Open AccessTranslating the homoerotic from and into Russian
Author(s) -
Kadence Leung
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
rus
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2317-4765
DOI - 10.11606/issn.2317-4765.rus.2020.176144
Subject(s) - arabic , politics , poetry , literature , identity (music) , expression (computer science) , linguistics , art , history , sociology , gender studies , psychology , aesthetics , philosophy , computer science , political science , law , programming language
The translation of a text with homoerotic content reveals complex political, social and cultural contestation in the transnationalization of sexual desire and identity. This article examines the translations of homoerotic poetry by Russian émigré writer Valerii Pereleshin from and into Russian. Pereleshin’s different approaches in his inverse translation (Pushkin’s “Imitating the Arabic” and Kuzmin’s Alexandrian Songs) and direct translation (Pessoa’s “Antinous”) demonstrate how translation choices are governed by the interplay of discourses of same-sex desires in different cultural contexts, as well the poet-translator’s expression of sexual otherness.