The Politics of Translating Science Fiction. An Analysis of Translated Anglo-American Science Fiction in Italy (1950s - 1970s)

The main objective of this thesis is to examine the relationship between the translation of popular literature and socio-cultural practices and formations, explored through the case study of Anglo-American science fiction translated into Italian between the 1950s and 1970s. The thesis starts with an examination of how popular literature has been defined, arguing that its low cultural status has consequences in relation to its translation, both in terms of textual practices and social dynamics. It then moves on to consider the genre of science fiction (SF), focusing on its development in Italy and showing how translation and other types of rewriting (Lefevere, 1992a) played a role in constructing different images of the genre at different moments in the history of SF in Italy. Chapter II looks at the way in which science fiction was presented and interpreted by its first publishers, editors and critics during the 1950s. Chapter III examines the anthology of translated science fiction Le meraviglie del possibile (1959), arguing that the collection had a key role in starting a process of legitimization of the genre in Italy. Chapter IV and Chapter V focus on the production of science fiction in the troubled decade of the 1970s, looking at how new book-series and SF magazines used paratextual elements and translation to reconceptualise SF as proper literature and as a medium for social and political criticism. Informed by cultural and sociological approaches to the study of translation (Hermans, 1985, 1999; Bassnett & Lefevere, 1998; Wolf and Fukari, 2007) and using a variety of methodological tools (comparative textual analysis, paratextual analysis, multimodality), the thesis shows how the translation of science fiction in Italy became the symbolic terrain of a power struggle between different groups and individuals who used the genre to express their ideas about society, literature and politics