This article examines whether the theory and methodology developed by phenomenology can be applied to translation praxis and translation studies. The opening sections present some fundamental assumptions of phenomenology, both as philosophical doctrine and in terms of its methodological approaches. The phenomenological approach to translation theory is then discussed as a response to the relativism, psychologism and subjectivism that characterize certain contemporary translation theories. Subsequently, the application of phenomenological approaches to translation theory and practice is considered. The article further explores Roman Ingarden’s theory of the literary work of art and its implications for literary translation. In this framework, a literary work of art is understood as a schematic, multilayered structure, and a translated work is regarded as its concretization. Finally, the discussion addresses whether and how translators of literary texts can integrate both objective and subjective perspectives when translating a text.

Shared narratives and value systems play a fundamental role in the formation of authentic relationships, particularly when built upon collaboration and openness towards the Other. Steinbeck’s fourth novel and first critical success, Tortilla Flat (1935), offers a promising study in hermeneutical mimesis as it relates to literary friendships, while underscoring the permutational aspects of the symmetry that characterizes Paisano togetherness. The friends participate in the Aristotelian sharing of life, whereby parity is preserved in order to pursue common goals, thus avoiding a potential fracturing of their circle due to rivalries or antagonism.

The repositioning of women’s writing represents one of the key transformations in Slovak literature following the Velvet Revolution. During the first decade of the post-communist transition, women’s writing gradually moved from the periphery towards the center of the literary field, acquiring increasing influence over its dynamics. The first part of the article examines the most important contexts of this process, focusing in particular on women’s association initiatives, the reception of feminist concepts, and ways of understanding women’s writing. The second part analyzes selected artistic and formal strategies as well as the dominant thematic areas of the period in question. Research shows that Slovak women authors of the 1990s frequently draw on autobiographical modes of writing, transgress genre and discourse boundaries, and thematize questions of identity and women’s experience in various contexts – familial, intimate, and social. Issues of corporeality and sexuality also feature prominently; within a feminist framework, questions of power relations and oppressive cultural mechanisms also emerge. From the perspective adopted here, the repositioning of women’s writing is understood as an emancipatory process: its conditions were created by political transformation, while its course was shaped by specific communal and individual creative, publishing and scholarly initiatives.