“Jedna dobra priča, baš ta” pod lupom “divljeg istoka”
"One Good Story, That One” Under the Eyes of the “Wild East”

Summary/Abstract: This paper problematizes textualization of oral and ritual discourse, as well as their hybridizing with the written element, on the example of the short story “One Good Story, That One”, by Native American author Thomas King. We describe King’s writing as a delicate translation performance during which a word that once existed only as spoken, addressing a tribal ear that attended to it ceremonially, is now offered to the perception and an aesthetical judgment of an existential eye used to western literary standards, as Keneth Lincoln interprets the translation process from oral to written text. Apart from the formal implications, we also address ideological aspects of the translation practice and define this work as an anti-imperial translation, which, as Arnold Krupat judges, should respect the spirit of the source language and test the tolerance of the target language for the intrusion of new forms. Finally, we will discuss what happens with this complex structure in the hands of a Montenegrin translator.

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