Biography

Désirée Schyns is a professor (“docent”) in translation studies and translation (French-Dutch) at Ghent University. Before taking up her current post she worked as a translator of literature and as a literary critic in the Netherlands. She has translated work by Yoko Tawada (with Bettina Brandt), Malika Mokeddem, Assia Djebar, Stefan Liberski, Nancy Huston, and Sarah Kofman. She holds a PhD from Amsterdam University (UvA) and was awarded the ASCA (Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis) dissertation award for her dissertation on the representation of the Algerian Independence War in fiction written by francophone Algerian writers. She is the author of La mémoire littéraire de la guerre d’Algérie dans la fiction algérienne francophone (L’Harmattan, 2012) and has published  on contemporary francophone literature in translation and on memory, traumatic experience, and representation of war and violence (torture) in francophone Algerian fiction and film (Haneke). Her current research focuses on the translation of multilingual francophone texts in a postcolonial perspective and on the representation of the Algerian Independence War in francophone fiction, graphic novels, and film. She also has a keen interest in the representation of traumatic experiences of the Holocaust in francophone diaries, testimonies, and fiction. Her article “Témoignage direct et témoignage des traces. Sarah Kofman, Hélène Berr et Dora Bruder à Paris pendant l’Occupation allemande” is forthcoming.

Contact

Ghent Universit