Georges Simenon yirminci yüzyılın en üretken ve en tanınan yazarlarından biridir. Sade biçemi, yarattığı polis müfettişi Maigret dizisinde yazdığı polisiye romanları ile sıradan insanların nasıl bir suçluya dönüştüğünü anlattığı psikolojik gerilim romanlarıyla tanınmış, eserleri birçok dile çevrilip büyük okur kitleleri tarafından rağbet görmüştür. Simenon Türkiye’de de büyük ilgi görmüş, romanları özellikle 1980’lere kadar Sait Faik Abasıyanık, Bilge Karasu, Oğuz Haluk Alplaçin gibi ünlü yazarlar tarafından Türkçe’ye çevrilmiş, 1990’lardan sonra Maigret dizisinden birçok kitabı çevrilmeye devam etmiştir. Everest Yayınları tarafından 2016-2017 yıllarında yeniden basılan “Georges Simenon Ustaların Türkçesiyle” adlı dizideki çevirileri inceleyen bu makelenin iki temel amacı vardır. İlk amaç Simenon’u Türkçe’ye çeviren ilk çevirmenlerin hem yazar kimlikleri hem de seçilen eserler ve çevirilerde kullandıkları ve kendilerini yansıtan biçem ve dil özelliklerinin nasıl farklı Simenon algılarını ortaya çıkarmaktır. İkinci amaç ise Simenon’un Türkçe’de yazar/çevirmenler tarafından yapılan çevirilerinin nasıl bu yazar/çevirmenlerin kendi biçem ve dil özelliklerini yansıttığını tartışmaktır. Bu çalışmada, hem metinsel hem de yanmetinsel öğeler kullanılarak söz konusu çevirilerin Simenon'un Türkiye'deki çevirilerinde nasıl bir algı oluşturduğu incelenecektir. Simenon her zaman nitelikli çevirmenler tarafından çevrilse de bu çalışmanın amacı gereği ilk dönem çevirilerinden sadece dört tanesi ele alınacak ve çevirilerde kullanılan ve çevirilerin birbirinden oldukça farklı olmasına yol açan stratejiler kaynak metinle karşılaştırmalı olarak incelenecektir.

Georges Simenon was perhaps the most widely published author of the 20th century. His total literary output (including novels written under several pseudonyms) consisted of about 425 books that were translated into at least fifty-five languages and which sold more than six hundred million copies worldwide. Such a prolific oeuvre and widespread fame have led to diverse intepretrations of Simenon, his style and his characters. Simenon is famous for its simple but effective style which he reached by deliberately omitting all polished sentences that have no use in his writings. This style made him famous and somehow challenged his translators. In Turkey, not only Georges Simenon as an author but his translators were so famous especially until the 1980s. Simenon’s translations were serialized in daily newspapers and published in book form, all translated by very famous translators and men of letters. Sait Faik Abasıyanık, Oktay Akbal, Bilge Karasu, Tahsin Yücel, Nuurullah Ataç and Çetin Altan may be cited among these translators who were also well-known authors of Turkish literature. When the literary translator is a prominent author, their enhanced visibility tends to endow their translations with higher visibility and status as well. It was clearly the case with Simenon whose works were not chosen for retranslation into Turkish, instead these first canonized translations were published many times throughout the years. In 2016- 2017, Everest Publishing House republished these translations under the series “Georges Simenon Ustaların Türkçesiyle” by adding prefaces and notes. The prefaces or introductory texts were written by well known editors and scholars. According to these extratextual materials, one of the main characteristics of these editions is the fact that they were published without any alterations on the first translations. Indeed, these first translations were republished with some textual modifications (simplifying the language and replacing archaic expressions with more contemporary ones) earlier in 2006- 2008 by Kabalcı Publishing House. This article aims to discuss two interrelated characteristics of Georges Simenon’s translations into Turkish. The first aim is to reveal the different presentations of Simenon in Turkey through the first canonized translations carried out by famous authors and translators by examining the style and language characteristics that reflect them in these translations. The second aim is to discuss how Simenon's translations made by authors/translators in Turkish are used by these authors/translators as a practice tool for their own style and language. In this study, these first translations that formed a canon in Simenon's translations in Turkey will be studied by using both textual and paratextual elements. Although each translation in this series has its own idiosyncracies and literary value, four Simenon translations are chosen to be examined as a representative corpus since they are quite different from each other in terms of topic and style. The questions which author chose which Simenon’s novel and why, how he translated it, and how these translations created stylistic differences are aimed to be answered. These are Sait Faik Abasıyanık's Yaşamak Hırsı, Bilge Karasu's Bella’nın Ölümü by Oğuz Haluk Alplaçin, Manhattan’da Üç Oda by Oktay Akbal, each published by Everest Publishing with a preface..