Genre, Style and Culture in the Translation into French of Popular Fiction

This paper considers two authors, Ian Fleming and Dashiell Hammett, who contributed to the popular genres respectively of spy fiction and crime fiction. We examine the changing reception in France of the authors by analysing some examples of how their books were translated when they were published and at the present time. The discussion centres on a consideration, on the one hand of the books’ literary qualities, given that they are what George Orwell called ‘good-bad’ books, and on the other of the wider socio-cultural context that seems to determine the reception of literature of this kind. To highlight the French situation we consider in tandem the sharply contrasting UK socio-cultural context.