Pseudo-translation as a Subset of the Literary System: a Case Study

Abstract

Abstract
 Persian literature is replete with pseudo-translations to the extent that if one tried to compile a complete bibliography, it would turn into an unwieldy book. Most Persian pseudo-translations belong to Iranian political literature (Okhovat, 2006). As could be guessed, identifying pseudo-translations is not a simple task as their authors want readers to believe in the ‘translationness’ of these works for various reasons. One of the most famous Iranian pieces of pseudo-translations, whose original writer has recently claimed its authorship, is the famous (in Iran) Letter of Charlie Chaplin to his daughter Geraldine. The present article examines diverse aspects of this text, including its political, historical, cultural, and literary milieu of production, and provides a critical discourse analysis of this text and highlights the original author’s ideological stance as it is embedded in this purported foreign letter. The article concludes by surmising the reasons why this famous work was published as a translation, and how it is, that the original writer has claimed authorship after more than 30 years.