해석과 창의적 다시쓰기로서의 문학번역: Vegetarian을 중심으로

Abstract

The Vegetarian by Han Kang won the Man Booker International Award this year, which gives equal acknowledgement to both the writer and Deborah Smith, the English translator. Notwithstanding being favorably reviewed in the media including Boyd Tokin, chair of the Man Booker Prize recent panel of judges, the translation has been the center of controversy over its translating style in recent weeks. The translator has been accused of “overtranslating,” or adding too much to make the work accessible to foreign readers. Against this backdrop, this paper discusses translating a work of literature equals to creatively rewriting it in another language based on interpretation of the source text. To do so, some of the translated text showing additional explanations necessary to deliver the original’s messages and the translator’s judgment and decision as regards Korean cultural things, practice, and language are selected and examined closely from the perspective of hermeneutics. This allows us to consider a translator as a creative writer, judging from his or her translational perspectives, a sense of literature, and language proficiency. Translation may be seen as the creative rewriting which is equal with an original text.