Abstracts
Abstract
The Quais du polar book festival in Lyon is more than a site of commerce. Instead, the category of the polar, which brings together the mystery and roman noir, reveals the potential to destabilize literary hierarchies, foreground translation, and transform the role of place in a globalized genre. Using the insights of Lawrence Venuti, Benoît Tadié and Luc Boltanski, this essay examines how, within the polar category and in the context of the festival, foreignizing translations may upend linguistic and cultural hierarchies and transform genre categories. The communal and local experience of festivals events, its rewriting of southern American authors, and its reframing of the role of readers and translators all reveal the transformative potential of the polar and its cultural reception.
Keywords:
- Genre fiction,
- mystery,
- translation,
- crime novel,
- Southern fiction
Résumé
Le festival littéraire Quais du polar à Lyon n’est pas seulement un lieu de commerce. Plutôt, la catégorie du polar, qui unit le récit policier et le roman noir, a la capacité de déstabiliser les hiérarchies, de mettre en avant l’acte de traduction et de transformer le rôle de l’espace local dans le contexte d’un genre globalisé. Prenant comme point de départ certaines idées de Lawrence Venuti, Benoît Tadié et Luc Boltanski, le présent article explore, dans la catégorie du polar et dans le contexte du festival, le dépaysement par la traduction, et sa capacité de renverser des hiérarchies linguistiques et culturelles, et de transformer des catégories littéraires. L’aspect collectif et local des activités du festival, sa réinscription d’écrivains du sud des États-Unis dans le cadre du polar, et sa valorisation du rôle du lecteur et du traducteur font partie du pouvoir transformateur du polar et de sa réception culturelle.
Mots-clés :
- Littérature de genre,
- polar,
- traduction,
- récit criminel,
- littérature du sud des États-Unis
Appendices
Bibliography
- Belhadjin, Anissa, and Ruth Larson. “From Politics to the Roman Noir.” South Central Review, Hard-Boiled, 27, no. 1/2 (2010): 61–81.
- Boltanski, Luc. Énigmes et Complots. Une Enquête à Propos d’enquêtes. Paris: Gallimard, 2012.
- “Book Publishing Market Overview for Authors – Statistics & Facts – Book Ad Report.” Accessed December 25, 2019. https://bookadreport.com/book-market-overview-authors-statistics-facts/.
- Bouzid, Mehdi. Interview with Tim Willocks. Tannhauser’s Gate, April 15, 2012. Accessed July 17, 2019. http://tannhausersgate.fr/2018/08/interview-with-tim-willocks-vo.html.
- Cawelti, John G. Mystery, Violence, and Popular Culture: Essays. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press/Popular Press, 2004.
- Davis, Natalie Zemon. Society and Culture in Early Modern France. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975.
- Didion, Joan. “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.” In Slouching Towards Bethlehem. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1973.
- Driscoll, Beth. The New Literary Middlebrow: Tastemakers and Reading in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
- Emerson, Caryl. All the Same the Words Don’t Go Away: Essays on Authors, Heroes, Aesthetics, and Stage Adaptations from the Russian Tradition, Studies in Russian and Slavic Literatures, Cultures and History. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2011.
- “Eternal Flame : Le Grand Roman Noir Américain. Quais Du Polar.” Sondekla. Accessed July 17, 2019. https://www.sondekla.com/user/event/9695.
- “European Book Publishing Statistics 2017.” Accessed December 25, 2019. https://fep-fee.eu/European-Book-Publishing-995.
- Jameson, Frederic. “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture.” Social Text, no. 1 (1979): 130–48, https://doi.org/10.2307/466409.
- “Joute de Traduction. Quais Du Polar.” Sondekla. Accessed September 8, 2019. https://www.sondekla.com/user/event/8777.
- Levy, Lisa. “American Noir and the Outlaw Lit of James Sallis.” Literary Hub (blog), June 17, 2016. https://lithub.com/american-noir-and-the-outlaw-lit-of-james-sallis/.
- Nusser, Peter. Der Kriminalroman, fourth edition. Sammlung Metzler; Bd. 191. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2009.
- Platten, David. “Into the Woods: The Contemporary ‘Roman Noir’ as Modern Fairy Tale.” Yale French Studies, no. 108 (2005): 116–30.
- Platten, David. The Pleasures of Crime: Reading Modern French Crime Fiction. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011.
- “Quais Du Polar 2017 : Day #1.” Book Around The Corner (blog), March 31, 2017. https://bookaroundthecorner.wordpress.com/2017/03/31/quais-du-polar-2017-day-1/.
- Rose, Jonathan. The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.
- Saïsset, Vincent. “Qui sommes nous.” Quais du Polar (blog). Accessed July 11, 2019. http://www.quaisdupolar.com/2018/le-festival/qui-sommes-nous/.
- Sartre, Jean-Paul. “American Novelists in French Eyes.” The Atlantic Monthly (August 1946): 114–118.
- “Special Report: Live from Lyon’s Quais Du Polar Crime Fiction Festival CRIME FICTION LOVER.” Accessed September 10, 2019. https://crimefictionlover.com/2013/04/special-report-live-from-lyons-quais-du-polar-crime-fiction-festival/.
- Tadié, Benoît. “Essor Du Récit Criminel Transatlantique: Esquisse d’un Champ de Recherche.” Transatlantica : Revue d’Études Américaines [online], no. 1 (2012). https://doaj.org/article/804c9380586940dfa6d7329e52400212.
- Tadié, Benoît. Le Polar Américain, La Modernité et Le Mal (1920–1960). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2006.
- “The Six Largest Book Markets Globally.” European Parliamentary Research Service Blog (blog), February 11, 2016. https://epthinktank.eu/2016/02/15/e-books-evolving-markets-and-new-challenges/the-six-largest-book-markets-globally/.
- Vareille, Jean-Claude. “Préhistoire Du Roman Policier.” Romantisme, no. 53 (1986): 23–36.
- Venuti, Lawrence. Contra Instrumentalism. A Translation Polemic. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2019.
- Venuti, Lawrence. The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. New York: Routledge, 1998.
- Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility. New York: Routledge, 2008.
- Weber, Millicent. “Conceptualizing Audience Experience at the Literary Festival.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 29, no. 1 (2015): 84–96.