From Voluptuous Pleasure to Voluptés: Delving into the Literary Translation Process

As a literary translator, I am both a reader and a rewriter of the source texts. It is thus the very nature of my work to straddle the so-called “creative-critical divide.” This paper aims at giving a hands-on account of how the creative-critical divide impacts on my translation work. It focuses on my translation of three stories by Toronto author Marianne Apostolides where bodily/sexual tension was most present: “What We Do For Money,” “Coming of Age” and “Like a Cat.” Drawing from the principles of research-creation and genetic translation studies, I retrace my creative process from reading and interpreting to rewriting the texts in French by examining various drafts produced over several months, as well as verbalizing and categorizing my own feelings toward the original text and my translations.