Abstract
Georges Simenon (1903-1989) signed 75 detective novels and 28 short stories featuring world-famous commissioner Maigret, as well as 117 psychological novels (he called 'romans durs'). Having sold over 500 million copies during his lifetime (Marnham 1994: 2-3), he is without question the most successful of all Belgian writers. Moreover, he is the most translated Belgian writer, and even third-most translated French-writing author of all time, after Jules Verne and Alexandre Dumas. Whereas his work has been studied extensively, especially in the years leading up the centenary and his inclusion in Gallimard's Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in 2003, translations of his work were studied only incidentally. Although Simenon is the Belgian author most translated into Dutch, there is not a single scientific study of the nearly 240 Dutch translations.
In addition, 49 novels were retranslated into Dutch, i.e., translated again although a previous translation existed. As retranslation studies (hereafter RTS) are mainly concerned with canonical classics of world literature, there is very little research into retranslations (RTs) of crime novels, despite increased scientific interest in the genre. In this respect, the RTs of both crime novels and 'romans durs' provide an ideal ground to compare between RTs of reputedly 'popular' or 'paraliterary' yet world-famous, and 'serious' but less well-known genres, thus shedding new light on the complex relationship between RT and popularity/canonicity.
Besides genre, gender as well has remained under-researched in RTS, despite its societal and scientific relevance, including in translation studies. Gender is particularly germane to studying Simenon's crime fiction in translation: as Campbell (2022) points out, narrators and characters exhibit male gaze and patriarchal schemata with respect to how women are portrayed, in ways not necessarily acceptable in RTs today.
The question studied, then, is how Dutch translators and retranslators have translated such gender-related passages, while comparing translations (1) of different periods; (2) of different genres; and (3) made by translators of different genders. In brief, this first study of the Dutch Simenon translations will provide a cultural microhistory of changing gender representations in the Dutch target culture, as well as a novel perspective on RT, by comparing between 'serious' and 'popular' genres, and by investigating how gender representations may be affected by RT, as well as how RTs may be affected by retranslators' gender.
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