Literary Translation and the Making of Originals engages such issues as the politics and ethics of translation; how aesthetic categories and market forces contribute to the establishment and promotion of particular "originals"; and the role translation plays in the formation, re-formation, and deformation of national and international literary canons. By challenging the assumption that stable originals even exist, Karen Emmerich also calls into question the tropes of ideal equivalence and unavoidable loss that contribute to the low status of translation, translations, and translators in the current literary and academic marketplaces.

The concept of translation has become central to postcolonial theory in recent decades, offering as it does a useful metaphor or metonym for many of the processes explored within the framework of postcolonial studies. Translation proper, however, remains relatively underexplored and, in many postcolonial multilingual contexts, underexploited. Texts are often read in translation without much attention being paid to the inevitable differences that open up between an original and its translation(s), the figure of the translator remains shadowy, if not invisible, and the particular languages involved in translation in postcolonial societies often still reflect colonial power dynamics. This volume draws together reflections by translators, authors and academics working across three broad geographical areas where the linguistic legacies of French colonial operations are long-lasting and complex, namely Africa, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. The perspectives that emerge move beyond traditional views of translation as loss or betrayal and towards a more positive outlook, highlighting the potential for translation to enrich the lives of readers, translators and authors alike, to counter some of the destructive effects of globalisation, and to promote linguistic diversity. In addition, translation is shown to be a most valuable tool in revealing the dynamics and pressures that are relevant to the political and economic contexts in which books are written, read and sold.

Goethe in 1827 famously claimed that national literatures did not mean very much anymore, and that the epoch of world literature was at hand. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, in the so-called "transnational turn" in literary studies, interest in world literature, and in how texts move beyond national or linguistic boundaries, has peaked. The authors of the 18 articles making up Literary Transnationalism(s) reflect on how literary texts move between cultures via translation, adaptation, and intertextual referencing, thus entering the field of world literature. The texts and subjects treated range from Caribbean, American, and Latin American literature to European migrant literatures, from the uses of pseudo-translations to the organizing principles of world histories of literature, from the dissemination of knowledge in the middle ages to circulation of literary journals and series in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Contributors include, amongst others, Jean Bessiere, Johan Callens, Reindert Dhondt, Cesar Dominguez, Erica Durante, Ottmar Ette, Kathleen Gyssels, Reine Meylaerts, and Djelal Kadir. Authors discussed comprise, amongst others, Carlos Fuentes, Ernest Hemingway, Edouard Glissant.

This volume celebrates the scholarship of Professor Johan C. Thom by tackling various important topics relevant for the study of the New Testament, such as the intellectual environment of early Christianity, especially Greek, Latin, and early Jewish texts, New Testament apocrypha and other early Christian writings, as well as Greek grammar. The authors offer fresh insights on philosophical texts and traditions, the cultural repertoire of early Christian literature, critical editions, linguistics and interpretation, and comparative analyses of ancient writings.

This book develops interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to analyzing the cross-cultural travels of traditional Chinese fiction. It ties this genre to issues such as translation, world literature, digital humanities, book culture, and images of China. Each chapter offers a case study of the historical and cultural conditions under which traditional Chinese fiction has traveled to the English-speaking world, proposing a critical lens that can be used to explain these cross-cultural encounters. The book seeks to identify connections between traditional Chinese fiction and other cultures that create new meanings and add to the significance of reading, teaching, and studying these classical novels and stories in the English-speaking world. Scholars, students, and general readers who are interested in traditional Chinese fiction, translation studies, and comparative and world literature will find this book useful.