Towards a sociology of consuming translated fiction

Abstract

This article aims to explore British readers’ aesthetic responses to fiction in translation, based on ethnographic data from reading groups around the UK. Examining excerpts from book club meetings on Haruki Murakami’s After Dark (trans. Jay Rubin), Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (trans. Richard Freeborn) and José Eduardo Agualusa’s Rainy Season (trans. Daniel Hahn), the study investigates judgements regarding the visibility of translation in particular. A case is made for “consuming” translated literature. With an analytical perspective derived from the sociology of art, the paper focuses on the various dimensions of reading such as pleasure, status and textual-linguistic (in)tolerance. The analysis of excerpts reveals that readers derive pleasure from texts that have undergone interlingual transfer as long as they recognize the artistry involved in the translation profession, where such recognition is culture-bound.