Le Joueur de flûte by Louis Hamelin is a modern, ecologically-driven American adaptation of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Clearly American in style, the novel draws from American literary traditions, such as Nature writing, while remaining distinctly French American. My thesis examines the novel through the notion of américanité, which acknowledges the American reality of French America while also opening up a space for discussion thereupon, a space comparable to that which post-colonial scholars refer to as “in-between space” or “third space.”
My translation of Le Joueur de flûte has attempted to preserve the américanité of the original text despite the fact that American English does not have access to the kind of “in-between space” that American French, by virtue of its américanité, possesses. I will discuss the challenges of such a translation, including the introduction of foreignizing elements and the reproduction of linguistic hybridity. This discussion will be followed by two excerpts of my translation.