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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Translating aural aesthetics in contemporary African narratives: a case study
Author:Jay-Rayon, LaurenceISNI
Year:2013
Periodical:Research in African Literatures (ISSN 0034-5210)
Volume:44
Issue:1
Pages:166-178
Language:English
Geographic terms:Djibouti
Somalia
Subjects:literature
English language
French language
translation
oral literature
Somali language
About persons:Nuruddin Farah (1945-)ISNI
Abdourahman Ali Waberi (1965-)ISNI
External links:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/research_in_african_literatures/v044/44.1.jay-rayon.pdf
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/reseafrilite.44.1.166
Abstract:Choosing to focus on the translation of aesthetic features in a postcolonial europhone text raises tricky questions: How are these features to be articulated? What intertextual connections can one establish and why? Critics of African literature differ on how contemporary texts relate to the writers' literary heritage. Some insist on viewing these texts as a systematic metaphoric translation of an oral heritage, while this vision is considered by others as another Western conceptual tool to undermine African literature. This paper starts with a case study and gradually raises theoretical issues pertaining to the implications of translating sound motifs in well-identified contemporary African narratives. More precisely, the paper underlines how Nuruddin Farah's writing in 'Secrets' (1999) relates to specific literary codes ruling Somali oral poetics and how Jacqueline Bardolph dealt with this in her French translation. The same attention is given to Abdourahman Ali Waberi's collection of short stories, 'Le pays sans ombre' (1994, Djibouti), and its translation into English by Jeanne Garane ('The land without shadows'). Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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