A Woman’s Voice: Methods and Obstacles of Feminist Translation in Persian, Spanish, and Turkish Poetry

125 pagesOne feature of poetry is its ability to prompt words to create meaning in unusual ways. A striking example appears in a twentieth-century Persian poem, where a seemingly innocuous word like “hair” carries an unexpected meaning that inscribes gender in a language without gendered pronouns. Drawing from the area of inquiry of feminist translation theory, I track the work of three key poets: the Spanish Rosalía de Castro, the Persian Forugh Farrokhzad, and the Turkish Gülten Akın. I argue that feminist translation theory, when expanded beyond its current Eurocentric frame, reshapes conventional understandings of gender. This polyphonic project works to dismantle misogynistic aspects of patriarchal language through translation, and uses the process of transference to reclaim the “feminine” voice through women poets writing under cultural marginalization. At the same time, I offer my own alternative feminist translations as a means to examine the implications of transnational feminist translation for world literature writ large. My ambition for this project is thus additive and transformative of both feminist translation theory and poetics