ABSTRACT
As a translated author, modernist poet, and publisher, John Rodker carried on a correspondence with his French translator, Ludmila Savitzky, which shows how carefully he answered her questions about syntax and word choice. As a translator, Rodker was in touch with famous French writers whom he was translating, including Henry de Montherlant who was asked to revise Rodker’s translation drafts for three bestselling novels. Such epistolary exchanges between authors and translators illuminate their method and the rhythm of their work, their proficiency in foreign languages, and their more-or-less open-ended translational suppleness at a crucial – though usually invisible – stage of the translation. Archival documents such as first drafts, revised typescripts, and author–translator correspondences speak to how collaborative translation will often take on a hermeneutic dimension that elucidates the source text, the target text, and the act of translation itself.
