This edited book addresses the diversity across time and space of the sites, actors and practices of feminist translation from 1945-2000. The contributors examine what happens when a politically motivated text is translated linguistically and culturally, the translators and their aims, and the strategies employed when adapting texts to locally resonating discourses. The collection aims to answer these questions through case studies and a conceptual rethinking of the process of politically engaged translation, considering not only trained translators and publishers, but also feminist activists and groups, NGOs and writers. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of translation studies, gender/women's studies, literature and feminist history.

This collection offers insights into the transnational and translingual implications of Simone de Beauvoir’s Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex), a text that has served as foundational for feminisms worldwide since its publication in 1949. Little scholarly attention has been devoted to how the original French-language source text made its way into languages other than English. This is a shocking omission, given that many (but by no means all) other translations were based on the 1953 English translation by Howard M. Parshley, which has been widely criticized by Beauvoir scholars for its omissions and careless attention to its philosophical implications. This volume seeks to fill this gap in scholarship with an innovative collection of essays that interrogate the ways that Beauvoir’s essay has shifted in meaning and significance as it has travelled across the globe. This volume brings together for the first time scholars from Translation Studies, Literary Studies and Philosophical Studies, and over half of it is dedicated to non-Western European engagements with Le Deuxième Sexe (including chapters on the Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hungarian and Polish translations). As such, this collection will be essential to any scholar of Beauvoir’s philosophy and its contributions to feminist discourses.

This edited book addresses the diversity across time and space of the sites, actors and practices of feminist translation from 1945-2000. The contributors examine what happens when a politically motivated text is translated linguistically and culturally, the translators and their aims, and the strategies employed when adapting texts to locally resonating discourses. The collection aims to answer these questions through case studies and a conceptual rethinking of the process of politically engaged translation, considering not only trained translators and publishers, but also feminist activists and groups, NGOs and writers. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of translation studies, gender/women's studies, literature and feminist history.