The "Rewriter" par excellence

Alev Bulut, of Istanbul University, critiques the book concisely: The 'Rewriter' par excellence: 'Türkçe Söyleyen' Can Yücel problematizes the poet-translator Can Yücel s unique translation approach in the Turkish literary system by analyzing four of his translations in three genres: poetry, drama, and prose fiction. The study demonstrates that André Lefevere and Susan Bassnett s notion of rewriting accounts for Yücel s specific translation approach in the most thorough way and it gives us a sketch of Yücel s idiosyncratic approach which opts for the people s language in parallel with the ideological and translational background to the discussion within the context of Turkish literature and culture." Moreover, Yücel himself briefly explains his 'skopos' regarding poetry translation in an upfront way: "My translation understanding is more or less as follows: I try to translate the poetic essence of a poem, not its individual words; I m careful about translating it into Turkish as an entity. [ ] I don t see translation as a matter of omitting words or adding others what is important for me is to aim for wholeness while translating the pieces." (Karantay 1989a, trans. Çavu o lu)