Delia Chiaro is Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Bologna, Italy.

• 1. Translation and Humour, Humour and Translation Delia Chiaro; Part I. Translating Humour in Society; 2. Linguistic Factors in Humour Graeme Ritchie; 3. Translating English into English in Jokes and Humour Christie Davies; Part II. Translating Humour in Antiquity; 4. Translating Aristophanes into English Michael Ewans; 5. Translating Greece to Rome: Humour and the Re-Invention of Popular Culture I. A. Ruffell; Part III. Translating the Humour of the Great Literary Tradition; 6. Rewriting the French Tradition: Boccaccio and the Making of the Novella Charmaine Lee; 7. Translating Humour For Performance: Two Hard Cases from Inoue Hisashi's Play, Yabuhara Kengyo Marguerite Wells; 8. The Laughing Word of James Joyce Rosa Maria Bollettieri Bosinelli and Samuel P. Whitsitt; 9. Translating Humphry Clinker's Verbal Humour Marta Mateo; 10. Language-Based Humour and the Untranslatable: The Case of Ziad Rahbani's Theatre Nada Elzeer; Part IV. Coda; 11. Tripartite: Cross-Talk Acts Walter Redfern; Bibliography; Index.

This book significantly advances both translation studies and humour scholarship. Delia Chiaro has assembled a unique array of experts to reflect on the challenges of translating humour. Volume one is replete with examples and practical advice from masterly translators but it is also that rare thing - a scholarly book about humour that is itself humorous. It instructs while it entertains. From Michael Ewans' recapturing of Aristophanic satire's original shock-value and Marguerite Wells' lively account of matching the Japanese tally of 27 synonyms for "prostitute", to the insights afforded by Christie Davies' "translations" of Scottish religious jokes into other varieties of English and Walter Redfern's self-discoveries in the process of creating French and Spanish versions of a poem to his father, this book illuminates both the nature of translation and of humour. The second volume will be eagerly awaited.