Methods of Translating

Rewriting

For this brief, I chose two following readings from the list.

1. Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author, 1977, pp. 143–148
2. Eva Weinmayr, One Publishes to Find Comrades, 2014, pp. 50–59

I chose to rewrite two pages of Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author, 1977, following the writing style/ editorial layout of Eva Weinmayr, One Publishes to Find Comrades, 2014.

I noticed that it was difficult for me to understand what Roland Barthes was saying in his book, as it was written in a very ‘serious’ manner. I found the chunks of text cramped together into a rectangle of a layout to be very monotonous and less breathable while trying to understand the contents of the text.

On the other hand, while reading Eva Weinmayr, I felt relaxed, and I could understand the content in portions, as the layout was also spaced out, with the inclusion of images, which gave me time to breathe and broke the monotony of it.

I used only what I had to recreate the layout of two pages from Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author, 1977, and rewrote it in the editorial style of Eva Weinmayr, One Publishes to Find Comrades, 2014. I’ve attached a document that follows the process and the final result of the rewriting.

I found the editorial design of the second book to be much more appealing and easy to comprehend, with spaced-out type layouts that broke the monotony with images was an easier and more relaxed read.

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