Translation Nation: Literary Translation as Cultural Mediation in Australia

This article outlines the conceptual foundation of our new collaborative project, which uncovers the overlooked role of French literary translation in shaping Australian national identity – from colonization to today. Moving away from a more typical focus on Australia’s British cultural heritage, our project explores the way in which the translation industry has contributed to the social, cultural and political life of the nation, playing a key role in cultural exchange – bringing the non-Anglophone world to Australia and promoting Australian culture around the globe. Combining archival and digital research with close textual analysis and interviews with contemporary Australian translators, the project sets out to map the importation, distribution and cultural influence of French literary texts in the development of the nation. The idea is thus to map networks of circulation, consumption and production of French literary texts in translation over time from the colonial period, when translations were imported from Britain, through to today’s local industry, which exports Australian translations to the world.