ABSTRACT
The translator’s preface accompanies every one of Godard’s translations of Brossard, offering theoretical reflection on feminist translation poetics to a wider audience. Godard’s prefaces are usually self-reflexive, performative pieces, which situate the translator in relation to the text, or even theorize the role of the translator’s preface as a genre, as she does here in introducing her translation of Brossard’s book, Amantes. Offering a meta-reflection on feminist translation poetics, Godard’s preface to Lovhers performs several functions: it situates the book within Brossard’s oeuvre; offers a critical interpretation of the text; discusses its compositional principles (especially its use of spiral patterns and feminist intertextuality); historicizes the translation; and exposes the specific challenges involved in translating from French into English (related, for example, to typographical play and neologisms).
