Abstract

This essay is a critical discussion of Thomas Kolberger's 1992 German translation of Italo Calvino's novel "Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno" (1947). By positioning herself at the crossroads of interests from both linguistics and translation studies, the author investigates the way in which typically Calvinian syntactic and rhythmic devices have been rendered in Kolberger's translation. It is suggested that the translation is subject to a kind of 'normalization' process according to the standard of contemporary German, resulting in a sacrifice of both rhythmic and stylistic nuances of the original text. It is further affirmed that this is only partially due to the structural constraints of the two different languages.