Résumés
Résumé
Pimontel est le protagoniste d’un court texte d’Abraham Moses Klein, écrit vers la fin des années 1940 et laissé inachevé. Pimontel est un être singulier qui choisit de se dévouer à la traduction des textes de la diaspora juive. L’échec de cette tentative en dit long sur l’attitude de Klein envers la traduction, et partant envers la coexistence et l’interpénétration des imaginaires de la diaspora juive canadienne et montréalaise.
Abstract
This article suggests a reading of the literary production of A. M. Klein, the first Canadian writer to construct a Jewish body of work in English. Klein provided a link between the past of the Yiddish language and culture and the present of Canadian literature. Acutely aware of his historical role and significance, he took the translator’s vocation very seriously: himself a translator (of numerous Yiddish texts, among others), he also assigned key roles to translators in his fiction, both in The Second Scroll and in his unfinished work “Pimontel”. Klein’s conclusion that translation is, in a certain sense, impossible, is based not on conventional reasons (in his view, Yiddish is perfectly translatable), but on the idea that the diasporic situation calls for an aesthetic of unfinished translation, a fragmentation and stratification of memories and languages.