Translations of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in France (1886–2015)

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’s presence in France went through three phases. The pioneering period started in 1886 and ended right after World War II. The single translation it produced bore the hallmarks of mass schooling and the set of values championed by the fledgling Third Republic. The expansion period, spanning the second half of the twentieth century, was characterized by the geopolitical context of the Cold War, the advent of the figure of the teenager, and the rise of the leisure society. Currently, the field is in a consolidating period brought about by the “centennial fever” spurred by the anniversary of Mark Twain’s death. Taking stock of the novel’s canonized status in its home country, publishers endeavored to focus on the original’s esthetic challenges and hired translators with expertise in nineteenth-century American literature and Mark Twain’s writings. They were able to pay even greater attention to the novel’s literary finesse and complexity. The first part of this article is devoted to the pioneering and expansion periods, based on previous scholarship. The second part is devoted to the consolidating period based on the latest findings presented in Véronique Channaut’s 2019 study of three major retranslations of Huckleberry Finn