ABSTRACT
In this contribution, I apply the Derridean concept of parergon to the footnotes of (fictional) literary translators. The starting point of my analysis is the fact that the figure of the translator in a translated text is both marginal and central. In the strict sense, translators are not really part of the text and, speaking with Foucault, don’t possess authorship. At the same time as intermediaries, they are indispensable for the text and its author to be able to cross and move beyond own linguistic borders. Translators’ footnotes as parergon embody this double and paradoxical logic of the translators’ existence, their simultaneous marginality and centrality, and their constant violation of established boundaries. The oscillations between the text (ergon) and the footnote (parergon) will be analyzed on the basis of two novels: Carlos Somoza’s The Athenian Murders, and Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves.
