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Sardinia comes to Australia: Finding spaces for Mediterranean writing in translation

This article details some of the cultural movements and interactions that take place when bringing the work of a Sardinian novelist into the Australian context. I have translated a number of novels by Milena Agus, texts that are set in Cagliari or on Sardinia's rugged coastline but at times move to the island's interior and to mainland Italy. Translation entails not only linguistic transfer of words and sentences from one language to another but also the transmission of a geographical and cultural setting and a literary and historical context as well as a response to the needs and expectations of the new audience. I focus on what the Australian public can bring to the experience of reading a contemporary Sardinian novel and on how my strategies have sought to draw upon Australian readers' images and preconceptions of Italy. In my translations, I needed to acknowledge and put to use both the foreignness of the settings and the similarities with familiar worlds. Important elements included experiences (both personal and collective) of travel and migration, world knowledge and background information, and even stereotypes of Italian and Mediterranean cultures. I also focus on the critical reception of some of Agus's work in translation.