Translating crossover picturebooks: the Italian translations of "Bear Hunt" by Anthony Browne

This chapter sets out to explore the challenges posed by the translation of crossover picture books, that is, works addressing the child and the adult alike. Building on recent research on the translation of picture books and on aspects related to performativity and read-aloudability in children's literature, the investigation focuses on the Italian translation (1990) and retranslation (1999) of Bear Hunt by Anthony Browne. The case study shows how the two translators adopted different solutions when tackling the relationship between visual and verbal, the read-aloud situation put on by the adult reading aloud, and the different layers of meaning of Browne's picture book. Grounded on O'Sullivan's scheme on narrative communication for translation, the comparative analysis also attempts to account for the differences between the implied child reader and the implied adult reading aloud in the source text and in the target text.