Transculturality of a literary reportage and the translator’s identity

Abstract

The paper deals with the specifics of the translation of the literary reportage, which is characterized by the syncretism of the factual and subjective, fictionalized processing of objective reality, and at the same time it represents the mediation of another culture, the language of the reporter, or the perspective of their own culture. The particularity of translation of this genre results, in particular, from the two-level nature of the translational complex of the fictionalized reportage text. Its first element is realized at the level of the author - the reporter (the mediator between the culture they write about and their own culture), the second at the level of the translator (the mediator between the two cultures, variously represented in the text). On the basis of the analysis of the Slovak translations of the works The Emperor, Shah of Shahs and Imperiumwritten by Ryszard Kapuściński, the most prominent and best-known representative of the Polish school of reportage, we are looking for answers to the following questions: What forms can transculturality acquire in translations of reportages? Which of the cultures coming “into play” the translator chooses as determinative? How is the translator identified in relation to these cultures?