In a way, the history of Translation Studies, at least for the last decades, has been that of a continuous broadening of the field of study. If the 1990s witnessed the "cultural turn" famously heralded by Mary Snell-Hornby, more recently scholars have turned towards the role that translation plays in cultural dominance and cultural resistance, in what has been referred to as the power turn. At the same time, a converging movement could be observed from outside the field of Translation Studies: Some thinkers, in their quest for new intellectual paradigms to tackle the challenges faced by emancipatory projects, have veered towards translation as a way to overcome particularism and nationalism, while at the same time avoiding the risks of a monocultural universalism that is seen to lead inevitably to imperialism. Translation, by necessarily reaching out to the Other and creating hybridity, offers a unique chance to "square the circle" and find "equivalence in difference." In this paper, we discuss the ideas about translation of four such thinkers, coming from very different backgrounds and traditions: Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Étienne Balibar, Judith Butler and Boaventura de Sousa Santos.

In their introduction to the much-quoted edited collection Translation, Power, Subversion, Álvarez and Vidal (1996, p. 2) posit that translation is one the most representative paradigms of the clash between cultures. In their view, it is important to examine the relationship between the production of "knowledge in a given culture and its transmission, relocation and reinterpretation in the target culture". Álvarez and Vidal underscore the influence of the translator as well as the power relationship that the source and target cultures may have upon the translation practice. Although twenty-five years have passed since the publication of their book, Álvarez and Vidal's work keeps resonating in a world that has become increasingly globalized and where power can be exerted in myriad ways. For Álvarez and Vidal, translation is a political act. And, it may be added, non-translation also is. The influence of politics on translation practice can be observed in the translation of political texts but, as Gagnon claims (2010, p. 252), also in the use of translation as a political statement. The former can be exemplified by the translation of political speeches, such as that of President Donald Trump's inaugural address (discussed by Caimotto's article in this special issue); the translation of news articles, such as those rendered into English and Portuguese by El País or into Spanish and Chinese by The New York Times; and the translation of political texts, such as the works of Karl Marx and his followers that were rendered into Chinese at the beginning of twentieth century. As for translation as a political statement, it refers to the underlying policies that lead to those translations. If we peruse the Spanish versions of The New York Times, for instance, we realize that the texts are only a small fraction of what is published in the English version. The same applies to the English articles that appeared in El País. This is, of course, related to the limited resources apportioned to the translation services of these media, but the very selection of news items to be translated is also a political act. An excellent example to study the way in which ideologies influence translation practices was the simultaneous appointments of Spain's new Prime Minister and El País's new editor back in 2018. These events provide us with an excellent example of how translation can be reflective of the ideological affinity between a government and a specific news corporation (for a discussion, see Valdeón, 2020).

RésuméEste artículo se centra en Murmures à Beyoğlu (2009), ópera prima del escritor francés David Boratav (París, 1971), y en el análisis de algunas de sus características básicas como novela posmoderna. Así pues, se priorizará la interpretación del protagonista y de la ciudad como la enésima relectura posmoderna de la Odisea, en el viaje iniciático de un personaje homérico à la recherche de su Ítaca perdida, Estambul. El retrato del personaje central se completa con un esbozo de la riqueza intertextual de la obra, y la visión de la capital turca se enmarca en la representación posmoderna de la ciudad, bajo un prisma complejo que la aleja del típico exotismo decimonónico.Palabras clave: literatura comparada, posmodernismo literario, intertextualidad, representación de la ciudad posmoderna. AbstractThis article focuses on Murmures à Beyoğlu (2009), the first novel by French writer David Boratav (Paris, 1971), and on the analysis of some of its basic characteristics as a postmodern novel. Thus, we will prioritize the interpretation of the protagonist and the city as the umpteenth postmodern re-reading of the Odyssey, in the journey of initiation of a Homeric character à la recherche of his lost Ithaca, Istanbul. The portrayal of the central character is completed with a sketch of the intertextual richness of the novel, and the vision of the Turkish capital is framed within the postmodern representation of the city, under a complex perspective that steers clear of the typical nineteenth-century exoticism.

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Murmures à Beyoğlu by David Boratav, winner of the Prix Gironde Nouvelles Écritures (2009), is a transcultural and postmodern novel, influenced by the writings of Nabokov and Pamuk, namely The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941) and Lolita (1955), and Istanbul (2003). This paper identifies various guises in which the omnipresence of the work and personality of Nabokov and Pamuk manifest themselves in Boratav's first novel, which I interpret as a noteworthy homage to the former. The essay argues, moreover, that thanks to their influence, Boratav's work acquires a unique dimension, via its highly original and complex portrait of Istanbul, that places it on a par with that of the masters. This tribute to both writers results in a book in which the main character's wanderings, characterised by a paradigmatic in-between-ness, portray an Istanbul I define as a ‘border chronotrope’.