Transversing Eccentricities with Exceptionalities: Ferit Edgü’s Translations in Anglosphere

Abstract

One of the first names that comes to mind when discussing minimalist modernist literature in Türkiye, Ferit Edgü expanded the boundaries of literary creation through his stylistic experiments while also demonstrating that it is possible to approach a life issue from various perspectives through the themes he explores in his literary works. This study examines the recreation of Edgü’s authorial style in his English-translated works, Noone (2015, trans. Fulya Peker) and The Wounded Age and Eastern Tales (2023, trans. Aron Aji), using Gabriela Saldanha’s threefold analysis model. This study comprises three parts. The first part investigates the prominent stylistic features of Edgü’s literary works that have helped establish him as one of the leading modernist writers in Türkiye. The second part discusses the extratextual motivations behind the production of Edgü’s works selected for this study and their English translations, as well as the intratextual motivations shaping the recreation of his stylistic features in translation. The third part analyzes the stylistic peculiarities that can be attributed to the translators in the English translations under scrutiny. Consequently, the findings reveal that Peker and Aji function not merely as translators transferring Edgü’s texts from one language to another but rather as cross-cultural rewriters who contribute to the recreation and representation of Edgü’s authorial image in the Anglosphere.