The ultimate joy of mood
Translating The Foundation Pit
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The Foundation Pit is a bold and peculiar text. Paradoxically, Platonov’s language is “beautiful because it is wrong”. The task of the translator is to render Platonov’s linguistic feats in just as “wrong”, bold and beautiful way using the instrument of the German language. This applies to the treatment of the colourful Soviet “newspeak” in the same way as it does to the linguistic profile of the characters.
(Osteuropa 8-10/2016, pp. 441–451)