ABSTRACT
This book pursues a variety of goals. An immediate objective lies in surveying the multiple angles of Barbara Godard’s agency. This Canadian scholar’s legacy, particularly in feminist translation studies, is uncontested today. Her work is quoted extensively, exceptional as it is in its steady combination of academic reflection and practical translational work, to a certain extent uncommon among feminist translation scholars. However, a closer look at such an agency reveals a number of points of conflict, the coexistence of different alliances and affinities, often contradictory in appearance, which in my view characterises the liminal existence of any agent of translation. Godard’s operation, both in academia and in the book industry, marked by her progressive evolution towards feminism, was instrumental within Canada’s construction of a long-awaited national literature. A recognisable cultural heritage. She not only witnessed, but actively participated in the complex policing of a contested cultural environment, which many accurately define as one of ‘two solitudes’ (Whitfield).
