Sexuality and Translation in Pavel Bazhov's "Fire Fairy"

This poster will compare two English translations of Pavel Bazhov's "Fire Fairy"; specifically I focus on how the translations convey the sexual themes of the story. "Fire Fairy" is a short story published in The Malachite Casket, which is an anthology of stories written by Bazhov when he was traveling the Ural Mountains in the late 1930s. The story is about a young boy, Fedyunka, and his pursuit of a dancing girl that appears before him when he creates fires. Fedyunka believes that she will leave gold in the spots where she dances. The sexual undertones of this story are primarily conveyed through motifs that are common in Russian and eastern European folklore. I will discuss how two translators—Alan Moray Williams and Eve Manning, whose works were published in 1944 and 1950, respectively—compensate for cultural differences in order to retain this aspect of the story.