THE UNSEEN FACES OF A TRANSLATION. INSIGHTS INTO THE ENGLISH AND SPANISH TRANSLATIONS OF NORMAN MANEA'S THE HOOLIGAN'S RETURN

: This paper aims to determine the strategies of adapting the translated content to a specific context based on a study case of Norman Manea’s The Hooligan’s Return . An exclusive interview with the author reveals the lesser debated prospect of the ghost translator. At a closer look, the translation of a text in various languages and spaces reveals certain truths and aspects specific to the community that embraces the translated text. Therefore, besides the role of cultural mediators, translators also need to possess certain anthropological qualities, so as to transplant the fragile human experience of a text to the foreign reader. According to Lawrence Venuti, this exchange can happen through a phenomenon explained in terms of foreignization and domestication , characterized by combating racism or ethnocentrism. Starting from these two approaches, we will examine how the mechanisms of translation are applied in our case study.


techniques can be improved or reinvented once the gap between what is known and
what can be discovered in a language is narrowed down. Once the behavior matches the language, one can render a community's image. To be noted that his paper appeared in the fifties when both the development of linguistics and psychology were reaching new highs. In his opinion, a new language represents a new expression of thought and new sources of creativity: Having mastered a language, one is able to understand an indefinite number of expressions that are new to one's experience, that bear no simple physical resemblance and are in no simple way analogous to the expressions that constitute one's linguistic experience; and one is able, with greater or less facility, to produce such expressions on an appropriate occasion, despite their novelty and independently of detectable stimulus configurations, and to be understood by others who share this still mysterious ability.
The normal use of language is, in this sense, a creative activity (Chomsky 88). Therefore, each language would have its own inherent creative side, which means by extrapolation that each culture can develop a specific creative side based on linguistics.
Even if Chomsky's approach focuses on examples that work within the framework of generative grammar, the message is that grammar can indicate aspects of the mind.
Bringing anthropology into discussion might appear incongruous, but human life and its activity, including artistic products, are based on sociocultural ties. In this respect, a translation works as an individual application, as a method that animates a particular cultural form. Hence, translators offer their readers the chance to access different aesthetic judgements. There is unknown potential in each original text that is translatable. Each source text hides a latent potential that is activated through translation. For example, the Japanese writer Yoko Tawada dedicates an entire article to Paul Celan whose translated poems become an inspiration for the Japanese reader. His poetry is characterized as being translatable as it carries an intrinsic value that matches perfectly the target culture's sensibility: "The translation is not the image of the original but rather, in the translation a meaning of the original is given a new body" (Tawada 2013).
The so-called "cultural turn" that cultural studies experienced in the late 1980s and early 1990s caused a growing interest in translations that gradually gained relevance in defining cultural identity, but also cultural differences. Therefore, translation has become "a more complex negotiation between two cultures" (Munday 11). Lawrence Venuti describes the negotiation that takes place in the process of translation in terms of "domestication" and "foreignization" (Venuti 12,24). Both refer to the translator's manner of relating to the target culture. The latter refers to certain techniques through which the translated text embraces characteristics of the original in terms of personal names, institutions, national holidays, cuisine, and so on. In brief, instead of finding a substitute for them in the target culture, the translator transfers them as they are and, in some cases, offers additional information in footnotes or the text itself. On the other hand, when a text is domesticated and tamed to fit the new culture, it provides readers with familiar words while maintaining the genuineness of the original text. Such an endeavor will become clearer in the following case study that focuses on the plurality of perspectives that translations point out when it comes to a single source text.

