Translating imaginary territories in fantasy short fiction

Translating a text set in an imaginary world poses specific problems to the translator, since the original often indirectly builds on cultural bearings to create a setting both related to reality and endowed with its own peculiarities and exotic features. The translator will need to find the same balance between familiarity and strangeness so as to allow its reader to enter the imaginary world. This article will focus on a precursor of the genre of fantasy, the Irish writer Lord Dunsany. Instead of a tapestry whose threads become invisible, his imaginary world is built like a tessellated literary body. Coherence and identity are not to be found in a wealth of details and lengthy descriptions, but in powerful, striking nodes of meaning. A few examples from the various translations of his early tales into French will help us show the challenge faced by the translator who has to identify these nodes and translate them, finding a new balance in fragmentation which still allows the reader to grasp the ethereal unity of Dunsany’s imaginary territories.