Popular Culture Review Volume 30, Number 1, Winter 2019 | Page 128

War , Patriotism , and Nationality in the Nor wegian and Swedish Translations of Cherry Ames
not only because they follow Army customs . Another fighter pilot joins the conversation and tells Cherry that the nurses can mean the difference between life and death for many soldiers . This passage has been omitted from the Swedish translation , resulting in a censorship of the pin-up section , and an omission of the part where the nurses ’ role in the war is mentioned .
When comparing the Norwegian and Swedish translations with the source text , it is clearly the case that the Swedish translations are the least source-text oriented on a purely textual level . This is in line with earlier research showing that translations into languages of central literary systems are freer . It appears as if the publisher wants to protect the reader from the war and to make the geographical contexts less specific . At the same time , it is necessary to mention that the case seems to be the opposite concerning the portrayal of Cherry on the cover image of Army Nurse and , to some extent , Flight Nurse .
In the wartime novels , it is inevitable that the enemies are mentioned . In Flight Nurse , a mother comes with her child to Cherry ’ s hospital after a bombing . She says : “ This time , I thought , the Jerries will have had enough of bombing the Drews . But it seems I was wrong ” ( 58 ). The slang is toned down in the Norwegian version , rendering the text even more explicit as to whom the enemy is , namely tyskerne (“ the Germans ”): “ Denne gangen tenkte jeg nok tyskerne ville hatt nok av å bombe oss , men jeg hadde nok tatt feil ” ( 43 ). This sentence is omitted from the Swedish version . In another episode , Cherry ’ s friend Dr . Joe tells Cherry in a letter what has happened to some people he knows in England . One line of the letter is : “ Then the Germans bombed London ” ( 21 ). This is translated quite literally in the Norwegian target text as “[ s ] å bombet tyskerne London ” ( 18 ), whereas the sentence
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