Leah Gerber

Building bridges, building a bibliography of Australian children's fiction in German translation 1854–2007

This paper traces the process of creating a comprehensive bibliography of Australian childrens novels translated into German. The exchange of literature between two cultures has often been expressed using the phrase, “books serve as bridges,” drawing on the idea that translation enables readers to access information that would otherwise be inaccessible. Building national bibliographies of translated literature is crucial to the recognition of existing bridges between cultures; the examination of a large body of national literature in translation allows for a deeper insight into some of the specific demands of translating literature for children, noting the prevailing trends and/or changes over time. In a wider context, the bibliography confirms the number of translations of Australian childrens literature into German and points to a range of trends pertaining to any clear preference for the translation of works by certain Australian authors, as well as for the translation of particular genres, themes, and so on. The compilation of this bibliography formed the basis of a larger study into the translation of Australian childrens fiction in German translation.

Australian Children’s Literature in German Translation: Historical Overview, Key Themes and Trends

By its very nature, literary production acts in response to the needs of its readers, in line with the social, cultural and political changes that occur within any society over time. As part of Gideon Toury’s ‘descriptive translation studies’ (DTS) model (1995–2012), translation scholars are invited to delve more deeply into the sociocultural conditions which shape translations into certain languages and cultures. In line with these models of analysis, many of the points made in this chapter illustrate the importance of social and cultural contexts (such as the operating mechanisms of different book markets and polysystems, including dominant politics and ideology) to translation exchange. As a first step, I explore the history of children’s literary translation from Australia to Germany, looking at the selection of fictional works (children’s and young adult novels) for translation during different periods, the development of the source market, the post-1945 period of division and change in the German target culture and the state of their literary interchange today. The focus then moves to the development of transnational exchanges since the start of the new millennium: what has been translated, and what pattern of cultural flow does it follow? (Much of the historical overview has been detailed in an earlier study. See Gerber, Leah. Tracing a Tradition: The Translation of Australian Children’s Fiction from 1945. St.Ingbert: Rohrig Universitatsverlag, 2014.).

The proof is in the puddin': The German translation of Norman Lindsay's The Magic Pudding

Gerber grapples with issues of translating an Australian classic book for children into German with a careful consideration of how names, food words, rhymes, and humor may or may not cross cultures across time.