Literary Translation as a Medium of Travelling Memory

Abstract

Memory has been one of the main topics of universal literature, and nowadays postmemorial prose is an important trend in Polish literature. This leads to the question whether the specific character of this literature poses a distinctive challenge for translators, and consequently, whether its translations should be treated as a separate issue within the field of translation studies. In turn, the latest research on memory shows that contemporary societies are built of numerous social groups, which time and again have conflicting interests and consequently, cultivate different memory practices regarding the same past events. Memory is treated as a dynamic phenomenon, undergoing transformations through time and space, and hence is constantly actualised. There are five factors which determine the movement of memory: carriers, media, contents, practices and forms. Memory can "travel" thanks to various kinds of media, e.g. monuments. Another specific medium of memory is translation: it allows the contents of memory included in the source work to travel to another cultural space. This has allowed us to approach literary translation from a fresh perspective and developed a set of new research directions, which have been listed in this paper.