Literary entanglement: the collapse of power dynamics in subversive translations and source texts

This thesis investigates how literature and its translation negotiate marginalised subjectivities by examining the intersections of identity and power across three case studies: Clarice Lispector’s A Hora da Estrela and its translations into English The Hour of the Star by Giovanni Pontiero (UK) first and Benjamin Moser (US) later; Ali Smith’s How to Be Both and its translation into Catalan, Com Ser-ho Alhora by Maria Dolors Udina i Abelló; and Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s La Virgen Cabeza and its US English Slum Virgin by Frances Riddle. The project poses the question: How these novels and their translations explore issues of identity and power dynamics through a contemporary feminist lens? Working within Feminist and Queer Translation Studies, the project combines literary textual analysis with comparative analysis, through queer and feminist frameworks. It foregrounds translation as a site of cultural negotiation affected by market expectations and the active agents’ positionalities, all shaping the representation of marginalised ontologies in the text. By examining both source and translated texts, the study highlights how translational effects expand, sustain, attenuate, and reconfigure the subversive strategies of the source texts. The findings reveal significant divergences in translational practice. Pontiero and Moser, while differing in approach, both feminise Lispector’s protagonist and weaken aspects of her radical subversion to different degrees; Abelló’s translation of Smith sustains and amplifies the novel’s destabilising effects, particularly through complex handling of grammatical gender; and Riddle’s Slum Virgin both amplifies the disruptive characteristics of Cabezón Cámara’s novel and reveals marked inconsistencies, demonstrating racial sensitivity but a limited engagement with queer specificity. These case studies illustrate how translations intervene in the politics of representation, reshaping the subversive potential of feminist and queer writing across cultural contexts. Ultimately, the project demonstrates that translation is a critical practice deeply implicated in the negotiation of identity and power. The ethical stakes of translational strategies and their role in mediating feminist and queer resistance across linguistic and cultural borders is central to the discussion, and it leads to an advocacy for translation practices that are dynamic, inclusive, and attuned to marginalised voices, positioning translation as a tool for social justice.