Combustion or Incineration? Notes on English Translations of Holocaust-related Writings by W. G. Sebald

This paper examines certain discrepancies between the German originals and the English translations of three Holocaust-related works by W. G. Sebald: The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, and Vertigo. The process of Anglicization is shown to involve tonal transformations. Attention is also drawn to variations in the use of the textually embedded illustrations that form such a distinctive feature of Sebald's narrative strategy, for example the omission from The Emigrants of a chalk drawing by the refugee artist Frank Auerbach that was featured in the German original, Die Ausgewanderten. This raises further questions about an aesthetic of hybridity that not only combines words with images, but transforms real-life originals into quasi-fictional characters.