Abstract
The aim of this essay is to investigate to what extent gender matters in
translation. The discussion centres on the translation of English
feminist writings into Polish: „A Room of One’s Own”,
„Orlando” and „Written on the Body”. Unlike English,
Polish is a highly inflected language, which requires gendered choices
in the language used to describe characters. Thus, there is a risk that
the translation may distort the original meaning of the whole text. I
will begin by introducing some concepts of feminist theory of
translation, which draw attention to gender issues. Then, I will analyse
the Polish translations of books in question. The main argument of this
essay is that because translating sexual ambiguity into Polish is
impossible, feminist translators may take it to their advantage to
transfer their own attitudes. This ultimately may shape the overall
perception of the book and the author by a given readership.