Chichester student is first to translate Vernon Lee into Turkish
Eda with her translation
A student at the 天美传媒官方 has become the first to translate the work of author Vernon Lee into Turkish. 听
Eda Caglar, from Trabzon, Turkey, came to the University in 2019 to study English Literature as part of an exchange programme. She was so inspired by the work of Vernon Lee, an English essayist who wrote supernatural fiction,听that she decided to translate her work as part of her dissertation.听听
She says: 鈥淲hen we read Vernon Lee鈥檚 Hauntings And Other Fantastic Stories on the Decadence and Desire module, I realised that as a Turkish reader we have not heard about such an amazing author which was a shame. She, like many other women writers, had not got the attention that she deserves.听
鈥淔or my dissertation I decided to translate one of her works after my supervisor encouraged us to find works which have never been published in Turkish. That was an exciting idea and I committed myself to introducing Lee to Turkish readers.鈥�听
After Eda finished translating all the stories from Hauntings and Other Fantastic Stories, she began looking for a publisher, but it took several attempts before she found a publishing house in Turkey willing to take on her translations.听听听
鈥淚 have fought for two years for Vernon Lee and finally on 13 November my translation has been published with the inscription ‘The first time in Turkish’. That gave me a sense of enormous pride.鈥�听
Dr Miles Leeson, Reader in English Literature at the University, who teaches the module said: 鈥淚’m delighted that Eda had a wonderful time studying with us at Chichester and really enjoyed her time reading and researching late-19th century literature. Vernon Lee has been overlooked as a writer, even here in the UK, so I鈥檓 delighted that Eda engaged so much with her work that she was inspired to translate Lee into Turkish.听听
Dr Leeson added: 鈥淟iterature is a vibrant and diverse subject here at Chichester, providing many opportunities to home students and visitors from the EU and beyond, and Eda’s hard work is just one example of that.鈥�听
For more information on our English degrees, visit www.chi.ac.uk/english-and-creative-writing.听
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