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William Burroughs' Cut-Ups Lost and Found in Translation

Harris

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Abstract

Burroughs’ experimental “cut-up” texts of the 1960s have presented great challenges to readers, critics, and translators, and their French translations have proved especially controversial. This article argues that what has been lost in translation for Francophone readers can, however, make visible key features of cut-up texts that have been missed or misunderstood by anglophone readers, above all their intertextuality. As revealed by a close comparative study of his first cut-ups in Minutes to Go, published in Paris in 1960 and translated into French in the 1970s, Burroughs’ work was not only intertextual from the start but itself constituted a practice of translation.

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Aug 31, 2018
Publication Date Dec 1, 2018
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal L'Esprit Createur: a critical quarterly of French literature
Print ISSN 0014-0767
Electronic ISSN 1931-0234
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Volume 58
Pages 31-48
Series Title A highly original and rigorous piece of research published in a highly rated journal and in the context of a Special Issue that promotes its significance further.
DOI https://doi.org/10.1353/esp.2018.0044
Publisher URL https://muse.jhu.edu/article/712928

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