‘Italianness’ in English-language novels: intratextual translation as a representational tool

A contemporary writer choosing to set a narrative in a different country might find themselves desirous to represent multilingualism (or ‘heterolingualism’, the term preferred by Rainier Grutman) on the page. Bringing a different language into the main language of the text, however, can be a complicated process. Using terminology introduced by Meir Sternberg in 1981, this article looks at three examples of contemporary British novels set partly in Italy: Virginia Baily’s Early One Morning, Adam Foulds’s In the Wolf’s Mouth and Penelope Fitzgerald’s Innocence. Particular attention will be paid to the different ways in which the narratives integrate Italian language into their English text, and to the different purposes served by intratextual translation strategies, before pointing out some of the limits of intratextual translation as a representational tool.