Translation as fraud : Tracing the imagined original of a Russian pseudotranslation book series

In this chapter, I analyze a Russian pseudotranslation book series as translations from imagined originals. Drawing on Toury’s notion of assumed translation (2012) and Liu’s (2019) focus on the metatextual characteristics of pseudotranslation, I aim to: (1) classify the book series, (2) establish how this type of pseudotranslation differs from translations with regular source and target texts, and (3) discuss the benefits and consequences of perceiving pseudotranslations as translations from imagined originals. Firstly, based on an analysis of paratexts, I classify the book series as a hoax or a marketing strategy. Secondly, I argue that the notion of “imagined original” forces the reader to pay attention to the pitfalls and inherent ambiguity of pseudotranslation, while also drawing attention to issues related to imagology and ethics.