Translating class in Jonathan Coe

This article looks at the translation and reception in France of the contemporary British author Jonathan Coe. Coe's work is four times more popular in France than in the United Kingdom and is particularly enjoyed for its treatment of contemporary social and political issues in a largely realist setting. Coe's self-confessed writing project is to represent the plurality of British society as faithfully as possible. Through an analysis of the transposition of social class in the French translations of his novels, this article will reveal that a particular understanding of Britishness is created, which through use of standardisation and domestication of British specificity, in fact dilutes the markers of British social class. The consequences of this are both social, in its impact on French understanding of Britain, and cultural, in its impact on the consumption of the contemporary British novel in France.