Through close examination of references to gender identity, female sexuality and corporeality, this book is the first of its kind to shed light on the complexities of translating the recent transgressive turn in contemporary women’s writing in French. Via four case studies, namely, the translations into English of Nelly Arcan’s Putain (2001), Catherine Millet’s La Vie sexuelle de Catherine M. (2001), Nancy Huston’s Infrarouge (2010) and Nina Bouraoui’s Garçon manqué (2000), this book explores how transgressive topoi such as prostitution, anorexia, matrophobia, rape, female desire, and transgenderism are translated. The book considers how (auto)fictional female selves portrayed are dis/placed by translation at both a textual and paratextual level. Combining feminist phenomenological perspectives on female lived experience with feminist translation theory, this interdisciplinary study offers an insight into how the experiential is brought into language, how it journeys via language into new cultural contexts via translation and creates a dialogical space in which the subjectivities of those involved (author, narrator, protagonist, translator) become open to the porosity of encounters with alterity. The volume will appeal to scholars in translation studies, French Studies, and gender and sexuality studies, particularly those interested in feminist translation and literary translation.

Table of Contents:
Contents, Acknowledgements, Notice, Introduction, Acts of Displacement, Terming Transgressions, Defining Subjectivity: Gender, Sexuality and the Body, Slippery Subjects and Shifting Spaces: Autofictions and Paratexts, ‘Probing’ Translators and Translation, Overview, Chapter 1 - New Modalities in the Texts and Translations of Contemporary Women’s Writing in French, 1.1 Introduction, 1.2 The Experiential in Post 1968 Women’s Writing in French, 1.3 The Experimental in Quebec Feminist Writing, 1.4 Tracing Trends in Women’s Writing in French, 1.5 A New Millennial Modality, 1.6 Women in/ and Translation, 1.7 Feminist Translation: A Dialogue of Theory and Practice, 1.8 Feminist Translation Strategies, 1.9 Transgressive Textualities in Focus, 1.10 Conclusion, Chapter 2 – From Putain to Whore: Displacing Nelly Arcan’s Autofictional Self, 2.1 Introduction, 2.2 Nelly Arcan: Writing and Masquerade, 2.3 Arcan’s Putain, Benderson’s Whore, 2.4 Translating Sexuality: From Puberty to Prostitution, 2.5 Translating Gender: Identity and the Roots of Matrophobia, 2.6 Translating Corporeality: The Body, Beauty and Anorexia, 2.7 Facts and Fictions: The Authorial Body in Paratextual Translation, 2.8 Arcan’s Anglophone Other, 2.9 Conclusion, Chapter 3 - Translating the Textual/Sexual Self in Catherine Millet’s La Vie sexuelle de Catherine M., 3.1 Introduction, 3.2 Catherine M.’s Sexual Life: Transgression, Text, Testimony, 3.3 (Re)Writing the Body, 3.4 Differing Performances, Disturbing Passivity: Translating Catherine M.’s ‘Sexual Life’, 3.5 Translating the Body: Pussies, Cocks and Hollyhocks, 3.6 Engendering the Sexual Self in Translation, 3.7 ‘Transformance’: The Sexual Life of Adriana H., 3.8 Full-Frontal Framings: Translation and the gendered paratext, 3.9 Libertine or Lascivious? The reception of Catherine Millet and Catherine M., 3.10 Conclusion, Chapter 4 - Nancy Huston’s Body Bilingual: Translating Gender, Sexuality and Corporeality in Infrarouge, 4.1 Introduction, 4.2 Nancy Huston : ‘une fausse Française, une fausse Canadienne’, 4.3 Self-translation, Gender and the Body Bilingual, 4.4 From Infrarouge to Infrared: Sexuality and the inverted gaze, 4.5 Translating the Sexual Mother Tongue, 4.6 Translating Sexual Trauma, 4.7 Translating Sexual Experiences: From Reality to Fantasy, 4.8 Paratexts and the Desiring Gaze, 4.9 Nancy Huston and the Bad Sex Award, 4.10 Conclusion, Chapter 5 - Translating the Textual Terrains of the Self in Nina Bouraoui’s Garçon manqué, 5.1 Introduction, 5.2 Bouraoui’s Queering Autofictions, 5.3 Bringing Tomboy to Life: collaboration, conflict and creativity, 5.4 Translating Identity: Grammars and Geographies of Gender, 5.5 Translating the Ambiguous Body, 5.6 Translating Perceptions and Subversions of Sexuality, 5.7 Autofictional Slippages, Transitions and Feminist Paratranslation, 5.8 Rupture and Union: the Reception of Text and Translation, 5.9 Conclusion, Conclusion, Dynamic dis/placements, Translating Transgression: Gender, Translating Transgression: Sexuality, Translating Transgression: Corporeality, Paratexts: Gendered Frames, From Experimental to Explicit: Translating Women’s Writing in French, Final Thoughts, Index