Translating the Greek Civil War: Alexandros Kotzias and the translator’s multiple habitus
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14456/nvts.2012.9Keywords:
Bourdieu, Greek Civil War, ideology, narrative theory, translator’s agencyAbstract
This paper examines how literary and socio-political influences might permeate translatorial action and lead to the articulation of the translator’s multiple habitus by looking at the Greek translation of a highly controversial book. Nicholas Gage’s Eleni, published in the USA in 1983, captures the darkest moments of the ideological rift between Left-wing and Right-wing forces during the Greek Civil War (1946-1949). The translator of Eleni into Greek, Alexandros Kotzias (1926-1992), a post-war political novelist, was considered a highly controversial literary figure amongst the Greek Left- wing literati. Drawing on narrative theory, this paper establishes how Kotzias’ own constructed public narrative of the civil war, an outcome of his individual past socialization within the Greek socio-political field, surfaces in the translation of Eleni. Ultimately, this paper argues for the translator’s habitus as a multiple entity, whose various facets correspond to the translator’s diverse socialization within a variety of social fields.