Translators’ diaries as seminal Romanian texts on translation: A study of Antoaneta Ralian’s and Irina Mavrodin’s works

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v9i2.28488

Keywords:

literary translation , translator’s diaries , theory vs. practice , travelogue

Abstract

In the larger context of the Romanian discourse on translation supported by texts of theorists and practitioners, this paper focuses on the memoirs of two great translators, namely Antoaneta Ralian from English (Amintirile unei nonagenare: Călătoriile mele, scriitorii mei [Memories of a nonagenarian: My travels, my writers], 2014) and Irina Mavrodin from French (Despre traducere: Literal și în toate sensurile [On translation: literally and in all senses], 2006). Our aim is to show how their insights are valuable to anyone interested in (literary) translation as the two figures have massively contributed to the field ever since the communist period. Thus, we will begin by grasping at the genre and methodologies, and then proceed to Ralian’s and Mavrodin’s works, properly contextualizing them with the help of (academic) criticism, as well as interviews and articles in the cultural media. Our aim is to distinguish various and varied stances which afford several approaches to translation, in general and the literary genres in their reception process, in particular.

Author Biography

Ana-Magdalena Petraru, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2969-7940

https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/AAO-5614-2020

https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=58046942600

Ana-Magdalena Petraru, PhD, is lecturer in English at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania, teaching general English and ESP (Theological English, Business English) to non-philological students since 2008 and Literature and Language courses to philological students from the Focsani extension of the Faculty of Letters since 2022. She received a PhD in Philology for a thesis on the reception of the English Canadian literature in Romania in 2011 from Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi. Between 2014-2015 she was a postdoctoral fellow at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi working on the Romanian discourse on translation. She benefited from mobilities for researchers funded by UEFISCDI (KU Leuven, 2018, Dublin City University, 2024) and is currently a project member in a young teams/ TE project funded by UEFISCDI on Romanian Translation Studies. She is also the author of two books on Canadian literature in Romania and Translation Studies in our country.  

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Published

2026-05-15

How to Cite

Petraru, A.-M. (2026). Translators’ diaries as seminal Romanian texts on translation: A study of Antoaneta Ralian’s and Irina Mavrodin’s works. Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies, 9(2), 176–189. https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v9i2.28488