Pinar Kür as a Bold Female Translator: Translating Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class for a Turkish Audience

Abstract

Simone de Beauvoir declares that “one is not born, but rather becomes a woman” and this process incorporates an acculturation where the woman acquires a specific perspective that separates her way of thinking from that of the men in her culture. This specific perspective that is attained by the woman will manifest itself even when that woman translates a text written by a male author. Pınar Kür’s translation of Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class (Shepard, 1977/2000) attacks, conquers, and recreates Shepard’s text to assert her voice as a Turkish woman in the translation process. Not only has her voice as a woman, but her Turkish background come into existence especially in her rendition of Ella, the mother in the play, for the Turkish audience. This study will reveal the subtle ways that Pınar Kür’s female, eastern voice sometimes overrides the male, western perspective offered through Shepard’s text.

Keywords

• Female voice
• Eastern voice
• Literature
• Culture