ISSN 2011-799X
Date of receipt: 08/02/2020
Date of acceptance: 18/05/2020
doi: 10.17533/udea.mut.v13n2a12The Critical Enterprise in Translating Black
Women Writers’ Authorship: A Description
on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat?
and The Women of Tijucopapo
Norma Diana Hamilton
norma.diana@unb.br
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9137-1928
University of Brasilia, Brazil
Israel Victor de Melo
israelvictor398@gmail.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6662-9694
University of Brasilia, Brazil
Abstract
This paper is focused on the critical enterprise involved in the translation of Black female authorship
from Afro-Caribbean and Latin American contexts into the English language. More specifically, it
looks at the circumstances of the translation of the fictional narratives Célanire cou-coupé (2000) by the
Guadeloupian Maryse Condé and As mulheres de Tijucopapo (1982) by the Brazilian Marilene Felinto,
as well as the publications of the versions in English: Who slashed Celanire’s Throat? (2004) and The Wo-
men of Tijucopapo (1994), respectively. We take on a cultural perspective within the field of translation
studies and it may be inserted within the theoretical and descriptive branch, being product-process
oriented. From general cultural social theories, we draw on the works of Black female intellectuals, Lélia
Gonzalez, Patricia Hill-Collins, Denise Carrascosa, and many others, in dialogue with the perspectives of
cultural theorists from translation studies, André Lefevere, Lawrence Venuti, and others. Based on the
models of descriptive analysis within this field by Gideon Toury and others, we propose a description
of the translation (process and product) of Condé’s and Felinto’s novels.
Keywords: politics of translation, Black female authorship in the Caribbean and Latin-America,
coloniality of gender, intersectionality, Mestizo translation.
El proyecto crítico de traducir la autoría de escritoras negras: una descripción
de Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? y The Women of Tijucopapo
Resumen
Este artículo se concentra en el proyecto crítico de traducir la autoría de escritoras negras de contex-
tos afrocaribeños y latinoamericanos a la lengua inglesa. En específico, aborda las circunstancias de
la traducción de las narrativas ficticias Célanire cou-coupé (2000), de la guadalupeña Maryse Condé, y
Date of receipt: 08/02/2020
Date of acceptance: 18/05/2020
doi: 10.17533/udea.mut.v13n2a12The Critical Enterprise in Translating Black
Women Writers’ Authorship: A Description
on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat?
and The Women of Tijucopapo
Norma Diana Hamilton
norma.diana@unb.br
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9137-1928
University of Brasilia, Brazil
Israel Victor de Melo
israelvictor398@gmail.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6662-9694
University of Brasilia, Brazil
Abstract
This paper is focused on the critical enterprise involved in the translation of Black female authorship
from Afro-Caribbean and Latin American contexts into the English language. More specifically, it
looks at the circumstances of the translation of the fictional narratives Célanire cou-coupé (2000) by the
Guadeloupian Maryse Condé and As mulheres de Tijucopapo (1982) by the Brazilian Marilene Felinto,
as well as the publications of the versions in English: Who slashed Celanire’s Throat? (2004) and The Wo-
men of Tijucopapo (1994), respectively. We take on a cultural perspective within the field of translation
studies and it may be inserted within the theoretical and descriptive branch, being product-process
oriented. From general cultural social theories, we draw on the works of Black female intellectuals, Lélia
Gonzalez, Patricia Hill-Collins, Denise Carrascosa, and many others, in dialogue with the perspectives of
cultural theorists from translation studies, André Lefevere, Lawrence Venuti, and others. Based on the
models of descriptive analysis within this field by Gideon Toury and others, we propose a description
of the translation (process and product) of Condé’s and Felinto’s novels.
Keywords: politics of translation, Black female authorship in the Caribbean and Latin-America,
coloniality of gender, intersectionality, Mestizo translation.
