Western Translation with an Eastern Twist. Aspects of Eastern Strategy and Creativity in the Field of Literary Translation and Publishing in Pre- and Post-War France and Britain

This paper aims to assess the influence of eastern world views, political as well as aesthetic, upon the translation and publishing of a number of major authors such as Jack London, Mark Twain, and Raymond Queneau from the 1920s to the 1950s. Indeed, a number of western publishing institutions and agents with an eastern influence or background strived at creating alternative cognitive maps over a period marked by a divide between the capitalist West and the communist East. Though traditionally perceived as static, this period, as this piece of research intends to demonstrate, was alive with transnational influences and the divide articulated with local concerns, goals, traditions, and histories.