‘Expand’: From Sur les bouts de la langue and Traduire en féministe/s by Noémie Grunenwald

ABSTRACT

The following text is an excerpted chapter from Noémie Grunenwald’s book Sur les bouts de la langue and Traduire en féministe/s, a translation memoir written in French and devoted to Grunenwald's reflections translating ‘as a feminist’ from English into French. This chapter focusses on her experience translating identity markers such as ‘blackness’, ‘butch’, ‘femme’ and others and the difficulty of translating them into a gendered language such as French. She also reflects on the use of inclusive writing in her translations: word endings and pronouns in French that seek to include both genders and avoid having to choose between two. It is followed by a translator’s coda, a mini-translation memoir that tells the story of the difficulties the translator faced translating the chapter.

KEYWORDS:

• Translation studies
• translation memoir
• feminism
• gender studies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 All translations of quoted sources, unless otherwise specified, are mine—translator.

2 Translator’s note: Ecrivain·e is French for writer, and auteur·ice for author. Autrice is an old form that fell out of use (or was condemned) but is now being revitalized by feminists in the French language.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lily Robert-Foley

Lily Robert-Foley is an Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3. She is the author of Experimental Translation: The Work of Translation in the Age of Algorithmic Production (Goldsmiths Press 2024). She is also the author of four books of poetry including m, a book of poetry-critique-collage (Corrupt Press, 2013), graphemachine, a chapbook of visual poetry (Xerolage, 2013), Jiji, a novel in prose poems and conceptual writing (Omnia Vanitas Press, 2016), and The Duty to Presence, a book of poetic autotheory published as part of the To collection of the Presses Universitaires de Rouen, along with its translation by Anne-Laure Tissut (2022). She has translated two books of poetry, by Claude Ber and Sophie Loizeau, and she is a member of the Outranspo, an international group of experimental translators.

Noémie Grunenwald is a translator from French into English specialising in the social sciences and literature. Her translations include Dorothy Allison, bell hooks, Amia Srinivasan, Joan Nestle, Silvia Federici, Julia Serano, Sara Ahmed … . She also founded the press, éditions Hystériques & AssociéEs which supports the publication of authors marginalised by the publishing industry and contributes to the dissemination of texts that have left their mark on the feminist, lesbian and/or trans movements. In 2021, as an author, she published a narrative essay entitled Sur les bouts de la langue: Traduire en féministe/s, published by La Contre Allée.