Umberto Eco and the Model Translator

When I was first asked to write a contribution on Umberto Eco and translation for this volume, I was uncertain as to how to approach the subject. The task is rendered somewhat daunting by Eco’s threefold relationship with translation: not only has he written much and so famously on translation himself but his writing on the subject is clearly informed by his position both as a translator himself and as a successful writer of international repute who has, over time, become a much-translated author. Eco himself establishes this status of translator and translatee, to coin a term, as a fundamental condition for anyone wishing to write about translation from a more theoretical point of view. The three perspectives of writing on translation, translating and being translated (and the latter is most certainly not a passive process for Eco), summed with his extensive production of fiction, academic texts and more general writings on culture, all become intertwined, adding threads and patterns to Eco’s rich tapestry of intertextual references.