Orhan Pamuk and the Limits of Translation: Foreignizing The Black Book for World Literature

This article questions the often all-too-readily adduced arguments and methodologies of translation theory with reference to the English translations of Orhan Pamuk's novel The Black Book as exemplary case studies. It argues that domestication and foreignization are problematic as linguistic categories. It then seeks to rework such intuitively forceful terms for a sociology of translation, suggesting that they regain their coherence when directed towards questions of reception. The reception of The Black Book in English translation has been dominated by domesticating readings that minimize or neglect Pamuk's engagement with local history in favour of stock categorizations of the novel in terms of postmodernism. Against such readings, a 'foreignizing reading strategy' is proposed, one that seeks to restore to interpretation something of Pamuk's engagement with the local, especially his treatment of Sufism and Hurufism. Translation theory, it is urged, can be more effectively and universally applied in literary studies when directed towards literary sociology rather than linguistic comparison.