Transitioning from printed novel to novel website: a case study

It could be argued that hypermedia is now the main vehicle for formal innovation and cultural exploration in contemporary writing because it allows an unprecedented interweaving and intermingling of different genres, media, and concepts. This paper discusses some of the implications of moving narrative text from print to a web-based environment and suggests that the formal possibilities of hypermedia provide a unique way of exploring the cultural construction of both place and subjectivity. My discussion will particularly refer to some of Carmen Covito s recent work. A novelist, professional screenplay writer and translator, she was among the first Italian authors to explore the potential of electronic textuality, launching her own website in 1997. Fifteen years later, the site (http://www.carmencovito.com), fully maintained by the author herself, could be considered a prime example of `cultural translation . I use this term to refer to the processes of cultural expressions `moving across language, genre, and other boundaries. Such processes raise questions related to translatability, comprehension and loss of meanings. Through a reading of Covito s (hyper)texts, the paper shows how her intersemiotic translations (from print to the web) offer multiple possibilities both for communicating with new audiences and redefining the role of the writer and/as translator.