PJAS 12 Autumn-7
Anna Krawczyk-Łaskarzewska
Plus ça change? Translating William Gibson into Polish: “The Gernsback Continuum” and The Peripheral
Polish Journal for American Studies, vol. 12 (Autumn 2018), pp. 351-366
Abstract: This article has been inspired by the most recent Polish edition of William Gibson’s 1986 collection of short stories Burning Chrome. By focusing on the new Polish translation of one of Gibson’s earliest tales, “The Gernsback Continuum,” and juxtaposing it with the Polish version of his latest novel, The Peripheral, I intend to comment on the reception of his prose (both by the source culture and the target culture readers) and its translatability. Apart from the idiosyncratic aspects of Gibson’s work in general, various extraliterary factors will also be taken into account in order to elucidate the context in which Polish translations of his works continue to be created, distributed and assessed.
Keywords: literary translation, science fiction, foreignization, domestication, mistranslation, reader, alienating effect
DOI: 10.7311/PJAS.12/2/2018.07