Translator Visibility and the Voice of the Translator in Children's Literature

If translators are often invisible or unacknowledged in the public domain, what might be their status when translating texts often regarded as ephemeral and of little consequence – those written for children? Many translators of texts for the young have remained anonymous, and even today their names do not always appear in children’s books. Nonetheless, translators’ voices are not completely silenced in the field of children’s literature. Research has exposed the translator’s discursive presence embedded within translated texts, as well as sporadic evidence of direct address by translators to adult purchasers or child readers in prefaces and other peritextual material. Moreover, in recent decades biographies on book jackets and appearances at promotional and educational events, on websites and social media, have rendered translators quite literally visible to young readers. This chapter highlights the elusive presence of the translator of children’s books into English in its multiple manifestations. Indications of the translator’s agency across the early history of children’s literature, followed by an outline of the positioning of the translator within children’s texts according to concepts taken from narratology, will lead to a focus on key areas where the translator is heard and seen. These include ideological intervention and cultural adaptation, linguistic creativity and stylistic indicators, and direct and extra-textual communication with the young reader.