Retranslations of Faulkner’s Sanctuary in Turkish Literature - Comparative Analysis and Deforming Tendencies

Oct 15, 2026

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Comparative analysis examines Turkish retranslations of William Faulkner’s Sanctuary (1931), reviewing assumptions of literary translation through Antoine Berman’s retranslation hypothesis and “deforming tendencies”. The editor required Faulkner to rewrite the novel because the original manuscript was deemed unpublishable, and the rewritten version became a source for later interlingual translations. Three Turkish translations are compared—Kutsal Sığınak (1961), Lekeli Günler (1967), and Tapınak (2007)—to analyze translators’ decisions and the effects of deforming tendencies within translation studies.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Three Turkish Translations of Sanctuary

Translation as the Trial of the Foreign

A Brief Look at an Act of Rewriting Within the Source Culture

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 [www.alls.aiac.org.au](www.alls.aiac.org.au) | Retranslations of Faulkner’s Sanctuary in Turkish Literature
Gülsüm Canlı1,*, Ayşe Banu Karadağ2
1School of Foreign Languages, Istanbul University, Turkey
2Department of Translation and Interpreting (French), Yıldız Technical University, Turkey Corresponding Author: Gülsüm Canlı, E-mail: [canligulsum@gmail.com](canligulsum@gmail.com) | | | --- | --- | | ARTICLE INFO | ABSTRACT
This study is based on a comparative analysis of Turkish translations of Sanctuary (1931) by | | Article history | | | Received: March 16, 2018 | William Faulkner and aims to review the assumptions of literary translation by Antoine Berman’s | | Accepted: May 01, 2018 | “retranslation hypothesis” and “deforming tendencies”. The novel was exposed to an obligatory | | Published: June 30, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 3 | rewriting process by the editor and was reworded by Faulkner who acted as a self-translator to make the original version acceptable. The rewritten version, which can be regarded as an | | Advance access: January 2018 | intralingual translation, became the source text for interlingual translations. The novel was first translated by Ender Gürol as Kutsal Sığınak (1961); then by Özar Sunar as Lekeli Günler (1967) and finally by Necla Aytür as Tapınak (2007). Among Faulkner’s fifteen books which have been | | | | | Conflicts of interest: None | translated into Turkish thus far, Sanctuary is the only one with three translations in total. The | | Funding: None | translational process will be described to understand the rationale behind translators’ decisions | | | within the context of translation studies. | | Key words: | | | Literary translation,
Retranslation, | | | Deforming tendencies. | | INTRODUCTION A text cannot be understood in isolation from its context because texts are written according to the poetics oftheir time and setting. In cases where authors diverge from poetics, they either ignore the reactions at the expense of being excluded and marginalized or they reach an agreement for the sake of being approved and published. What happened to the novel Sanctuary (1931) by William Faulkner (1897-1962) within the American Literature is an example of this literary deal. Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner was requested torewrite his novel Sanctuary because the original version of the text was found unpublishable by the editor who foresawa possible jail sentence for Faulkner and himself. Faulkner agreed to rewrite his work thinking that he might earn some money if it sold a few thousand copies. The outcome of therewriting was beyond Faulkner’s expectations and Sanctuary became a corner stone in his career and gained a sensational reputation in the source culture. Its reputation exceeded the source culture, and the novel was translated into several languages such as French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Danish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Japanese and Turkish. Within the scope of translation studies, literary translation has always been an important research area, and in the context of literary translation, retranslations have always been one of the essential research topics because retranslation is a common phenomenon with various discussion points. The aging of translations, the inadequacy of the former translations, increasing knowledge about the source culture, text and author and the idea of addressing a new readership are seen as the main reasons for retranslation. Although these reasons may explain several cases, the complexity of retranslation is not totally resolved. This paper is restricted to three Turkish translations of Sanctuary. As the only William Faulkner novel, which has been translated into Turkish language three times, Sanctuary requires closer attention. The source text was first translated by Ender Gürol as Kutsal Sığınak in 1961. The second translation was carried out by Özar Sunar

FAQs

What translation framework guides the study of Sanctuary retranslations?

The study is based on Antoine Berman’s concept of “translation as the trial of the foreign” and his list of twelve “deforming tendencies” used for comparative textual analysis.

How many Turkish translations of Sanctuary does the paper focus on?

The paper focuses on three Turkish translations of Sanctuary: Kutsal Sığınak (1961), Lekeli Günler (1967), and Tapınak (2007).

Why was Faulkner asked to rewrite his novel Sanctuary?

The editor found the original version unpublishable, also anticipating potential legal consequences for Faulkner and himself, so Faulkner agreed to rewrite the work.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Cipher