Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WTIP (Women Translators in Italian Publishing)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-09-01 bis 2024-08-31
For a long time, women devoted themselves to translation as the only literary practice allowed to them, or as the only way to express their talent or start a career. Despite the so-called feminization of the profession, and the large number of women who have devoted themselves to it since then, women translators have often been victims of a double invisibility, as translators and as women. WTIP intended to address the problem of women invisibility investigating the 20th century Italian publishing from an historical and gender perspective with a set of innovative methodological tools, combining Translations Studies, literary and sociological analysis. The main objective was to reassess the hitherto overlooked yet key role of women, thus rescuing their contributions from historical oblivion. This general problem was addressed by posing a series of crucial questions: what were the books women translated or promoted? And how they did undertake such tasks? What was the family/professional context in which they emerge and what was the extent of their professional relations/network? How did they carry out their intellectual activities and how did they relate to a predominantly male environment? How did they negotiate a space of autonomy against or in compliance with existing paradigms in the publishing industry? To answer these questions four case studies have been chosen as they embodied different positions, ranging from self-effacement to full recognition, while sharing the same geographical and institutional environment, that of the Einaudi publishing house in Turin. The focus was then on two professional translators, Maria Luisa (Nini) Castellani Agosti (1913-2005) and Adriana Motti (1924-2009), and two more visible figures, Lalla Romano (1906-2001) and Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991), who would become acclaimed writers during 20th century. While the entrance of women into the literary canon has been, and rightly continues to be, extensively studied and women’s work is beginning to be recognised, the history of women’s translation is still largely unwritten. At the same time, the problem of the invisibility of translators is still relevant in today’s society, since a number of working conditions (salary, copyright, lack of royalties and of the right to negotiate) are just some of the issues that create a gender bias in the publishing industry. In Italy several events have aimed to highlight translation as an equally artistic and literary endeavour, thus overturning the stereotype of translation as a secondary and feminine activity. WTIP provides a historical background to these positions, which advocate the recognition of women professionals and the affirmation of their authorial status. In addition, a strategy for communicating the project beyond academia has been put in place to create opportunities for dialogue, the most effective of which is a series of podcasts based on interviews with translators.
Three main research objectives were pursued in response to this call. Firstly, an historical and sociological analysis has been carried out to identify and select various archival sources and data have been used to outline the activities of women, and their impact on Italian publishing in several stages. This has led to the identification of an existing, but submerged, map of women professionals and to a counter-history of Italian publishing during the 1930s-1980s. Secondly, a database has been conceived and designed to finally make visible the literary, cultural and social contexts in which women translators operated. The database contains information on the translators, their publishing environments and professional networks as well as on the translated works, either published or unpublished, which women promoted to the Italian system and/or for which they were primary responsible. Finally, the study of archival documents, with a special focus on private/professional letters, has brought, to the appreciation of women’s professional talents, strategical roles, and literary ambitions. This was the case with Ginzburg and Romano, writers in their own right, for whom translation served to catalyse literary interests and to orient publishing trends. But surprisingly, it was also true of Castellani-Agosti and Motti, whose careers were completely behind the scenes. WTIP undertook a systematic survey of the library catalogues, bibliographies, OPACs and main archival sources that needed to be interrogated in order to advance the project and answer the research questions. While some archives were known before the start of the project (the Archivio Giulio Einaudi Editore, which contains documents on all four translators, the Archivio Lalla Romano and the private collection of Nini Agosti Castellani), many others were tracked down and consulted during the course of the grant. The first months were devoted to the consultation of the private collection of Nini Agosti Castellani, leading me to identify case studies and to reconstruct her network. Similarly, I made a survey of the material on Adriana Motti available in the archives of the Giulio Einaudi Press, also searching among her frequent correspondents. The second action was to conduct archival research on Ginzburg and Romano’s activities as translators. Given Ginzburg’s prominent role as an editorial consultant at Einaudi Press, the research focused mainly on this archive, where a remarkable dossier documents her professional activities. I have made an overview of the types of material and have selected material relevant to her role as a mediator of foreign literature and as a translator. Comments have been made on her network of women translators, starting with her friend Lalla Romano, whom she supervised and promoted. Research on Lalla Romano was carried out both in the Einaudi Archives and in her personal archive at the Biblioteca Braidense. At the same time, a digital database was being designed with translators as the main focus. A final comprehensive analysis of all this data, with reference to the selected women, made it possible to highlight both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the project. On the one hand, it allowed me to quantify the number of books translated and the professional relationships; on the other hand, it called for a better evaluation of the sociological and literary dimension of the translation process.
Some of these findings have led to scholarly works that have already been published or are in the process of being published. A first draft of a monograph has also been prepared and a contract signed for an open access publication. Adequate time was also devoted to the implementation of a vast dissemination and communication plan consisting of conference participation, scientific contributions, the organisation of a two-day international conference and several initiatives for a non-specialist public. Through the delivery of such outputs, several conference papers, the publications of 4 scholarly articles, 1 monograph in preparation and the dissemination activities, WTIP has increased and will continue to increase my contribution to the scholarship. The creation of a digital database represents an innovative way of understanding the collaborative nature of literary production and ensures information-sharing for scholars worldwide.