Between original and translation: Transcultural fiction and pseudotranslation in the eighteenth century

This article sets out to explore the specific functioning of transcultural prose fiction in eighteenth century France, as it shaped the emergence and spread of the novel (McMurran 2009) before the birth of the nation state, taking a selection of French pseudotranslations as a case in point. More specifically, the article focuses on the topos of the pseudotranslator’s defective multilingualism as it is commented upon in the paratext. If this recurring theme can be read – within the context of a specific work – as a prerequisite of the translator’s creativity and, therefore, the French novel’s originality, it also pertains to more general questions concerning the very role translation played in the emerging literary field of prose fiction. Hence, pseudotranslations enable us to shed new light on the very ethnocentric principles that informed the various forms of transcultural prose writing that shaped the “translative” literary field in the first part of the eighteenth century.status: publishe