Translating "The Blue Castle" into today's German and Spanish YA gender discourse.
Only as recently as May 2015 L.M.
Montgomery's „The Blue Castle“ made its way to German as well as Spanish audiences.
In Germany as „Ein Schloss in den Wolken“ [A castle in the clouds] and in Spain as “Valancy Stirling o el castillo azul” [Valancy Stirling or the Blue Castle] the book seems not to fit in with other current titles, the YA marketing strategies or the YA gender discourse.
Introducing a work that is nearly 100 years old into these changing markets without the specific title being a known classic seems to be a bold and unorthodox publishing choice.
To achieve this, two main aspects will be considered: firstly, how has gender been translated into German/Spanish and into a modern context?
And secondly, how does this translation fit in the German/Spanish YA book market, with regard as to how gender roles are being portrayed?
On one hand a character like Valency Stirling and her environment may be too far away from a modern readership.
My presentation will shed new light on aspects like how pivotal moments in Valancy Stirlings emancipation are being translated, transformed or adapted into a different language and a modern context.
Questions like those of the value a woman in respect to her ability to find a partner in life seem to be of great importance to young female readers in today's Germany and Spain.
In a detailed analysis considering lexical as well as other professional choices in translation, such as omission or interpretation, I will show the adaption towards a German and respectively Spanish audience in 2015.
I argue that particularly the German translation is leveling down some of the more “shocking” aspects about Valancy breaking free from gender based constraints of her time and thus turning the whole novel more into a harmless comedy.
August 2015
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