Name the Narrator

During the twenty-first century, literary translators have increasingly made themselves seen and heard beyond the boundaries of their translated texts and paratexts, most significantly in digital spaces and in their own translation-themed fiction. They have gone beyond demands for visibility of the translatedness of the text, engaging publicly with the narratives of translation that define and limit their practice, and emphasizing in particular the human and creative nature of the art of translation. This chapter explores how the circulation of literary translators’ narratives about their work is essential to the success of campaigns for visibility, since these narratives encourage not only an increased awareness of the presence of translation but also a more nuanced understanding of the art of translation and those who practise it. The chapter also engages with recent models of translation and/as activism, to reflect on translators’ power to act as narrative activists for human translation in an increasingly digitized and automated age.