Translation and Postcolonial Identity

AbstractCritics and authors of the corpus of texts designated as African literature often consider problematic the role of European languages in this literature. A discourse based on the practice of translation represents one strategy among others for resolving the crisis of identity of African writing in European languages. Three kinds of translation found in African literature are discussed in this paper. Both compositional and authorized translations seek to confirm the African identity of the European-language text: the former by reference to imaginary and the latter by reference to original versions in indigenous African languages. Complex translations, on the other hand, embrace mobility between languages and identities as inescapable in postcolonial Africa. While these varieties of translation appear to reconcile the desire for authenticity with the exigency of writing in a foreign language, the relationship between the various versions indirectly confirms the continuing hegemony of European langua...