The shadow of the translator. Contrastive analysis of the translator’s work in the English and Italian version of Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s “La sombra del viento”

One of the main focus of the project is related to the concept of equivalence; Hervey and Higgins (1992: 22) provide a useful refinement of the concept of equivalence in translation, pointing out that the difficulty associated with the notion of achieving equivalent effect in translation is that it implies the translator in attempting, in accordance with our definition above, to reproduce in the TT the ‘same’ effect achieved in the ST" (Amstrong 2005). Therefore, the role of the translator is key not only in translating the text but also in render the same effect the original author wanted to provide to readers in other languages. As explained, the work of the translator is crucial but still considered quite "invisible". In many occasions the translator faces huge difficulties and often his work is not recognised. "Invisibility is a term used by Venuti (1995: 1) "to describe the translator’s situation and activity in contemporary Anglo-American culture". Venuti sees this invisibility as typically being produced:
1. by the way translators themselves tend to translate "fluently" into English, to produce an idiomatic and "readable" TT, thus creating an illusion of transparency";
2. by the way the translated texts are typically read in the target culture [...]" "Venuti (1998:31) sees the most important factor for this as being "the prevailing conception of authorship". "Translation is seen as derivative and of secondary quality and importance" (Munday 2001: 146).

In this way, Venuti draws our attention on the binomio authorship-copyright to explain the delicate position of the translator. In fact, no matter how the translation reflects the original text or how well it renders the idea of the original text, the translator will always have problems with either authorship or copyright. As he states in his book, The scandals of translation "[t]he early cases conceive of linguistic and literary form as transparent communication. Meaning is assumed to be an unchanging essence embedded in language, not an effect of relations between words that is unstable, varying with different contexts. Hence the clothing metaphors that recur in the cases: an author is said to clothe meaning in language; a translator then communicates the meaning of the foreign text by changing its linguistic clothes."(Venuti1998: 59). That is to say that, in a way, the translator writes a different book because he or she has the capability of remodelling the text in his own style.

In this regard, translation studies is a discipline which is growing and which is helping the role of translators be more visible and recognisable. This is clearly demonstrated in the first pages of the translated versions where the names of the English and the Italian translators are included. This shows that the translator’s work is recognised. (See Appendix B)
According to authorship roles, the mediator has to stick with the text and cannot change the sense or paraphrase what the original author wrote because the ideas belong to the original text and not to the mediator. This example shows that "this does not mean that translation is forever banished to the realm of freedom or error, but that canons of accuracy are culturally specific and historically variable" (Venuti, 1995: 37).
As we will see later in the study, Venuti’s domestication and foreignization are key concepts for the understanding of the translation process in The shadow of the wind.