Arta Traducerii: Literatura română interbelică și contemporană tradusă în limba bulgară – aspecte practice
The Art of Translation: Interwar and contemporary Romanian literature translated into Bulgarian - practical aspects

Summary/Abstract: The novels I have translated from Romanian into Bulgarian are set between the wars and in our times. While the original and translated texts from the former span about 100 years, with the latter, it is a case of translating writers who are our contemporaries. The two epochs – the 1920s through 1930s and the years after 2010– mark the beginnings of new centuries and despite certain similarities, contained in the larger notion of modernity, these epochs also feature several national and cultural differences. By contrast, with the writers of our times, it is rather the complexity of reproducing the style of the respective author that may create difficulties. Regardless of the epoch of the source, the linguistic transference from the source into the target language inevitably deals with the cultural specifics therein and as a result is challenged to render differences in poetics, vocabulary, syntax, etc. This article presents some of the challenges I have encountered and the decisions I have made based on studies in comparative literature and translation theory as well as on my instincts of a person who has translated 21 novels – all from Romanian into Bulgarian with a single exception of one from Bulgarian into English. It also explores the correspondence of etymological cognates between the two languages and epochs.

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