, of Oryx and Crake. Vilnius: Alma littera.
212
VERTIMO MENAS
P t a k a u s k a i t ė , A i s t ė . 2 0 0 5 . Žavus
nevykėliai.
Trans, of Beautiful Losers by L e o n a r d Cohen.
Vilnius: Baltos lankos.
Ricci, Nino. 1 9 9 5 . Lives of the Saints. Dunvegan,
C a n a d a : C o r m o r a n t Books.
Simanavičiūtė, A u š r a . 2 0 0 5 a . Gyvenimas po Die­
vo. T r a n s , of Life After God b y D o u g l a s
C o u p l a n d . Vilnius): Tyto alba.
Simanavičiūtė, A u š r a . 2005b. X karta. Trans, of
Generation X by Douglas C o u p l a n d . Vilnius:
Tyto alba.
T a u r a g i e n ė , Violeta. 1 9 8 6 . Vulkano
papėdėje.
T r a n s , of Under the Volcano b y M a l c o l m
L o w r y . Vilnius: V a g a .
Urquhart, Jane. 1997. The Underpainter. T o r o n ­
to: McClelland and Stewart.
Venskevičiūtė, leva. 2002. Džeinės dukra. Trans.
Janey's Girl by Gayle Friesen. Vilnius: Mažasis
Vyturys.
Venskevičiūtė, Ieva. 2 0 0 5 . Našlaičiai mano na­
muose: Viktorijos Koup dienoraštis.
T r a n s , of
Orphan at My Door by Jean Little. Vilnius:
Gimtasis žodis.
Vitkutė, U g n ė . 2 0 0 2 . Vienatvė pries
Devynias­
dešimties Pedų tvenkinio.
Trans. Of Alone at
Ninety Foot. Vilnius: Mažasis v y t u r y s .
W o o d b u r y , M a r y . 1 9 9 8 . Brad's Universe. Victo­
ria, C a n a d a : O r c a Book.
SECONDARY SOURCES
A i x e l a , J a v i e r F r a n c o . 1 9 9 6 . Culture-specific
Items in Translation.. Translations, Power, Sub­
version. E d . R o m a n A l v a r e z a n d M. C a r m e n Africa Vidal. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual
Matters.
Asadi, Paula and C a n d a c e Seguinot. 2005.
Shortcuts, Strategies and General P a t t e r n s in
a P r o c e s s S t u d y of N i n e Professionals. Meta
50: 5 2 2 - 5 4 7 .
Baker, Mona. 1 9 9 2 . In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. London: Routledge.
D a n y t ė , Milda 1 9 9 9 . C h a n g i n g Directions in
C o m p a r a t i v e Literature:Historical and Criti­
cal Analysis. Darbai ir Dienos 8: 2 5 - 4 6 .
Davies, Eirlys E . 2 0 0 3 . A Goblin or a Dirty
N o s e ? The T r e a t m e n t of Culture-Specific Ref­
erences In Translations of the H a r r y Potter
Books. The Tratjslator 9: 6 5 - 9 9 .
Desmidt, Isabelle. 2 0 0 3 . 'Jetzt bist du in Deut­
schland, Däumling.' Nils Holgersson on F o r ­
eign Soil - Subject to N e w N o r m s . Meta 4 8 :
165-181.
H e r v e y , Sandor and Ian Higgins. 2002. Think­
ing French Translation: A Course in Translation
Method: French to English. 2"'' ed. L o n d o n and
N e w York: Routledge.
Inggs, Judith. 2 0 0 3 . F r o m H a r r y to Garri: Strat­
egies for the Transfer of C u l t u r e and Ideolo­
gy in Russian Translations of T w o English
F a n t a s y Stories. Meta 48: 2 8 5 - 2 9 7 .
K o r s u k o v a , Viktorija. 2 0 0 5 . The Place of T r a n s ­
lation in the L i t h u a n i a n C h i l d r e n ' s Book
Market. M.A. thesis. Kaunas: V y t a u t a s M a g ­
nus University.
L e p p i h a l m e , R i t v a . 1 9 9 7 . Culture Bumps: An
Empirical Approach to the Translation of Allu­
sions. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual M a t t e r s .
Manini, Luca. 1996. Meaningful
Literary
N a m e s : Their F o r m s and Functions and Their
Translation. The Translator 2: 1 6 1 - 1 7 8 .
M a t u z e v i č i u s , Eugenijus. 1 9 8 0 . Pirmieji ledai
pralaužti ... Meninio vertimo problemos. E d . E .
Matuzevičius and A. Valionis. Vilnius: V a g a .
N e d e r g a a r d - L a r s e n , Birgit. 1 9 9 3 . C u l t u r e B o u n d P r o b l e m s in Subtitling.
Perspectives:
Studies in Translatology 2: 2 0 7 - 2 4 1 .
