Abstract
Everybody has heard about Harry Potter, the famous book by J.K. Rowling and the famous wizard. It is, as everybody knows, a very popular novel everywhere in the world. It is particularly popular in the country where it was written. Not only children, but also many grown-ups actually love it.
We are going to analyze the content of the first book (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone) and its translation into French.
Harry Potter is an English story; it is easy to find in it many allusions to Harry's country and civilization. Harry Potter is a wizard, but, before being a wizard, he is a young English boy. Many details show, in the text, where the story is set. Of course there are more elements that refer to the wizard's civilization; how could we find, beside them, those allusions to the British culture?
Another interesting thing is the translation of the book: how was it possible to translate such a book in French? It was probably very difficult, and it is interesting to see how the translator could avoid creating text too different from its original version. We can wonder, for instance, how he could have translated the words that J. K. Rowling had made up, referring to magic, such as Muggles, Hogwarts or Quidditch, to name just a few. We will therefore compare it to its French translation, made by Jean-François Ménard. We will see how the latter could keep the original humor from the text, and to what extend he could stay faithful to what the author had written.
