On Translated Literature’s Intended Reader(s): The Case of Yoram Kaniuk’s The Last Berliner
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Tom Kellner
Abstract
This article examines the position of the implied reader within a narrative communication model of translated texts, through the unique case study of Yoram Kaniuk’s The Last Berliner (2002/2004). While offering a comparative analysis of the book’s commercial presentation and critical reception in source and translation, the discussion analyzes ways in which national motivations and tones are translated (or re-located) into a different national and cultural setting. These in turn shape and reflect the text’s notion of its implied reader, which is further complicated by the fact that The Last Berliner was translated and published in German two years prior to its publication in Hebrew. It seems, then, that the book constructs two antithetical implied readers, which correspond to its different motivations in German and in Hebrew. Thus, the article takes the movement between the two cultures and languages as its point of departure, and sets to explore the tensions between the two cultural-political spheres through the notion of the intended reader and its realizations in the text’s critical reception.
© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Introduction
- Hebrew Literature in Europe
- “God Who Brought us Close and Then Repented”: Hester Panim and Revelation in Avraham Ben-Yitzhak’s Writings
- Hebrew Dreams in the Berlin of Yesterday: German-Jewish Symbiosis Fantasy on the City’s Streets in Lifney Hamakom by Haim Be’er and Avedot by Lea Goldberg
- Understanding the Meaning of “Aspeset”: Hermeneutical Approaches, Reading Practices and the Departure from Germany in Two Lea Goldberg Novels
- New Beginnings?
- Hortulus 37, 1959: Translation as Collaboration in an Anthology of New Poetry from Israel
- Ethical Implications of German-Hebrew Homophony: Analyzing Dan Pagis’ “Sealed Railcar” Cycle
- Franz Rosenzweig’s and Paul Celan’s Early German Translations of Yehudah Halevi’s Hebrew Poems
- The Following Generations of Readers and Writers
- Die Muttersprache, die schweigt, und die Stiefmuttersprache, die erzählt. Zu Aharon Appelfelds Sprachpoetik zwischen Deutsch und Hebräisch
- On Translated Literature’s Intended Reader(s): The Case of Yoram Kaniuk’s The Last Berliner
- The Grammar of Displacement: Entwined Stories in Ruth Almog and Jenny Erpenbeck
- Exploring Israel/Palestine Through the Eyes of Writers: German-Language Authors and Undiscriminating Anthropological Glasses
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Introduction
- Hebrew Literature in Europe
- “God Who Brought us Close and Then Repented”: Hester Panim and Revelation in Avraham Ben-Yitzhak’s Writings
- Hebrew Dreams in the Berlin of Yesterday: German-Jewish Symbiosis Fantasy on the City’s Streets in Lifney Hamakom by Haim Be’er and Avedot by Lea Goldberg
- Understanding the Meaning of “Aspeset”: Hermeneutical Approaches, Reading Practices and the Departure from Germany in Two Lea Goldberg Novels
- New Beginnings?
- Hortulus 37, 1959: Translation as Collaboration in an Anthology of New Poetry from Israel
- Ethical Implications of German-Hebrew Homophony: Analyzing Dan Pagis’ “Sealed Railcar” Cycle
- Franz Rosenzweig’s and Paul Celan’s Early German Translations of Yehudah Halevi’s Hebrew Poems
- The Following Generations of Readers and Writers
- Die Muttersprache, die schweigt, und die Stiefmuttersprache, die erzählt. Zu Aharon Appelfelds Sprachpoetik zwischen Deutsch und Hebräisch
- On Translated Literature’s Intended Reader(s): The Case of Yoram Kaniuk’s The Last Berliner
- The Grammar of Displacement: Entwined Stories in Ruth Almog and Jenny Erpenbeck
- Exploring Israel/Palestine Through the Eyes of Writers: German-Language Authors and Undiscriminating Anthropological Glasses