El proyecto crítico de traducir la autoría de escritoras negras: una descripción
de Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? y The Women of Tijucopapo
Resumen
Este artículo se concentra en el proyecto crítico de traducir la autoría de escritoras negras de contex-
tos afrocaribeños y latinoamericanos a la lengua inglesa. En específico, aborda las circunstancias de
la traducción de las narrativas ficticias Célanire cou-coupé (2000), de la guadalupeña Maryse Condé, y
Norma Diana Hamilton and Israel Victor de Melo446Mujeres y traducción en América Latina y el Caribe
As mulheres de Tijucopapo (1982), de la brasileña Marilene Felinto, al igual que de la publicación de las
versiones en inglés: Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? (2004) y The Women of Tijucopapo (1994), respecti-
vamente. Adoptamos un enfoque cultural dentro del campo de la traductología, que puede insertarse
dentro de la rama teórica y descriptiva, orientado hacia el producto y el proceso. Nos apoyamos, res-
pecto a las teorías sociales culturales generales, en los trabajos de intelectuales negras: Lélia Gonza-
lez, Patricia Hills-Collins, Denise Carrascosa, entre muchas otras, en diálogo con las perspectivas de
teóricos culturales de la traductología, como André Lefevere, Lawrence Venuti y otros. Basándonos
en los modelos de análisis descriptivo dentro de la traductología de Gideon Toury y otros, propone-
mos una descripción de la traducción (proceso y producto) de las novelas de Condé y Felinto.
Palabras clave: políticas de la traducción, escritura de mujeres negras en Latinoamérica y el Caribe,
colonialidad de género, interseccionalidad, traducción mestiza.
L’Action critique vers la traduction des productions des écrivaines noires :
une description de Who slashed Celanire’s throat? et The Women
of Tijucopapo
Résumé
Cet article se concentre sur l’action critique liée à la traduction, en langue anglaise, de productions
écrites par des femmes noires dans les contextes Afro-Antillais et Latino-Américains. Plus précisé-
ment, nous analysons les circonstances de traduction des récits fictifs Célanire cou-coupé (2000), de la
Guadeloupéenne Maryse Condé, et As Mulheres de Tijucopapo (1982), de la Brésilienne Marilene Felin-
to, ainsi que les publications des versions anglaises : Who slashed Celanire’s throat ? (2004) et The Women
of Tijucopapo (1994), respectivement. Nous prenons comme perspective l’approche culturelle dans le
champ des Études de Traduction, qui peut s’inscrire dans le domaine théorique et descriptif, étant
guidé par son processus de production. Sur la base des théories sociales culturelles générales, nous
nous appuyons sur les travaux des intellectuelles noires Lélia Gonzalez, Patricia Hill-Collins, Denise
Carrascosa et bien d’autres, en dialogue avec les perspectives des théoriciens culturels des études de
traduction, André Lefevere, Lawrence Venuti et bien d’autres. Sur la base des modèles d’analyse des-
criptive du domaine par Gideon Toury entre autres, nous proposons une description de la traduction
(processus et production) des romans de Condé et Felinto.
Mots-clés : politiques de traduction, productions des femmes noires dans les littératures des Caraïbes
et d´Amérique latine, colonialité du genre, intersectionnalité, traduction métisse.
As mulheres de Tijucopapo (1982), de la brasileña Marilene Felinto, al igual que de la publicación de las
versiones en inglés: Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? (2004) y The Women of Tijucopapo (1994), respecti-
vamente. Adoptamos un enfoque cultural dentro del campo de la traductología, que puede insertarse
dentro de la rama teórica y descriptiva, orientado hacia el producto y el proceso. Nos apoyamos, res-
pecto a las teorías sociales culturales generales, en los trabajos de intelectuales negras: Lélia Gonza-
lez, Patricia Hills-Collins, Denise Carrascosa, entre muchas otras, en diálogo con las perspectivas de
teóricos culturales de la traductología, como André Lefevere, Lawrence Venuti y otros. Basándonos
en los modelos de análisis descriptivo dentro de la traductología de Gideon Toury y otros, propone-
mos una descripción de la traducción (proceso y producto) de las novelas de Condé y Felinto.
Palabras clave: políticas de la traducción, escritura de mujeres negras en Latinoamérica y el Caribe,
colonialidad de género, interseccionalidad, traducción mestiza.
