Transcending Cultural Boundaries: Transcreation in Maria Tatar’s Cinderella Narratives

Transcreation is widely used to adapt and preserve oral tales and cultural narratives, enabling their retelling across cultures. This paper investigates how cultural contexts influence the transcreations of the Cinderella narrative. Using Maria Tatar’s diverse collection of Cinderella tales, the study examines the strategies used by transcreators in conveying the story across languages and regions. The analysis ranges from the ancient Egyptian tale of Rhodopis to the Chinese Cinderella variant, focusing on how translators overcome cultural differences. By comparing translations within Tatar’s compilation, like the French courtly elements in Perrault’s tale “Donkeyskin” and Brahminical influences in the Indian tale “The Story of the Black Cow”, the paper reveals how translation choices affect the interpretation of the Cinderella myth worldwide. This approach demonstrates the importance of Translation Studies in understanding folklore’s evolution and cultural adaptation.