Intimate Enemies

ContributorsMoradewun Adejunmobi is Professor of African Studies in the African American and African Studies Program at the University of California, Davis.Paul F. Bandia is Professor of Translation Studies in the Department of French at Concordia University, Montreal.Kathryn Batchelor is Lecturer in French and Translation at the University of Nottingham.Claire Bisdorff completed her PhD on the translation of French and English Caribbean literature at the University of Cambridge in 2010.Ruth Bush is a DPhil student in Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford.Maryse Condé is one of the most studied and beloved writers from Guadeloupe in the French-speaking Caribbean. She is Professor Emerita at Columbia University in the City of New York and divides her time between New York and Paris.Marjolijn de Jager, born in Indonesia and raised in the Netherlands, resides in the USA.Ananda Devi is a Mauritian author who has published numerous works of fiction and poetry.Carol Gilogley is a freelance translator and researcher at the University of St. Andrews.Kathleen Gyssels teaches African diaspora literatures (African American and Caribbean) at Antwerp University.Peter Hawkins is Senior Research Fellow in French at the University of Bristol.Christine Pagnoulle teaches English literatures and translation at the University of Liège.Richard Philcox is Maryse Condé’s husband and translator. His latest translation was Conde's novel Victoire, My Mother's Mother, published by Atria Books in 2010. His translation of Condé’s essays Writing in Maryse Condé will be published in 2013 by Seagull Books.Christine Raguet is Professor of Translation Studies at the Department of English, Sorbonne nouvelle University.Audrey Holdhus Small is Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies at the University of Sheffield.Véronique Tadjo is a writer, artist and academic from Côte d’Ivoire. Born in Paris, she was raised in Abidjan. She is the Head of French Studies and a Professor in the School of Literature, Language and Media at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.Julia Waters is Senior Lecturer in Modern French and Francophone Literature at the University of Reading.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Translation – Formidable Enemy of Needed Friend? - Kathryn BatchelorThe Translation Market: Publishing and DistributionLiterary Translation and Language Diversity in Contemporary Africa - Moradewun AdejunmobiTranslation and its others: postcolonial linguistic strategies of writers from the Francophone Indian Ocean - Peter HawkinsPublishing francophone African literature in translation: towards a relational account of postcolonial book history - Ruth BushPublishing, Translation and Truth - Audrey SmallWriting and Translating in PracticeIntimate Enemies: A Conversation between an Author and her Translator - Maryse Condé and Richard PhilcoxTranslation: Spreading the Wings of Literature - Véronique TadjoTranslation – A Listening Art - Marjolijn de JagerAnanda Devi as Writer and Translator: in interview with Julia WatersThe Négraille’s Testament: Translating Black Label - Kathleen Gyssels & Christine PagnoulleTranslating Heterophony in Olive Senior’s Stories - Christine RaguetTranslation Challenges and New Avenues in Postcolonial Translation TheorySubverting Subversion? Translation practice and malpractice in the work of Patrick Chamoiseau - Carol GilogleyUn art de la fugue: Translating Glissant’s poetry and prose d’idees - Claire BisdorffPostcolonial Intertextuality and Translation explored through the work of Alain Mabanckou - Kathryn BatchelorAnanda Devi as Transcolonial Translator - Julia WatersTranslation and current trends in African metropolitan literature - Paul BandiaNotes on ContributorsIndex

There are 15 contributions to this collection, including those of the editors, one of whom, Kathleen Batchelor, also writes the 13-page Introduction; the other articles run from 8 to 20 pages. The longest text also has the longest title, and the shortest texts are also the most direct and concise. There are three subsections, covering (i) The Translation Market: Publication and Distribution, (ii) Writing and Translation in Practice, (iii) the Challenges and New Avenues in Postcolonial Translation Theory. The Introduction covers all the major features of translation, which, as any translator knows, are quite convoluted. Kathleen Batchelor informs us that the title Intimate Enemies was originally proposed by Maryse Conde and Richard Philcox. As author with her translator (who is also her husband), Conde and Philcox present a wonderful 9-page conversation on this topic as the opening text [89-97] of the Practice section. It is a profoundly insightful overview, fascinating to read, and like poetry, delightful to re-read. Conde even suggests that the original text, in putting human experience into words, is itself a translation, which is a profound