Original scientific paper
The Trappings of Translating Sergei Dovlatov's Humor & Language: The Short Story Collection The Suitcase
Dominik Mačković
Abstract
Sergei Dovlatov (1941 – 1990) is one of the most famous and beloved Russian Soviet-era writers of the mid-twentieth century. He is best-known for his humorous short stories and novels based on his life in the Soviet Union and the USA, where he emigrated in 1979, as part of the so-called Third Wave of Russian emigration. Settling in New York, he went on to work as a journalist, publish his works and gain wider attention for his writing. Even though he published more than a dozen books during his lifetime, he still remains largely unknown, underappreciated and under-translated in Croatian-language publications. His only translated work is the 1986 short story collection The Suitcase (Chemodan), published in 2013 as Kovčeg in the Croatian translation. Dovlatov’s writing is seemingly simplistic: his sentences are short and sparse, his language resembling that of everyday verbal communication, while his stories are funny, light-hearted at first glance and easy to follow. Behind the deceptive simplicity lie subtlety and richness, which become apparent as one delves deeper into his work and discovers the intentionality in Dovlatov’s unpolished style and a sophisticated, tragic view of human existence in his sense of humor. His terse, conversational style is difficult to translate, as it often hinges on the tone conveyed through almost experimental punctuation, a specific turn-of-phrase or obscure cultural references. Through analysing various examples in the only Croatian translation we have of his work, we sought to explicate and showcase the nature and value of his artistry as such.
Keywords
Sergei Dovlatov; The Suitcase; Croatian translation; skaz; syntax; humor
Hrčak ID:
311838
URI
Publication date:
20.12.2023.
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