TRANSLATING THE ZEITGEIST: ZEROCALCARE’S GRAPHIC NOVELS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Abstract

This paper investigates the problem of transferring cultural elements in literary translation. The issue is primarily examined on examples of the Bosnian translation of references from popular culture in the graphic novels of the Italian comic book author Zerocalcare. Two groups of cultural expressions were analysed: national cultural expressions, related to the Italian cultural environment, and generational cultural expressions, related to members of a certain age, not a territory. Given that the author, in his autobiographical narrative approach, makes extensive use of references from popular culture, which evoke in the reader a sense of collective belonging to the same community, the translation analysis aims to examine the strategies used in the translations of Zerocalcare's graphic novels in Bosnia and Herzegovina to show the importance of transferring the same ʻspirit of the ageʼ that prevails in the author's original poetics to the target language.

Keywords

• Zerocalcare
• graphic novel
• Italian language
• translation
• popular culture
• transculture