Translating children’s literature: what, for whom, how, and why. A basic map of actors, factors and contexts

Abstract

This article presents a systematic look at the different actors, factors, and contexts involved in the field of translating children’s literature. Taking as its point of departure the somewhat provocative question “Why translate children’s literature?”, it goes on to parse the three component parts. “Why?” involves looking at the motivation and interests of the various human and non-human actors (publishing houses, organizations, translators etc), as well as the complex interplay of geopolitical, economic, and cultural factors on publishing and literary transfer. Of the verb “translate” is asked “for whom?”, to examine questions of address and its role in translation, and then “how?”, to discuss determinants, strategies, and tendencies in translating children's literature. “Children’s literature”, the object of the translation activity, will be looked closely in response to the question “what?”, to illustrate the heterogeneity of its corpus and to show that it encompasses more genres and forms than are commonly featured in studies of translated children’s literature. The overall goal of the article is to provide a basic map of this complex field.

Keywords

• translation studies. children’s literature. actors. addressees. map.