West African Literature and Thought in French: Translating Cultures Translation and Reception

1. West African Literature and Thought in French: Translating Cultures Translation and Reception Georgina Collins Friday 22 January

2. Introducing the Writers Aminata Sow Fall Annette Mbayed’Erneville Mame Seck Mbacké Werewere Liking Alice Valette

3. ‘Postcolonial’ translation • Writing from the postcolonial world / perspective • Interlingual translation / rewriting of postcolonial texts

4. The Receiver • Writer / Performer / Recorder / Publisher / Editor / Translator • The active audience: text transformation • Literary polysystem influences text reception • The interlingual translator: closest reader and most active receiver • Text manipulation (Blair) • Memory and jazz (Mayes) • Experience and research (Schwartz) • Global recognition (Bode-Thomas)

5. Translation Traditions (Salama-Carr) • African • Griot:“professional linguist” • creative in interpretation • ‘original’ text more flexible • drum language • early pictorial signs • poorly paid/under qualified • European lang inadequate • Recent translator training • Senegal excess of translators • Cheikh Anta Diop French • traced back to the 11c • Literal translation tradition taken very seriously • Introduction of new words • rules of translation • debates re. creativity • translator-author increasingly important • high output of texts • well-known translation theorists

6. Issues with Originality “The truth of the matter is that our concept of the ‘original,’ of ‘the song,’ simply makes no sense in oral tradition... We might as well be prepared to face the fact that we are in a different world of thought, the patterns of which do not always fit our cherished terms. In oral tradition the idea of an original is illogical” (101).

7. Translation as Inspiration: The Griot Project

8. “Hommage à une jeune paysanne,” Fatou Ndiaye Sow Mère de la terre De ta sueur pétrie, Souffle chaud des savanes, Ton pas, rythme de Xalam Literaltranslation: Mother of earth Kneaded by your sweat, Hot breath of the savannahs, Your pace, the rhythm of the Xalam Rewritten text: MOTHER OF THE EARTH And your sweat Beats your brow In the burning Savannahs Of the Jolof. Your steps chase the rhythm As the Griot strums the Xalam

9. The Receiver as Participator “If a boundary exists at all between oral and written texts, it [relates] to the different ways in which these genres interact with their audiences. Oral texts invoke or imply the accompaniment of musicians and dancers, and the presence of live audiences who participate in events” (West African Literatures: Ways of Reading. 73)

10. Translation as Marginal • Publishing and funding • Profile of translation – embracing the ‘foreign’ • Translation as Research manifesto • Awards and organisations • Society of Authors: Translators Association • International Translators Day

11. Anthologising Africa • The impact of construction on reception • Cultural forums • Selective representation • Recolonisation by means of translation

12. Thank you for listening!