This conversation between Dr. Mauro Cazzolla and Professor Jonathan Combs-Schilling analyzes some of the current trends in literary translation and the challenges that a literary translator has to face when they have to translate a literary work. A quick overview of the discipline will first try to define what literary translation is. Then, through some translation examples taken from some Francophone authors’ books, this presentation explores why, besides linguistic and writing skills, a literary translator needs to possess other skills such as empathy, creativity and attention to detail to be able to perform a good literary translation. The talk also aims to explore other questions such as positionality in translation and to present Dr. Cazzolla’s latest translation of the novel Célèbre by French author Maud Ventura.
Dr. Mauro Cazzolla is an Associate Faculty member in French and Francophone Studies at The Ohio State University and is also a literary translator. He holds a PhD in Literary, Linguistic and Cultural Studies from the University of Miami and an MA in Translation from the University of Trieste. He also taught courses in French and in Translation at the University of Matera and at the Université Paris Nanterre. His research focuses on the challenges of translating autosociobiography, a literary genre in which language plays a socio-political role and is used to depict the reality of different social classes. On this topic, his latest aricle “Annie Ernaux et l’autosociobiographie en traduction : un exemple italien” will be published by the French Review in its special issue on Annie Ernaux (May 2025). As a literary translator, he has translated contemporary French authors such as Maud Ventura, Ouissem Belgacem, Vincent Almendros and Anne Godard.
This event is sponsored by the French Center of Excellence, which receives funding from French Cultural Services in the US and the Consulate General of France in Chicago. In December of 2020, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States selected the Department of French and Italian at The Ohio State University to join its prestigious network of Centers of Excellence. OSU’s Center of Excellence has the goal of promoting French and Francophone culture in the Midwest and beyond.
