Strategies for strangeness: crime fiction, translation and the mediation of "national' cultures

The tensions between the strange (foreign) and the familiar (domestic), and the issue of finding a balance between them, are well known to translators. Taking crime fiction as an exemplary field, this study explores translation decisions as part of a continuum alongside authorial and even editorial strategies for the mediation of national' (understood as including local and/or regional) cultures. Taking examples from Icelandic and French crime writing, this analysis focuses on the role played by food in representing nations, and explores some of the differences between well- and lesser-known cuisines in respect of representing nations both in the original and in translation.