L’Action critique vers la traduction des productions des écrivaines noires :
une description de Who slashed Celanire’s throat? et The Women
of Tijucopapo
Résumé
Cet article se concentre sur l’action critique liée à la traduction, en langue anglaise, de productions
écrites par des femmes noires dans les contextes Afro-Antillais et Latino-Américains. Plus précisé-
ment, nous analysons les circonstances de traduction des récits fictifs Célanire cou-coupé (2000), de la
Guadeloupéenne Maryse Condé, et As Mulheres de Tijucopapo (1982), de la Brésilienne Marilene Felin-
to, ainsi que les publications des versions anglaises : Who slashed Celanire’s throat ? (2004) et The Women
of Tijucopapo (1994), respectivement. Nous prenons comme perspective l’approche culturelle dans le
champ des Études de Traduction, qui peut s’inscrire dans le domaine théorique et descriptif, étant
guidé par son processus de production. Sur la base des théories sociales culturelles générales, nous
nous appuyons sur les travaux des intellectuelles noires Lélia Gonzalez, Patricia Hill-Collins, Denise
Carrascosa et bien d’autres, en dialogue avec les perspectives des théoriciens culturels des études de
traduction, André Lefevere, Lawrence Venuti et bien d’autres. Sur la base des modèles d’analyse des-
criptive du domaine par Gideon Toury entre autres, nous proposons une description de la traduction
(processus et production) des romans de Condé et Felinto.
Mots-clés : politiques de traduction, productions des femmes noires dans les littératures des Caraïbes
et d´Amérique latine, colonialité du genre, intersectionnalité, traduction métisse.
The Critical Enterprise in Translating Black Women Writers’ Authorship:
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo447Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
1. Introduction
Black female literature from the Caribbean
and Latin America is part of a literary tradi-
tion that has been identified as peripheral in
relation to traditional Eurocentric literature,
as it comes from voices that have been margin-
alized, voices of the ex-colonized. Such voices
have fought to give visibility to questions re-
lated to the interface of race and gender with-
in patriarchal Eurocentric societies, in which
their experiences up-to-date are negotiated
and compromised by the trace of the history
of colonization.
By portraying the different forms of oppres-
sion that Black women face in such societies,
as well as indicating pathways to social justice,
Black female authorship from the Caribbean
and Latin America becomes an artistic mani-
festation that counters the Eurocentric literary
tradition, in which Black culture and identity
have been represented inadequately and, as
such, obscured. Black female authorship, with-
in a spectrum of artistic manifestations of Black
culture, contributes to constructing a space in
which Black women may express their subjec-
tivities, with the aim of creating adequate and
just representations of themselves.
As such, in our perspective, the work of the trans-
lation of Black female literature is of utmost im-
portance, as it may contribute to an increase in
the dissemination and visibility of the enterprise
of Black women’s writing. In referring specif-
ically to the Brazilian context, Brazilian re-
searchers Cibele Araújo, Luciana Silva and
Dennys Silva-Reis speak out against the gener-
al negligence of the Black female voice when
it comes to giving visibility to cultural produc-
tions in translation. They point out that “the
choice of the work to be translated could level
out the playfield of feminine representations,
contributing to Black women’s right to seeing
themselves in a positive way in literature and
in the cultural products that they consume”
(Araújo et al., 2019, p. 6, our translation).
This paper takes on a cultural perspective with-
in the field of Translation Studies (thereby, ts)
and it may be inserted within the theoretical and
descriptive branch, being product-process ori-
ented. From general cultural social theories,
we draw on the works of Black female intel-
lectuals, Lélia Gonzalez, Patricia Hill-Collins,
Denise Carrascosa, and others, in dialogue
with the perspectives of cultural theorists from
ts, André Lefevere, Lawrence Venuti, and oth-
ers. Based on the models of descriptive analysis
within ts by Gideon Toury and others, we pro-
pose a description of the translation (process
and product) of Condé’s and Felinto’s novels.
The general objective of this article is to dis-
cuss the political agency of the translation of
Afro-Caribbean and Latin American female
authorship with focus on the novels aforemen-
tioned. By political agency we refer to the evi-
dent concern and efforts of the translator and
other people or organizations involved in the
translation project, in giving visibility to what
is valued in the st: the protagonist, his/her sto-
ry and cultural setting, as well as the literary
aspects specific to the author. Such an agency
or critical enterprise of the translation points to
an orientation towards the st. As such, the
specific objectives of this research include dis-
cussing the circumstances in which the works
were selected for translation and published;
pinpointing decisions made by the translator
at the level of word choices related principally
to the interface of race and gender; and identi-
fying the translation strategy employed.
