A Critique of the Lithuanian Translation of William Faulkner’s Novel Light in August
A Critique of the Lithuanian Translation of William Faulkner’s Novel Light in August

Summary/Abstract: The first work by William Faulkner translated into Lithuanian was his short story “Sunset,” translated 36 years after the original was published. Translations of his other novels followed in the next years and are being translated up to date. The reason for such a late translation of Faulkner’s works may be due to the strict communist regime, mainly the rigid Stalinist period and the years that followed. Another reason may be the oppression of national languages in the USSR, one of which was Lithuanian. However, Faulkner’s books entered the libraries and bookshops of Lithuania in the years when Khrushchev and Brezhnev came to power. In that period, the Lithuanian language had not been regulated yet by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, as it is the case now. Due to this reason the translated text of Faulkner’s Light in August contains an abundance of grammatical, lexical, morphological and other mistakes that can be regarded as such through the prism of today’s achievements in Lithuanian philology and standardisation. Moreover, languages change over time, and almost half a century has passed since this novel was translated into Lithuanian (year 1965); thus it is understandable that the language spoken during the time of translation is rather different from today’s language.

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