recognition of what the translator goes through. Writers, she points out, write because they love to write; there is an element of adoration. And translators, her husband notes, come to translation because they want others to experience the pleasure and delight that they have found in the originals. In the first section [17-86], the opening chapter by Moradewun Adejunmobi is concerned with "Literary Translation and Language Diversity in Contemporary Africa" [17-35]. It is wide ranging, and looks at the problems in terms of the global village of the third millennium: multilingualism, and world languages. Peter Hawkins reports on "Francophone writers from the Indian Ocean" [35-48], and Ruth Bush on "Francophone African Literature" [49-68]. This section is rounded out by Audrey Small with a chapter entitled "Publishing, Translation and Truth" [69-86], which looks at Aime Cesaire's play Une saison au Congo, and its role in the "mythologization of Patrice Lumumba". The second section [89-159] begins with the conversation of Conde and Philcox [89-97] which gives the book its title, and gives us insights into what it is like to have your work translated with all the concomitant pleasures and aggravations, and what it is like to be the translator, confronting the difficulties and acknowledging the inevitable inadequacies. There are five other chapters in this section: Veronique Tadjo's Translation: Spreading the Wings of Literature [98-108] takes the form of an interview with Kathryn Batchelor. The author, from the Cote d'Ivoire, was born in Paris and had begun her career with an MA in African American studies at the Sorbonne. She is now Head of French Studies at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and discusses writing as diverse as novels on political themes to children's literature, both of which are found in her work. Marjolijn de Jager, born in Indonesia and raised in the Netherlands translates from both French and Dutch, and has a "special place in her heart" for Francophone African literature; she writes on "Translation - A Listening Art" [109-116]. A Mauritian of Indian descent, Ananda Devi, is also presented by means of a brief interview: "Ananda Devi as Writer and Translator: In interview with Julia Waters" [117-123]. A winner of many awards, she is a prolific writer who has been translated into Hindi, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Slovenian and English. She has some very interesting comments on the problems of translating Guyanese and Mauritian Creole: there is no one straightforward solution to such problems, and the skilled translator needs to be aware of the options. The remaining two chapters in this section are both substantial: "The Negraille's Testament: Translating Black-Label", by Kathleen Gyssels and Christine Pagnoulle [124-140], and Christine Raguet's "Translating Heterophony in Olive Senior's Stories" [141-158]. The first of these is a detailed account of the problems and trials of translating a strikingly powerful book-length French poem from the African diaspora into English, and the second the similar problems of translating the "many-voiced" utterances of Jamaican writer Olive Senior from English into French. As one who has translated mostly from French to English, but sometimes the other way, I was intrigued how these two essays brought out significant cultural differences between French and English, such as the rigidity of standard French vocabulary (mentioned by Raguet [145] with a quote from linguist Andre Martinet), as opposed to the vast resources of English, with its massive borrowing from French during the bilingual period from 1066-1400, the Greco-Roman vocabulary from the Renaissance onwards, and the borrowings from around the globe in the last 400 years. The third and final section contains five chapters. The first, by Carol Gilogley, "Subverting Subversion? Translation Practice and Malpractice in the Work of Patrick Chamoiseau" [161-180], immediately plunges us back into the problems of translating Creole, particularly in the complex writing of Chamoiseau, described by Kundera [citation p. 161] as a "francais chamoisise", with a long critique (and long paragraphs, one over a page in length) of Linda Coverdale's translations. The second, Claire Bisdorff's "Un art de la fugue? Translating Glissant's Poetry, Fiction and Prose d'idees" [181-195], and third, Kathryn Batchelor's "Postcolonial Intertextuality and Translation Explored through the Work of Alain Mabanckou" [196-215], both look at translating particular authors, and the traditions to which these authors belong. The fourth chapter brings us back to the remarkable range of Ananda Devi, "Ananda Devi as Transcolonial Translator", by Julia Waters [216-234], and the fifth and last, "Translation and Current Trends in African Metropolitan Literature", by Paul F. Bandia [235-251], creates a fitting conclusion by a wide ranging overview of the relationship between