Resisting Homogenization: Giorgio Bassani translates James M. Cain

First published in 1934, The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain caused an immediate sensation in the U.S., and its fame soon spread across the ocean into Europe. This paper examines the first unabridged Italian translation by Giorgio Bassani (1946). Starting from Venuti’s objection to the “simpatico” notion, according to which a congeniality between author and translator would guarantee a successful translation, the author pushes his argument further and suggest that antipathy, or a contrariety of feeling can challenge the tradition of transparent discourse and approximate Lewis’s idea of “abusive fidelity.” Through an analysis of Bassani’s translation, the article discusses how the Jewish-Ferrarese writer tampered with standard Italian usage by switching past tenses, by using a mixed language, and by ultimately surrendering to the untranslatability of Cain’s prose. In conclusion, Rita Filanti argues that Bassani’s refusal to appropriate and domesticate the foreign text can be read as a celebration of Italy’s liberation from fascism and its enforced policy of language normalization.