‘Expand’: From Sur les bouts de la langue and Traduire en féministe/s by Noémie Grunenwald

Abstract

ABSTRACT The following text is an excerpted chapter from Noémie Grunenwald’s book Sur les bouts de la langue and Traduire en féministe/s, a translation memoir written in French and devoted to Grunenwald's reflections translating ‘as a feminist’ from English into French. This chapter focusses on her experience translating identity markers such as ‘blackness’, ‘butch’, ‘femme’ and others and the difficulty of translating them into a gendered language such as French. She also reflects on the use of inclusive writing in her translations: word endings and pronouns in French that seek to include both genders and avoid having to choose between two. It is followed by a translator’s coda, a mini-translation memoir that tells the story of the difficulties the translator faced translating the chapter.