From Pride to Prejudice: Transnational Countercultures and Queer Translations

For the longest time in Italy, the word ‘queer’ had to be domesticated so that its references to forms of gender disobedience may be safely filtered out. Instead of drawing attention to the linguistic difference of a culture-bound term like ‘queer’ and looking for a way to express its foreignness, some translators, in Italy and elsewhere, opted to disregard nonconforming gender identities, by treating them as non-existent. Accordingly, instead of promoting a shared identity for sexual and other minorities, these translations reinforced their oppression. This essays focuses two novels, Patrick Dennis' Auntie Mame and Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle, and analyzes the terms used to translate queer sexuality into Italian.