Reshaping Literature Through Peritexts: The Case of Esmahan Aykol’s Novels in English Translation

Abstract

The way visual and verbal material surrounding translated literature appear may bear significant implications in relation to the presentation of a foreign text in a receiving literary system, as well as the representation of a whole nation, culture, or literature in the eyes of the receiving one. In the light of this recognition, this descriptive study aims at investigating how the Turkish writer Esmahan Aykol’s novels in English translation have been received and presented in the Anglo- American literary system, as reflected in paratexts. Within this framework, peritextual elements present on the front and back covers of the author’s crime novels translated into English and published in the UK and the USA, namely, Hotel Bosphorus, Baksheesh, and Divorce Turkish Style, have been analyzed comparatively with their corresponding material in the source language. The results of the analysis have demonstrated that the city of Istanbul was utilized as the main theme in the presentation of Aykol’s novels to the Anglo-American readers, through the selection of book titles, the use of visuals, and/or statements explicitly bringing to light the novels’ relatedness with the city. Furthermore, it has been observed that, in some instances, the peritexts of the novelscontained stereotypical or culture-specific elements related to Turkey. In this respect, the analysis has shown that, by contrast with Aykol’s discourses displaying a negative stance towards cultural stereotyping, her novels could not escape being exposed to a stereotypical presentation in entering the target literary system. Finally, the findings have revealed how works of literature can be assigned a wholly different image, and thereby destiny in the target system than that assigned in the source system, by virtue of the paratextual translation strategies adopte