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 Vol.21 

The Intertextuality of Last Words from Montmartre in its Spanish Translation


Author
Yu-Fen TAI
Synopsis

Last Words from Montmartre is a posthumous work by Qiu Miaojin ( 邱妙津 Chiu Miao-chin, 1969-1995) written before she committed suicide in Paris in 1995. Although she wrote only two works, Notes of a Crocodile and Last Words from Mont- martre, they have become classics of LGBT literature in Asia. In Qiu Miaojin's era, the identity of homosexuality was still obscure and ambiguous. These two novels anticipate the acceptance of homosexuality. In Last Words from Montmartre, sever- al declarations appear just like a “death foretold.” This article uses the original work and the Spanish translation as a corpus. The intertextuality in the original work is quite remarkable. Qiu Miaojin cites many writers, scholars, films, etc., in a way that makes intertextuality a significant feature of Last Words from Montmartre. The Span- ish translator, Belén Cuadra, uses footnotes as a translation strategy to deal with intertextuality. This study applies Julia Kristeva’s intertextuality theory and Roland Barthes’ “the death of the author” concept to interpret the original work and, simul- taneously, the style adopted by the Spanish translator.