Betwixt and between: Liminality in the translation of calikusu

Abstract

Adapting anthropological and postcolonial theories of liminality to translation studies with a cross-cultural lens, this study explores the English translation of the Turkish cult novel calikusu (1922) by Resat Nuri Guntekin, and scrutinizes the feasibility and applicability of liminality in the intersection of cultural and translation studies. The concept of liminality indicates a pluralistic, vague, ambivalent in-between space for the representation of identity in translation studies, and paves the way for a hybrid production, rather than the mere reflection of cultural meaning. calikusu was translated into English under the title of The autobiography of a Turkish girl in 1949 by Sir Wyndham Deedes. Being a novel of transition written during the period, in which the Republic of Turkey was born out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, having a protagonist who seems to be neither totally Eastern nor Western, and being translated by a translator who is neither an insider nor an outsider to the Turkish culture, calikusu serves as a fertile ground for an exploration based on the concept of liminality. Within this framework, through multiple contextualizations, this study problematizes dynamics of cultural overlappings in the liminal, in-between'' space, and posits the location of the translation, translator and translated text in this paradigm. It consequently postulates an analytical framework consisting of contextual liminality, intratextual liminality, agent-based liminality and liminality in translation strategies pertaining to the text, and concludes that liminality can be valuable in shedding light onto linguistic and cultural processes and critical dispositions of a translation activity.