THE ELUSIVE GATSBY, OR ON THE CONJUNCTURAL RETRANSLATION OF MODERN CLASSICS

Abstract

Through the lens of some contemporary tenets of Retranslation theory, this paper discusses the simultaneous publication of three new Bulgarian translations of F. S. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby in 2013, nearly five decades after the first and already „canonized“ one. For this pattern, increasingly manifested in the retranslation of modern classics, I introduce the notion of conjunctural retranslation – i.e., one triggered by extraliterary circumstances and driven, above all, by economic interests. The ramifications of this practice are examined through a comparative microanalysis of the translators’approaches, as well as macroanalysis of the receiving sociocultural context.