SELF-TRANSLATION IN RUSSIAN-AMERICAN FICTION (MIKHAIL IDOV’S NOVEL GROUND UP)

Abstract

The paper discusses the translation of the novel Ground Up (2009) into Russian made by the author, Mikhail Idov, and published as Kofemolka (Coffee Grinder) in 2010. Since this has been the first example of self-translation in Russian-American prose since Nabokov, which M. Idov himself admitted, the approaches of the two writers are compared. The paper notes a deliberate combination of domestication and foreignization, which reflects the emigrant history of existence between two cultures and two languages mostly addressed to a bilingual reader. At the same time, the ludic principle is significant for both writers (verbalized in pseudo-comments, puns, ironic allusions) and it often determines their translation decisions.