The Story of Eva (Krotoa): Translation Transgressed

Abstract

Summary This article relates the story of other people's stories about an indigenous woman Krotoa, renamed Eva, within South African history. The narration of Krotoa is briefly reconstructed, keeping in mind that narrative itself is a temporal construction. The process of reconstruction becomes another version of the story of Krotoa, as well as a review of the nature of cultural remembrance. The ultimate aim is to assess the procedure whereby the story of Krotoa becomes a translation of the Real according to Lacan.