Through the Maze of Style, through the Labyrinth of Time. Stylization in the Translation of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

The author attempts at showing the impact which style has on the process of translation. The theoretical angle presenting the role of style in a literary text is followed by an examination of the style adopted in Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, which is a novel consisting of six stylistically independent stories with subtle connections established between them. The analysis of the text’s stylization to make it resemble a diary, a host of letters, a journalistic thriller, a memoir, an SF interview and a spoken tale allows to depict the strategies used in the translation of the novel and characterize the factors which determine style, such as genre, historical time, characters and others.