Case Study · Literary Translation
Émile Gaboriau — Literary Translation & Editorial QA
Literary translation at book scale requires more than producing fluent target text. It also requires explicit control of what has been preserved, omitted, repeated, reorganised or interpreted.
The work
Using Le Crime d’Orcival as one of the working cases, the process separates initial translation from editorial QA.
The workflow was developed for complete books rather than isolated sample passages.
Editorial checks include:
- fidelity to the source;
- omissions and completeness;
- unwanted repetitions;
- paragraph and structural correspondence;
- terminology and proper names;
- ambiguous or uncertain passages;
- consolidation of the complete volume before final human review.
From source to review
A French source passage is first translated into a working English version. A separate editorial pass then compares source and translation and records changes affecting meaning, formulation, structure and terminology.
This separation makes editorial intervention visible and reviewable instead of treating the first translation as a finished result.
What this case demonstrates
Book-scale translation workflow design, comparative reading, fidelity control and structured editorial QA.
Result: A documented working translation prepared for further editorial review.
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