Reception and Translations of Beckett’s Bilingual Work

Abstract

This essay deals with the characteristics of repetition in Beckett’s
works and how it constitutes an issue no translator of these works can ignore. It is pointed out that the kind of repetition employed by the author has a direct bearing on his decision to become the translator of most of his writings, thus creating a bilingual work. Both the features of his bilinguilism and the reception these bilingual works received in the French and Anglo-American world are commented here. By way of these comments, we argue that the beckettian translator should always consider the English and the French texts, as both integrate an oeuvre in which a sharp distinction between “original” and “translation” no longer holds.