Literary Translation as Part of the Writer-Translator: Interferences and Analogies

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to clarify the most important aspects of a writer-cum-translator’s  inspiration drawn from the translation of foreign (mainly Russian) literary works. As a translator, Tommaso Landolfi interpreted the original text, but as a writer he understood that it was necessary to create new relationships of various kinds in the rewording of the original text, with the resulting text becoming part of a new tradition. He foretold what modern translatological research would only arrive at several decades later: that translation is an autonomous, creative literary “genre” and a dynamic output in a distinct socio-cultural context with special cultural value.