The Fabulous Artificer, the Architect, and the Roadmender: On Retranslating Aloys Skoumal’s Czech Ulysses

In 2012, on the 90th anniversary of its publication by Sylvia Beach, the appropriately named Argo Press–a prominent publisher of world fiction – republished Aloys Skoumal’s translation of James Joyce’s Ulysses (Odysseus in Czech). Published in 1976 by Odeon and accompanied by his afterword and annotations, Skoumal’s lifelong work is the crowning achievement of a fruitful career. Skoumal translated not only Dubliners and A Portrait, but also e.g. Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, and Carroll’s Alice books. Skoumal’s Odysseus’faithful rendering of the many obscurities of the original’s labyrinthine intentions continues to impress. Still, in 2012, it was felt that “over the years Skoumal’s freeway has shown a few potholes in need of mending,” as Martin Pokorný, the translation editor, has put it.