Translations’ copyright/translators’ copyright: a history of power imbalance in the Italian book trade

Speaker: Anna Lanfranchi – Teaching Fellow in Translation & Transcultural Studies & Italian at the University of Warwick

This research seminar is a hybrid event and is free & open to all.

Seminar topic:
In the second half of the 19^th century, international legal frameworks gave to the authors of literary works a new level control over the translation and publication of texts across national borders. While recognising the status of translations as original works in their own merit, authors and translators faced different challenges in the rapidly changing transnational landscape. Drawing on research on the post-Unification Italian publishing industry, the paper discusses the different treatment of translations’ and translators’ copyright in the first half of the 20th century, and explores the consequences of such power imbalance for the structural and professional development of the Italian book trade.

About our speaker:
Anna Lanfranchi is a Teaching Fellow in Translation and Transcultural Studies and Italian at the University of Warwick (UK). Her research focuses on transnational book history from the 19th century to the present day. She has published on Italian translation and publishing history, wartime book programmes, and intellectuals in the book trade. Her first monograph, Translations and Copyright in the Italian Book Trade: Publishers, Agents, and the State (1900-1947) (Palgrave 2024) explores the legal frameworks and the professional networks informing the negotiation of translation rights to British and US works in Italy in the first half of the 20th century.