Fantastica toponomastica. Sulla traduzione italiana dei nomi di luogo nel ciclo narrativo di Andrzej Sapkowski

This article aims to analyse the peculiarity of place names occurring in The Witcher saga by the Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowski and to examine their Italian translation. Toponyms play a key role in the portrayal of an imaginary world, perform a wide range of functions and are usually unrelated to the reality in which the reader lives in. The analysis will focus on certain aspects of the Italian translation: humor and wordplays, intertextuality, stylistic register, problems of comprehension and interpretation of the source text. An overview of some distinctive traits of fantasy fiction that can influence the translation of place names, such as transmediality and serialization, will also be presented.