Narratives of Translators: The Translational Function of Prisoner Writing

Prison is a marginal space that hidden from society, and life writing by prisoners thus offers valuable insights into prison life. This paper examines prisoner writing, as genre neglected academia, focusing on how the prisoner-writer describes imprisonment to non-prisoner reader. My analysis explores Davies’s (1990. Writers in Prison. Oxford: Blackwell) assertion represents an act of translation. Drawing Doloughan’s (2016. English Literature Translation. London: Bloomsbury) description ‘narratives translation’ stem multilingual multicultural experiences, I theorise can be likened translator. In exploring this assertion, employ archival research compile corpus short stories about prison, written UK prisoners, published via periodicals competitions. reading these texts centres presence diegetic translators who fulfil translational role, describing other characters produce typology translators, examine they establish their authority credibility translate life, understand prisoner-writers conceive carceral authorial process. further evidence function demonstrates value through lens