Martin Kratz on ‘Two Uses for Ashes’: Translation as Forgery in Anthony Burgess’ Versions of Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli'

The article is entitled ‘Two Uses for Ashes’: Translation as Forgery in Anthony Burgess’ Versions of Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli and has been published in Translation and Literature.

Kratz explores the tension between literary translation and literary forgery, following the discovery that two poems, Two Uses for Ashes and The Bet, previously claimed by Anthony Burgess himself to be translations of sonnets by the nineteenth century Roman poet, Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli (1791-1863), were not in fact translations, but Burgess’ own work.

This is one of the outcomes of Martin’s AHRC Cultural Engagement Fellowship. It is based on his new research into the manuscript collection at the Anthony Burgess Foundation. Kratz also curated an exhibition and wrote the catalogue which accompanied it.

Kratz can be heard discussing his work and Burgess’ translations of Belli in a podcast entitled Belli’s Bible for Blasphemers available on the Anthony Burgess Foundation website. He reflects upon why Burgess admired Belli's work, and his combination of 'blasphemous conceit with, in Burgess’ own words “rock bottom realism”’.

Kratz reflects that following the new association of Two Uses for Ashes and The Bet with Burgess himself, both texts will be identified as “pseudotranslation” or “fake literature”, as their origin is different from what it was said to be.

The International Anthony Burgess Foundation is an independent educational charity that encourages public and scholarly interest in all aspects of the life and work of Anthony Burgess. The foundation are currently celebrating the Anthony Burgess’s centenary with an international programme of publications, research projects, public events and activities of all kinds.