Translation – Adaptation – Transcreation: Jitta's Atonement, Translated by Bernard Shaw

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Shaw had very good and long-term working relationships with a number of his translators, among them, his German translator Siegfried Trebitsch, himself an author and a playwright in Austria. It is less well known, however, that, on one occasion, Shaw and Trebitsch switched roles: Shaw became a translator and translated a play written by Siegfried Trebitsch. Shaw's main inspiration and motivation for this was that he wanted to help his translator out, as Trebitsch found himself in financial difficulties at the time. In his Translator's Note, Shaw admits to "translator's treacheries," to changing the "key in which [the play] ends," and he explains in some detail what he has done and why, but only a careful comparison of original and translation reveals the extent of what he really means.