Censorship and literary translation in Turkey : translating obscenity after 'The Soft Machine' and 'Snuff' court cases

Abstract

Censorship has been a reality of Turkey since the establishment of the Turkish Republic. Turkish translators and publishers are among those who have been subjected to censorship. In 2011, the Turkish publishers (İrfan Sancı and Hasan Basri Çıplak) and translators (Süha Sertabiboğlu and Funda Uncu) of the novels The Soft Machine and Snuff were taken to court on the grounds of obscenity. These two court cases constitute merely two of numerous examples of censorship imposed on translators and publishers in Turkey. However, such obscenity court cases have hardly been investigated in studies on censorship and translation focusing on Turkish context. To address this gap, this thesis investigates the effects of the two court cases on publishers’ and translators’ subsequent translation/publication behaviours, choices and strategies. This research is constructed as a case study, and is informed by mixed methods including corpus methods and in-depth interviews. Through corpus methods, and interviews with the defendants of the two court cases, data regarding translators’ and publishers’ behaviours, decisions and strategies are collected and triangulated. Interviews also introduce translators’ and publishers’ perspectives in the discussion of censorship in translation studies. The data are discussed in the light of various censorship theories and the literature in censorship and translation, and obscenity and translation.