Musa Yaşar SAĞLAM

Keywords: Turkish literature,TEDA,Turkish authors,Orhan Kemal,translation

Abstract

The TEDA (Outreach of Turkish Literature) Project supports the pieces about Turkish culture, art and literature to be published in languages other than Turkish, especially in the widely spoken languages in the world. This article addresses the translations made in the context of the TEDA Project as well as the translations of the pieces of Orhan Kemal which take a big share in the project. The article also examines, within this project, the share of the Orhan Kemal translations that aim to bring the Turkish culture, art, and literature together with the intellectual target audience. Additionally, the article analyzes the distribution of these translations over time as well as their languages. Furthermore, Orhan Kemal's novel 72. Koğuş and its German translation are analyzed comparatively. Thereby, the extent of the achievement of the translator -whose mission is solely to read the original text and to perceive it in his role of "text decoding", or in other words re-interpreting- in transmitting the specific phrases into German and in providing the targeted "equivalence" are examined in detail. In reference to the German translation of this novel, the article also points to the limits of translatability of cultural elements.