Skip to main content

TS Paper, initial thoughts

Here are some initial thoughts on my research paper:


Research question:

For my research paper I’m planning to look at three recent Haitian Creole translations of Jacques Roumain’s celebrated novel Gouverneurs de la rosée (1944). One of them, Clotaire Saint-Natus’s Mèt lawouze douvanjou (2007) was written for a Haitian audience, while two, Maude Heurtelou’s Fòs lawouze (2000) and Jan Mapou’s stage adaptation Mèt lawouze (2012) were intended primarily for the Haitian diaspora in the United States. I would like to know how these three authors dealt with the challenges of translating a work of formal literature into an emergent literary language. I will draw from André Lefevere’s systems approach to literary studies to analyze how Saint-Natus, Heurtelou and Mapou’s refractions are shaped by the patronages and poetics of their milieus.


Initial Bibliography:

Fosdick, Charles. “Translation in the Caribbean, the Caribbean in Translation.” Small Axe 48 (November 2015): 147-162.

Heurtelou, Maude. Fòs lawouze. Coconut Creek, FL: Educa Vision, 2000.

Lang, George. “Translation from, to and within Atlantic creoles.” TTR 13 no. 2 (January 2000): 11-28.

Lefevere, André. “Mother Courage’s Cucumbers: Text, system and refraction in a theory of literature.” In The Translation Studies Reader, 1st ed., edited by Lawrence Venuti, 233-249. New York; London: Routledge, 2000.

Mapou, Jan. Mèt lawouze, play. Miami, FL: Sosyete Koukouy & Libreri Mapou, 2012. DVD.

Richman, Karen. “Militant Cosmopolitanism in a Creole City: The Paradoxes of Jacques Roumain.” Biography 34 no. 2 (Spring 2012): 303-317.

Saint-Natus, Clotaire. Mèt lawouze douvanjou. Port-au-Prince: Editions Henri Deschamps, 2007.


Comments

  1. sehnaz tahir18 October 2017 at 07:41

    This is an excellent proposal, in fact it could make a very good thesis proposal (although I know you are not writing one in TS) and I also know that you have changed your mind, but I wanted to comment on this nevertheless!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 8 Readings, or History Repeats Itself (in Translation)

As a student of history with a strong interest in translation for its own sake, I found this weeks readings particularly eye-opening. Quite often when I read history—whether primary documents or the works of historians—I ask myself how these people from various linguistic communities are communicating. Despite Julio-César Santoyo’s attestation that there are “thousands of examples [… of] documents that tell of interpreters involved in embassies and legations (both secret and official), peace and trade treaties, settlements of frontiers, royal marriages,” the fact remains that the critical role of translators and interpreters is overwhelmingly absent from historical records and narratives. 1 This, no doubt, speaks to the ubiquity of translators and the notion that a good translator must remain invisible, but it also poses a problem for those who wish to study the history of translation. I would be keenly interested, for instance, to know more about the processes and power dynamics at ...
2 comments
Read more

Notes and Bibliography

Notes: 1 Edmund Wilson, Red, Black, Blond and Olive: Studies in Four Civilizations: Zuni, Haiti, Soviet Russia, Israel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), 110. 2 Paul Berry, “Literacy and the Question of Creole,” in The Haitian Potential: Research and Resources of Haiti , Vera Rubin and Richard P. Schaedel, eds. (New York: Teachers College Press, 1975), 85; Central Intelligence Agency, “Haiti,” The World Factbook. Accessed 30 November 2017. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ha.html. 3 For a thorough analysis of the divided structure of Haitian society, see Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Haiti, State Against Nation: Origins and Legacy of Duvalierism , (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990). 4 Matthew Robertshaw, “Pawòl Gen Zèl: Language Legitimation in Haiti’s Second  Century,” (master’s thesis, University of Guelph, 2016). 5 George Lang, “Translating from, to and within the Atlantic Creoles,” TTR 13 no. 2 (January 2000): 11. 6 Itamar Even-...
Post a Comment
Read more