Gli anni Novanta nel Plateau Mont-Royal: Proposta di traduzione del romanzo canadese A Fine Ending di Louis Rastelli

This dissertation deals with the translation from English into Italian of selected passages from the book A Fine Ending by Louis Rastelli. The novel tells the story of Louis, a young artist living in the Plateau Mont-Royal in Montreal during the ‘90s. His story depicts what it was like for people in their twenties to live la vie bohème in this Montreal borough before the turn of the century. Chapter 1 contains the contextualization of A Fine Ending’s setting: the historical and political events that occurred in Quebec at the end of the 20th century, the creative scene of the Plateau neighbourhood and the musical and artistic movements popular in those times, and a reference to the literary and linguistic context in which the book was written. In the second chapter, the genre of the book, a coming-of-age novel or Bildungsroman, is analysed through an explanation of its origins and its traditions in both Europe and North America. The chapter highlights the notion of youth and the new trends of the Bildungsroman genre in recent times; it furthermore illustrates why A Fine Ending can be regarded as a modern example of this genre. Chapter 3 is dedicated to the presentation of the writer Louis Rastelli, his biography, and his novel A Fine Ending, drawing attention to its plot, main topics, writing and editorial process, and specific choices made by the author. Chapter 4 focuses on the translation of selected passages of the novel and the reasons why those are considered particularly interesting. Chapter 5 contains a comment on the translation, with remarks pertaining to the theoretical principles adopted while translating and the translation problems encountered. Translation problems are divided into stylistic, lexical, and culture-specific, as well as problems deriving from the differences between source and target language. Lastly, the final section of this dissertation is dedicated to a possible publication of this translation in the Italian editorial context.