Introduction: Science Fiction and Translation

Abstract

This chapter introduces the book, first with the vast increase in science fiction (SF) from other languages and cultures now translated into English, then a similar increase in SF translated from English into other languages. SF is a powerful means of communication, because its estrangement function can enable writers in societies without formal protections for freedom of speech to make a sociopolitical critique while avoiding potentially ruinous consequences for them or their publisher. This chapter next moves to a brief discussion of the history of theories of translation, which have oscillated between the poles of “word for word” and “sense for sense” until the advent of translation studies as an academic discipline in the middle of the last century. Special attention is paid to Lawrence Venuti’s concept of a domesticated translation, as this is of particular interest to many of the contributors. Gradually, developments in translation studies and other schools of literary theory have made it evident that neither pole is fully possible, and that translation is a form of writing in itself. This chapter ends with a brief discussion of each of the other chapters in the book.