From Suspicion to Trust: The ‘Pact of Translation’ in Two Author-Translator Collaborations

There is a vast literature showing that author-translator relationships are often fraught with tensions which undermine trust between the two parties (Anokhina 2017; Hersant, 2017, 2020). These tensions are hardly detectable from the sole comparison of source and target texts but are likely to be revealed in archival material such as editorial correspondence or revised translator’s typescripts and galley proofs. The examination of archival material makes it possible to observe how trust between translator and author develops and deepens, but also how it can be jeopardized when other intermediaries come into play. This paper focuses on documents taken from the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana Bloomington. Both epitextual sources (such as correspondence with publishers and authors) and genetic sources (such as translators’ manuscripts and notebooks) pertaining to translators William Weaver (1923-2012) and Barbara Wright (1915-2009) are examined, with a view to better understand the complex interplay of trust and mistrust that takes place in translation collaborations.