Case Study: comparative translations in Norman Manea's The Hooligan's Return
When translated, many works of literature focus almost exclusively on the English language while other high functioning languages seem to be placed on a secondary position. In such contexts, the English language seems to be the "lingua franca" of worldwide interaction both in formal and informal interactions. When it comes to literary translations, if the source text is not already written in English, the tendency is to have it translated into this language as it would be preferred by the market. Taking To broaden the usage of Venuti's concepts, this case study will approach both the English (translated by Angela Jianu) and the Spanish (translated by Joaquín Garrigós) versions of the aforementioned volume. While analyzing the strategies used in these target texts, examples will be given in order to point out how the fundamental concern of a translator is to find a balance between the form (style, syntax) and the function (the meaning, sense) of a text. Each of this book's translations reveals the transformations and the potential of a literary text. Furthermore, an important aspect must be taken into account: this case study also emphasizes the relation between author and translator as well as the process that lies behind the final version of a translation. During an interview with Sean Cotter, enclosed in The Nomad Text (Manea 183), Norman Manea explains how the experiences differ from one translation to another. In this context, he describes the process behind The Hooligan's Return as an interesting one; the translator was chosen by the publishing house through a competition. The first English version proved to be very close to the original text, but it had no stylistic force and was rather "shy" from this point of view. Hence, it represented a work in progress in which the author himself worked with a person he refers to as "a text «doctor»" (Manea 183). This aspect will be discussed further. For now, it is essential to understand that the translation was followed by a long editing stage which led to a collaborative process between the author and the translator so as to emphasize its intrinsic value. A comparative analysis of the three versions resulted in differences in terms of function and style. The translators' approaches ended up being highly different. While one ensured the transfer of the cultural background (the foreignization option) the other abandoned or transformed a few cultural aspects in the process of domestication. All in all, in terms of strategies, the target texts involved changes in meaning, rephrasing, and various contextual adjustments. In addition, both versions had interventions that left out some particularities of the source text. A first striking difference in interpretation comes from the title itself; while the Romanian version keeps the name simple Întoarcerea huliganului (Manea 2006), the English text has added an important detail: "a memoir" (Manea 2003), and the Spanish one categorizes it as "novela" (Manea 2005). In translation, a source text can, therefore, become a hybrid, leading its readers to different paths of interpretation. The plot revolves around the author's experience on a visit to Romania, which awakens memories of his double exile when he felt like an outcast. The plot leads to some subtle cultural signs as we see it happening with the word "Patria" (as in "the state") which appears to be written with a capitalized letter all over the volume.
This happens because the word is used with a double meaning; that of country and the one of language as a country, as home, a place of survival and escape (Manea 2003) While the original text capitalizes the word, the two translations do not highlight the double meaning of it, leaving the term as it is. In English, it refers to it as the motherland while in Spanish it is simply named patria. Such intimacies of the source text are also related to a socio-cultural background and do not have equivalents in the target cultures. Therefore, it is better to be omitted rather than being maintained and creating confusion. Moreover, regarding the plot, when it comes to the meeting with Gelu Naum, to whom Norman Manea had brought an American padlock (broască in Romanian), this episode gives rise to a discussion about how expensive the price of the lock (frog) is, which they jokingly choose to call Kermit, referring to the Muppets series. While in Spanish they are kept as such 3 , in English a less interrogative space is created in favor of a more descriptive one. It appears that: discontinuities at the level of syntax, diction, or discourse allow the translation to be read as a translation […] showing where it departs from target language cultural values, In February 2022, I contacted Norman Manea to see if he would like to be interviewed with regard to the English translation of his book. The name of the person who helped with the later improvements was not revealed during our email exchange, but the conversation was compelling from other perspectives. Asked about the paragraphs that were omitted, the author explains that the omissions were not intentional, and they are rather leaks of the publisher he was not notified of 4 . Norman Manea confirmed the fact that the text sent by Angela Jianu represented a first draft, a primary text, on which he has worked together with another editor to bring it to a final form suitable for printing. This means that the initial translator that won the competition organized by the publishing house did not deliver a satisfactory text for the target language. Despite the additional help the author had, a second translator's name is not on the cover. With reference to Venuti's Translator's invisibility, it appears that the term of invisibility applies to the situation of ghost translators as well. The concept of ghost writing is extremely wide and has various interpretations with both its detractors and defenders. The purpose of this paper is not to debate upon the realities of this habit as it is extremely common. However, it is a certainty that it reached an enormous expansion in many fields from medical literature to journalism, judicial fields, speechwriting, cinema, literature, and probably many others. Ghostwriting represents the practice of a writer taking on the writing responsibility of another author who becomes a client. Despite the mystery that seems to surround this concept, it is no secret at all that such practices are turning into real business. A simple search of the phenomenon on any browser will display many pages related to it, depending on the field. There is a confidentiality agreement between the ghostwriters and their clients, usually stated under clearly defined contracts. In the arts, this represents a common practice in the field of cinema, especially for higher budget movies (Bonetti). A ghostwriter is approached when the screenwriters lack inspiration, or when they are overwhelmed by deadlines. This involves a mutual agreement between the involved parties and the costs of anonymity are usually very high. It appears that this concept can be adapted to the world of translation, as well. For our case study, however, the author had the intention to publish the second translator's name on the book cover, but the publishing house refused to do so. Furthermore, what makes the situation even more memorable is the character of the editor who helped him improve the text: I hired an editor with a rich editing experience who started over the entire manuscript in the version received by the publisher and brought it to a suitable printing form. The editor was warmly recommended to me by a female friend, a well-known American writer, the publisher had nothing to do with it. What is more, we asked the publisher to find a way to mention the name of this helper, but they did not agree. The most unusual part of the experience was the editor's personality, as he was extremely irascible and expressive, as there was always a looming danger, materialized a few times, that he would reach the point of exploding with frustration and discarding everything. It took a lot of patience and diplomacy, so I always had to be extremely careful 5 (my translation).
That being said, it seems that the English text involved a long collaborative process. Had it not been for this shared exercise practised regularly over the source text, perhaps the final result would not have had the same impact. There were periodical meetings between Norman Manea and this mysterious editor. Whenever a newly translated excerpt was ready, the author made his remarks, which were either approved or rejected, and sometimes they even led to heated discussions 6 . The English version may have been the one with the most adjustments and revisions, adapting the target text to perfectly fit the American community. The practice of domestication is stronger in this case compared to the Spanish adaptation, as the text often shows a simplified meaning of the phrase so as to avoid an overly sophisticated style. Even though The Hooligan's Return was approached only from the two angles of its translations, each version highlights a specific aspect of the original text: Even though the translator wants to keep the particularities, and the local atmosphere of a text, he cannot use excessive words or institutions' names that have no meaning to the reader. Even when he is lucky enough to know the target language, the author is not always capable of noticing these subtleties. I will give a few examples: for the Hooligan's translation, I was told by the readers certified in both languages that the irony was not successfully conveyed into the German translation. Maybe it is the translator's fault or the structure of the language. In Chinese, I was told how well the socialist atmosphere of the time was perceived while the contextual irony was more difficult to catch 7 (my translation).

Conclusions
All in all, my intention was not to overlook the history of translation theories but to outline a brief summary in order to understand how their different terminologies find common frameworks from an anthropological point of view. The comparison between the two translations of the novel brought to the surface small differences in terms of style, the preference for certain phrases, the addition or, on the contrary, the abandonment of some phrases which emerged in the process of fitting one culture into another. The English version accessed mainly by the American community conforms to simplistic principles of life, without too much academic load, data, or references, so the target reader does not get bored or overwhelmed. On the other hand, the Spanish version remains a faithful replica of the text, which may provide its readers with access to an authentic sensibility without noticing the translator's influence. In our case study, the foreignization and the domestication methods work together to a different extent depending on the socio-cultural background of the target community. Therefore, the evolving dynamic of translation theory is meant to highlight the value of the anthropological factor when it comes to demonstrate the plurality of literature.