Identity, exoticism and language in the works of Matéo Maximoff: Romani in Icelandic translations

Abstract

Roma culture is not well known in Iceland and hardly any works of Roma writers have been translated into Icelandic. Roma writers rarely write their works in Romani. The writer and story-teller Matéo Maximoff, for instance, wrote most of his works in French. As many other Roma writers in the 20th century, he wished to give a good account of the Roma people’s history and culture in order to instruct the reader about their life and community by providing various information about their customs and traditions, but also by using both words and short sentences in Romani. This both refers to particular words with no equivalent in other languages as well as words that do have an equivalent in another language and could therefore be easily translated into the target language. This article presents the works and the fictive world of Matéo Maximoff as well as his use of Romani words in his writings in French. Examples will be taken from some of the short-stories in the collection La poupée de Mameliga. Le livre de la peur (Mameliga’s Doll. The Book of Fear). The Romani words add a certain exoticism to the French original and they can also be found
in the translated text.