La traduzione come spazio di gioco

The paper suggests to think translation in terms of Spielraum, i.e. of play space as well as of scope, considering both the literary as well as the figurative meaning of the German term. In order to develop this thesis we refer to the Spielraum concept as theorized by Merleau-Ponty and relate it to the concept of Spracherleben, the lived experience of language, as theorized by Brigitta Busch. Following up this line of reasoning, the second part of the paper focuses on the biographies of translators who translate literary texts into a non-mother tongue, challenging a very traditional and still widespread idea of directionality in translation process, that claims translators should translate only into their own mother tongue. The case of these translators exemplifies the thesis of translation as Spielraum.