the former African colonies and the metropole, the good, the bad, the different, and the indifferent, all seen through the eyes of African francophone writers, with the author's interlinear commentaries on his translations of some of these. The humour (even black humour, pun accidental), of some of this writing is delightful, a very pleasant conclusion to the book. I trust the writers of these essays will forgive me for the inadequacies of this review, since reviewing a collection of chapters is every bit as difficult and as frustrating as is translation: the problems of what to include, what to omit, and knowing all the time that one cannot, in a simple review, give an adequate account of all. But the very diversity of this volume will be of interest to all translators, who will find in its pages the confessions, concerns, and insights of their fellow workers at this ancient trade, who need to be not only linguists, but technicians and artists as well. Cercles The very diversity of this volume will be of interest to all translators, who will find in its pages the confessions, concerns, and insights of their fellow workers at this ancient trade, who need to be not only linguists, but technicians and artists as well. Cercles This volume focuses on the question of postcolonial translation, especially the relationship between author, text, and translator, notably the (in)visible nature of translating postcolonial literary texts. Moradewun Adejunmobi considers how literary translations might advance linguistic diversity in Africa and calls for publications to be made in more than one language, including an African vernacular. Peter Hawkins surveys literary production in the Indian Ocean and notes the significance of both bilingual and parallel editions of texts where the texts vary (sometimes strikingly) between languages. Ruth Bush provides a case study of Cheikh Hamidou Kane's L'Aventure ambigue. in order to explore the relationship between anglophone and francophone African publishing, focusing on translations by five different publishing houses. Taking Patrice Lumumba as her subject, Audrey Small grapples with the challenges of translation in reaching an accurate historical record, concentrating on notably different translations of Aime Cesaire's play Une saison au Congo. In conversation with her translator-husband Richard Philcox, Maryse Conde argues that the translations of her novels are more a product of the translator than the author, but they both agree that translation is a necessary evil. Kathryn Batchelor then interviews Veronique Tadjo, who picks up the theme of the need for more translations between African languages, and emphasizes the positive possibilities that translations provide in terms of creating a new text. Marjolijn de Jager addresses those interested in translation and confirms that she perceives translation as political activism. Julia Waters's conversation with author and translator Ananda Devi highlights Devi's attitudes to the languages in which she writes; while French has, to her mind, a poetic potential, the Creoles convey concepts and images. Kathleen Gyseels and Christine Pagnoulle provide a close analysis of their translating of Le'on-Gontran Damas's Black-Label and discuss the challenges faced in conveying non-standard French in translation, and in the reproduction of the unconventional layout. Christine Raguet outlines the difficulties in promoting what she calls the 'creative Creolization' (p. 155) of Olive Senior's Ballad into French. Carol Gilogley extends her critique of Linda Coverdale's 1994 translation of Patrick Chamoiseau's Au temps de l'antan to target trends in translation more widely, drawing the reader's attention to the 'domesticating, standardizing tendencies' (p. 169) that translation can impose. Claire Bisdorff critiques a handful of translations of Edouard Glissant's poetry and fiction, concluding that the act of translation both perpetuates his creativity and invites a rethinking of the author's work. Batchelor explores intertextuality as translated from Alain Mabanckou's writings, in particular Verre casse, highlighting the erasure of African allusions in translations of the novel. Waters returns to Devi's role as a transcolonial translator and argues that Devi's identity and background permit her both to foreignize and domesticate her translation of David Dabydeen's The Counting House. Paul F. Banda closes the volume with a discussion of literary heteroglossia in postcolonial Africa, with particular emphasis on humour, power relations, and social class. Broad in geographical coverage, this volume offers the reader a succinct consideration of trends in postcolonial translation while highlighting the tensions in this field. French Studies, Vol. 68, no 2 ... this volume offers the reader a succinct consideration of trends in postcolonial translation while highlighting the tensions in this field. French Studies, Vol. 68, no 2