Kosinski’s Novel <i>The Painted Bird</i> in Thirteen Languages

True to Life? Some Remarks on a Dutch Translation of Jerzy Kosinski’s the Painted Bird

“…As such, when compared to certain other translations of The Painted Bird the Dutch rendering remains extremely close to the original work -for example, the German version of the novel omits pointed commentaries regarding the Nazis and their ideology which are present in the English source text (Harmon, 2022c). However, as illustrated above, small additions and amendments are present in the translated Dutch version.…”

“…Turning to the nameless Central European country where the plot of The Painted Bird takes place, the Dutch translation adheres to the original version and makes no explicit references to any one nation. This is unlike in certain other versions -for example, in the case of the translation into German (Harmon, 2022c) -where evidently a clear translation decision was taken to identify the country where the novel's action takes place as "Poland." The local populace, who are TRUE TO LIFE?…”

“…Although Dutch-speaking Europe suffered greatly under Nazi occupation during the Second World War (as exemplified in Bart van Es's Costa Prize-winning memoir cataloguing the experiences of his family during that time (van Es, 2018)), and even though Anne Frank's famous diary (Frank, 2019(Frank, [1952), the world's best-known work of Holocaust literature, was written in Amsterdam, for the purposes of this wider research project neither The Netherlands nor Belgium can be considered "involved' cultures. Rather, as delineated by Harmon (2022b), the usage of the term in the present contribution denotes those Central and East European cultures featured, whether directly or not, in the plot and characterisation of The Painted Bird. Hence, the Dutch translation belongs squarely to those versions regarded as representative of "detached" cultures (Harmon, 2022b).…”

“…Rather, as delineated by Harmon (2022b), the usage of the term in the present contribution denotes those Central and East European cultures featured, whether directly or not, in the plot and characterisation of The Painted Bird. Hence, the Dutch translation belongs squarely to those versions regarded as representative of "detached" cultures (Harmon, 2022b).…”

“…Given that linguistic and cultural aspects infuse the novel's events to a significant degree, the main focus of this contribution builds on a recent publication which compares and contrasts the translations of The Painted Bird from English into a range of tongues (Harmon, 2022a). Using examples from a range of different languages, that study explores the portrayals of certain events and themes in the novel through the prism of translation, seeking to analyse the differences between the translations from English into the languages of the socalled "involved" cultures -that is, for example, German, Polish, and Russian -with those translations into "detached" languages -i.e., from those countries not directly portrayed in the novel's events.…”