How can we read texts composed of multiple translations? What happens when translators, poets, and artists expose the act of translation by placing parallel translation variants next to one another in a standalone work of art, presenting each as a legitimate version of the original?

In the first part of this seminar, Kasia Szymanska will introduce a new genre of writing called “translation multiples” (based on her recently published book Translation Multiples, PUP 2025). She will discuss how, by experiencing the plurality of translation, the creators and performers of translation multiples manage to tell their own stories — personal, critical, visual, or political. The political and subversive aspect of translation multiples will also be underscored with special reference to their pluralist potential. Just like experiential translation aims to challenge authority and hegemonic values in broader terms, so does the gesture of multiplying translations undermine existing hierarchies, ideas around translation and language, as well as local monopolies on discourse around certain texts and authors.

Later in the session, we will also try to read and discuss 2-3 short examples of translation multiples together in a way that requires no prior knowledge of any language other than English. The main premise of the exercise is to look at the wide array of translation variants in their own right, “out of context” and without trying to guess the original work, which arguably imitates the reading experience of audiences who may not know the source languages at play. In reading “translation multiples” in such an experiential way, we will try to see how an original text can diverge into variants, how a halo of possibilities can be displayed and embraced, and how this comparative and procedural practice can redefine our approach to reading translations.

The event is hosted by Dr Ricarda Vidal, Senior Lecturer, CMCI, and PI of the Experiential Translation Network.

This event is part of the Experiential Translation Online Seminar Series. See here for the full programme.

Speaker's info

Dr Kasia Szymanska is Senior Lecturer (Assoc Prof) in the Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies at the University of Manchester and the author of Translation Multiples: From Global Culture to Postcommunist Democracy (Princeton UP, 2025). She’s currently working on two edited volumes: The Bloomsbury Handbook to Modernism and Translation (with Rebecca Beasley) and The Tender Translator: Olga Tokarczuk Across Languages (with Joanna T. Huss). She is also an associate member of the organising committee of the Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation research centre.