Genre in translation

reframing Patagonia express

Susanne Klinger

pp. 83-105

in: Jean Boase-Beier, Lina Fisher, Hiroko Furukawa (eds), The Palgrave handbook of literary translation, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

Luis Sepúlveda's Patagonia Express narrates how he became a political activist, his years in prison following Pinochet's coup in 1973, his life in exile, and his return to Patagonia many years later. It is thus both a political memoir and a travelogue. A look at customer reviews on Amazon regarding the English and the Italian translation of Patagonia Express reveals a noticeable contrast when it comes to the perceived complexity of the text. In this chapter Klinger argues that in both cases a genre disambiguation occurred and that the different ways in which this disambiguation has been achieved can explain this contrast in perceived complexity. For this, it will investigate how textual and paratextual aspects reframe Patagonia Express.