Kafka re-re-retranslated: the graphic novel Kafka in English, German and Polish

ABSTRACT

The paper analyses the graphic novel Kafka in its English original and its German and Polish translations. Written by David Zane Mairowitz and illustrated by Robert Crumb, the book offers an account of Franz Kafka’s life and a discussion of his works, combined with adaptations of his selected writings. It can be conceptualised as a retranslation on two levels: quotations from Kafka’s works abounding in the graphic novel were retranslated into English by the adaptor, and the book itself can be seen as a very specific, alternative rewriting or retranslation of the cultural image of Franz Kafka. The German translation of the graphic novel involved back-translating Kafka quotes into their original language, while the Polish edition used existing translations of his works; both retranslated the author’s image for the respective target cultures. The translators had to decide whether their loyalty lay with the authors of the graphic novel or with the original author; both opted for the latter, redeeming Mairowitz’s departures from Kafka’s text. Employing the concept of retranslation, the paper seeks to unpack the complex relationships between multiple source and target texts, modes, authors, translators and readerships at play.

KEYWORDS:

• Graphic novel
• translation
• retranslation
• multimodality
• Kafka

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Aware that the term, introduced in the US in the 1970s in order to enhance the status of book-length single-plot comics by distinguishing them from comic strips published in periodicals, is contested by some scholars (cf. Labio 2011) and many representatives of the comic book community (e.g. Campbell 2007) as a snobbish euphemism, I use it here following the authors of Kafka. Despite not being universally accepted as a genre in its own right, the graphic novel has been discussed as such in a number of interesting works (book-length studies include Baskind, Omer-Sherman 2008; Tabachnik 2009, 2014; King, Page 2017); the problem of translating (non-adapted) graphic novels has been addressed in Guillaume (2015).

2. Unless otherwise indicated, contextual information on Kafka comes from my conversations with Mairowitz, who is married to my mother, the Polish artist and journalist Małgorzata Żerwe. My role as the Polish translator of Kafka stems from this personal relation, which does not mean, however, that I am uncritical of the author. On the contrary, I would like to suggest that the closer the relationship with the author, the more willing the translator is to suggest revisions – a topic worth researching by translation sociologists or psycho-sociologists. I am deeply grateful to David for his help in preparing this article, and I hope that my academic scrutiny of his work will not be taken personally.

3. I deliberately avoid calling it a ‘paratext’ (framing Franz Kafka’s ‘text’), since this would suggest that the adaptations themselves constitute a more prominent part of the macro-text than Mairowitz’s narrative, which is not the case.

4. The inverted commas refer to the complicated editing and publishing history of Kafka’s writings (cf. Malone 2000: 178–179).

5. Nothing in Crumb’s artwork suggests that he treated previous visual adaptations of Kafka’s life and/or work as a point of reference, whether positive or negative; if he had, his work could be conceptualised as an interesmiotic retranslation.

6. On the other hand, Mairowitz was not the first to criticise Kafkology. Although he does not reference Milan Kundera’s (1991) article in the Times Literary Supplement, he might have been inspired by it. The subtitle of that piece, ‘Rescuing Kafka from the Kafkologists’, seems echoed in Mairowitz’s statement: ‘I have made it a personal crusade to defend Franz Kafka against the adjective “Kafkaesque”’ (Mairowitz 2014).

7. After Kafka, Crumb returned to creating original comic books, with the notable exception of an illustrated version of the Book of Genesis (2009, cf. Guillaume 2015, 103–104). Mairowitz continued his adventure with the graphic novel, collaborating with various graphic artists. He wrote a book on Albert Camus (1998, for Icon’s Introducing … series), adapted The Trial (2008) and The Castle (2013), as well as Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment (2008), Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (2010), Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (2010), and Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt (2014). He also explored Kafka through other media: together with Małgorzata Żerwe, he curated a multimodal travelling art exhibition K: KafKa in KomiKs, featuring illustrations by his collaborators: Crumb, Chantal Montellier (The Trial) and Jaromír 99 (The Castle), and created an ‘acoustic comic’ for the radio (Kafka Unchained, produced in English, German and Polish language versions).

8. I would not have accepted the job if I did not know German and could not assess the quality of the Polish translations, and the extent of Mairowitz’s changes to the German original. A note from the Polish translator of Mairowitz’s adaptation of The Castle (published in 2014 by Centrala, a press specialising in comic books) reveals a radically different approach. Hubert Brychczyński explains that he did not use or even read the existing Polish translation due to copyright protection, nor does he mention consulting the German original; he says that, apart from Mairowitz’s retranslation, he read Anthea Bell’s English translation. Thus, his Polish version is an indirect passive retranslation, a solution which would be unthinkable in the more academically oriented Polish edition of Kafka.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zofia Ziemann

Zofia Ziemann is a freelance translator, interpreter, editor, and researcher. She is a PhD graduate (awaiting her viva) at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, where she teaches translation at the Centre for Translation Studies. Her research interests focus on the history of literary translation, in particular retranslation and reception. She has published papers in Polishand English in journals and edited volumes. Member of EST and IATIS, she is also the managing editor of Przekładaniec: A Journal of Translation Studies.