Jason Goodwin’s ‘Possible Worlds’ Unveiled in Translation (Studies)

The books with a specific cultural theme written in a foreign language stand out as a remarkable type of texts in terms of Translation Studies. In such books, description of a native culture in a foreign language reflects features similar to a translation, and it is called ‘foreign language creation,’ the product of a translation process ongoing in the writer’s mind. While these books seem to be the translation of a native culture into a foreign language, their translation back into the native language represents a ‘back translation’ in cultural sense without a physically existing ultimate source text, in other words ‘textless back translation.’ Within this context, the present study deals with English author Jason Goodwin’s Ottoman-themed books titled Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire ([1998] 2000), The Janissary Tree (2006a), and The Snake Stone ([2007] 2008) as ‘foreign language creations’ and their Turkish translations as ‘textless back translations.’ Drawing on the portrayal of the Ottoman available in many passages, Goodwin’s texts are approached from the perspective of ‘orientalism’ and the distinction between ‘history’ and ‘fiction’ in the first place. While these focal points offer a better understanding and interpreting of the ‘orientalist’ marks and the ‘possible worlds’ in the texts, an analysis of the translation methods used by the writer in his ‘foreign language creations’ and by the translators in their ‘textless back translations’ provides useful insight into the reasons and the effects of certain translation decisions.