PRESERVING PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERIORITY IN TRANSLATING WOLFGANG BORCHERT'S KURZGESCHICHTEN: A COMPACT METHOD FOR MINIMALIST PROSE

This paper proposes a compact, reproducible method for translating Wolfgang Borchert’s post-war Kurzgeschichten while preserving psychological interiority—the felt inner life that his minimalist prose encodes through rhythm, deixis, and object-detail rather than overt psychologizing. Combining segment-based comparative analysis, a linguo-poetic reading of punctuation-as-prosody and detail-as-index, and contextual interpretation within Trümmerliteratur, we evaluate two emblematic stories—Das Brot and Die Küchenuhr—with selective reference to monologic passages from Draußen vor der Tür. An equivalence profile unites Nida’s dynamic/formal, Newmark’s semantic/communicative, and Venuti’s domestication/foreignization axes. Findings indicate that small “smoothing” moves—e.g., re-punctuation that closes silences, domestication of household objects, or personifying indeterminate noises—raise pathos but erode interior depth. We offer a practical blueprint (punctuation discipline; deictic mirroring; denotative object realism; lexical restraint; “foreignness quota”) that translates Borchert’s ethics of austerity into operational decisions. The approach generalizes to short postwar narratives where silence carries meaning.