Translating the Female Self across Cultures examines contemporary autobiographical narratives and their Italian and French translations. The comparative analyses of the texts are underpinned by the latest developments in Translation Studies that place emphasis on identity construction in translation and the role of translation in moulding various types of identity. They focus on how the writers’ textual personae make sense of their sexual, artistic and post-colonial identities in relation to the mother and how the mother-daughter dyad survives translation into the Italian and French social, political and cultural contexts. The book shows how each target text activates different cultural literary, linguistic and rhetorical frames of reference which cast light on the facets of the protagonists’ quest for identity: the cult of the Madonna; humour and irony; gender and class; mimesis and storytelling; performativity and geographical sense of self. The book highlights the fruitfulness of studying women’s narratives and their translations, and the polyphonic dialogue between the translations and the literary and theoretical productions of the French and Italian cultures.

Se chiedersi a chi appartengano le città non è mai stato più difficile, forse è il momento di rinunciare alle facili risposte. E di lasciare che anche i muri dicano la loro. 1

No abstract

The aims of this double issue on Female Filiations in Romance Studies are twofold. On the one hand, the contributors seek to draw renewed attention to women as producers of art, sources of transgenerational memory, promoters of female emancipation and participants in networks of solidarity, networks that are powerful enough to challenge patriarchal hegemonies. On the other hand, it reflects the contributors' desire to honour the scholarship of the outstanding female thinker Dr Adalgisa Giorgio, who has not only advanced our understanding of the literary representation of women, motherhood, maternal practices, daughterhood and sororities but also championed the values of intellectual uprightness, academic mentorship, female solidarity and intellectual transmission between generations of scholars.

No abstract