SE, BERÄTTA OCH LYSSNA PÅ MARANSKA

Abstract

In this work, I reflect on my own translation into Swedish of the Armenian-born author Narine Abgaryan's Russian-language novel Three Apples Fell from the Sky. Tentatively, I place the novel alongside a Russian-language manuscript consisting of petitions from 17th- century Ingria and argue about questions that these widely differing text types give rise to. In this line of argument, key parts are played by the mediating bodies: the author, the scribe, the translator. A recurrent question is what happens when you write about a people and a culture in a language that is not the mother tongue of the people you portray. Aspects of the literary work such as cultural specificities, rhetoric and voices are discussed from the translator's perspective.