N o r d , Christiane. 2 0 0 3 . P r o p e r N a m e s in T r a n s ­
lations for Children: Alice in Wonderland as a
Case in Point. Meta 4 8 : 1 8 2 - 1 9 6 .
T o u r y , Gideon. 2 0 0 0 . The N a t u r e and Role of
N o r m s in Translation. The Translation
Studies
Reader. Ed. L a w r e n c e Venuti. London: Rout­
ledge.
T y m o c z k o , Maria. 1 9 9 9 . Translation in a Postco­
lonial Context. Manchester: St J e r o m e .
Venuti, L a w r e n c e . 2 0 0 1 . Strategies of T r a n s l a ­
tion. Routledge E n c y c l o p e d i a of Translation
Studies. E d . Mona Baker and Kirsten Malmkjaer. L o n d o n and N e w York: Routledge.
Vinay, J . P . and J . Barbelnet. 1 9 5 8 . Stylistique
compare du français et de l'anglais: méthode de
Traduction. Paris: Didier.
W y l e r , Lia. 2 0 0 3 . H a r r y P o t t e r for Children,
T e e n a g e r s and Adults. Mcta 48: 5 - 1 4 .
G a u t a 2 0 0 6 03 0 6
Parengta 2 0 0 6 0 3 14
Milda Danytė
L I T H U A N I A N T R A N S L A T I O N S OF C A N A D I A N LITERATURE
213
Milda D A N Y T Ė
KANADOS LITERATŪROS VERTIMAI
Istorinė ir kultūrinė analizė
S a n t r a u k a
Lietuvoje K a n a d o s literatūros v e r t i m o istorija
jau skaičiuoja 75 m e t u s . Išverstos 4 5 k n y g o s .
Šiame straipsnyje apžvelgiami šios istorijos ypa­
tumai, apibūdintos vertėjų strategijos verčiant
v a r d u s ir kultūrines aliuzijas į lietuvių kalbą.
T a r p u k a r i u išversti tik trys kūriniai, atspin­
dintys a n u o m e t i n į K a n a d o s k u l t ū r o s įvaizdį
pasaulyje kaip laukinės g a m t o s , gyvulių, indė­
nų karalystę. P e r kone penkias dešimtis sovie­
tinės s a n t v a r k o s m e t ų toks įvaizdis išliko, o
išverstų k n y g ų skaičius neviršijo 12. Čia gali­
ma įžvelgti ideologinę c e n z ū r ą , nes jau poka­
rio metais Kanadoje a t s i r a d o d a u g stiprių r a ­
šytojų, plačiai pasaulyje ž i n o m ų jų kūrinių; iš
jų tik G.Rua ir M . L a u r i o r o m a n a i byloja apie
moderniąją tos šalies kultūrą. Padėtis pasikei­
tė staiga, Lietuvai a t k ū r u s n e p r i k l a u s o m y b ę :
d a u g i a u kaip trisdešimtyje kūrinių suaugusiems
ir v a i k a m s K a n a d a dažniausiai iškyla kaip mies­
to gyventojų v i s u o m e n ė , išryškėjo tendencija
versti naujausius, y p a č p r e m i j u o t u s , r o m a n u s .
Straipsnyje, remiantis E.Davies ( 2 0 0 3 ) ter­
minologija ir kategorijomis, n u o d u g n i a u p a t y ­
rinėti d e v y n i naujai išleisti K a n a d o s rašytojų N i n o Ricci, A n n e Michaels, J a n e ' o U r g u h a r t o ,
Irenos Mačiulytės-Guilford, M a r g a r e t A t w o o d ,
L e o n a r d o C o h e n o , M a r y W o o d b u r y , Katherine
Holubitsky, J e a n o Little'o - kūriniai ir išanali­
z u o t o s v e r t i m ų strategijos. Pastebėta, kad d a ž ­
niausiai lietuvių vertėjai stengiasi perteikti vi­
są originalaus teksto kultūrinę informaciją ne­
paliekant neišverstų detalių. V a r d a i dažniausiai
fonologiškai ir g r a m a t i š k a i sulietuvinti. P a g a l
tradicinę L i e t u v o s praktiką išnašose paaiški­
n a m o s kultūrinės aliuzijos ir išverčiami sveti­
m o s kalbos žodžiai. P a s t e b i m a ir kita tenden­
cija, galbūt įtakojama V a k a r ų , palikti d a u g i a u
v a r d ų ir p a v a d i n i m ų , y p a č v i e t o v a r d ž i ų , ori­
ginalo r a š y b a .
Laisvosios rinkos sąlygomis k n y g ų paklausa
didėja, todėl neatsitiktinai p u s ė pastaraisiais
metais išverstų K a n a d o s kūrinių skirti v a i k a m s .
K a n a d a , kaip ir Skandinavijos šalys, Vokietija,
Prancūzija, skatina s a v o literatūros v e r t i m u s ,
s k i r d a m o s finansinę p a r a m ą v e r t ė j a m s ir lei­
dėjams.