The relevance of the proposal of this paper is
its intended contribution to the visibility of the
translation of Black female authorship from
Afro-Caribbean and Latin American contexts.
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo447Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
1. Introduction
Black female literature from the Caribbean
and Latin America is part of a literary tradi-
tion that has been identified as peripheral in
relation to traditional Eurocentric literature,
as it comes from voices that have been margin-
alized, voices of the ex-colonized. Such voices
have fought to give visibility to questions re-
lated to the interface of race and gender with-
in patriarchal Eurocentric societies, in which
their experiences up-to-date are negotiated
and compromised by the trace of the history
of colonization.
By portraying the different forms of oppres-
sion that Black women face in such societies,
as well as indicating pathways to social justice,
Black female authorship from the Caribbean
and Latin America becomes an artistic mani-
festation that counters the Eurocentric literary
tradition, in which Black culture and identity
have been represented inadequately and, as
such, obscured. Black female authorship, with-
in a spectrum of artistic manifestations of Black
culture, contributes to constructing a space in
which Black women may express their subjec-
tivities, with the aim of creating adequate and
just representations of themselves.
As such, in our perspective, the work of the trans-
lation of Black female literature is of utmost im-
portance, as it may contribute to an increase in
the dissemination and visibility of the enterprise
of Black women’s writing. In referring specif-
ically to the Brazilian context, Brazilian re-
searchers Cibele Araújo, Luciana Silva and
Dennys Silva-Reis speak out against the gener-
al negligence of the Black female voice when
it comes to giving visibility to cultural produc-
tions in translation. They point out that “the
choice of the work to be translated could level
out the playfield of feminine representations,
contributing to Black women’s right to seeing
themselves in a positive way in literature and
in the cultural products that they consume”
(Araújo et al., 2019, p. 6, our translation).
This paper takes on a cultural perspective with-
in the field of Translation Studies (thereby, ts)
and it may be inserted within the theoretical and
descriptive branch, being product-process ori-
ented. From general cultural social theories,
we draw on the works of Black female intel-
lectuals, Lélia Gonzalez, Patricia Hill-Collins,
Denise Carrascosa, and others, in dialogue
with the perspectives of cultural theorists from
ts, André Lefevere, Lawrence Venuti, and oth-
ers. Based on the models of descriptive analysis
within ts by Gideon Toury and others, we pro-
pose a description of the translation (process
and product) of Condé’s and Felinto’s novels.
The general objective of this article is to dis-
cuss the political agency of the translation of
Afro-Caribbean and Latin American female
authorship with focus on the novels aforemen-
tioned. By political agency we refer to the evi-
dent concern and efforts of the translator and
other people or organizations involved in the
translation project, in giving visibility to what
is valued in the st: the protagonist, his/her sto-
ry and cultural setting, as well as the literary
aspects specific to the author. Such an agency
or critical enterprise of the translation points to
an orientation towards the st. As such, the
specific objectives of this research include dis-
cussing the circumstances in which the works
were selected for translation and published;
pinpointing decisions made by the translator
at the level of word choices related principally
to the interface of race and gender; and identi-
fying the translation strategy employed.
The relevance of the proposal of this paper is
its intended contribution to the visibility of the
translation of Black female authorship from
Afro-Caribbean and Latin American contexts.
Norma Diana Hamilton and Israel Victor de Melo448Mujeres y traducción en América Latina y el Caribe
2. Theoretical premises
In Western academia, the categorization of
Black female authorship from the Caribbean
and Latin America as Third World means that
that space will be regulated from a Eurocen-
tric perspective in interpretation and trans-
lation practices. As the Indian scholar Aijaz
Ahmad (1994) points out, Third World litera-
ture does not come to us directly but through
interpretation based on metropolitan coun-
tries: “by the time a Latin American novel ar-
rives in Delhi, it has been selected, translated,
published, reviewed, explicated and allotted a
place in the burgeoning archive of Third World
Literature through a complex set of metropol-
itan mediations” (1994, p. 45).
Within that process of cultural domination,
the knowledge produced by the colonized was
neglected and obscured, represented as inferi-
or to Eurocentric epistemology. Sueli Carneiro
(2005), Afro-Brazilian intellectual, recovers the
concept of epistemicide to describe the processes
of depreciation, elimination or delegitimiza-
tion of non-hegemonic knowledge. In the Bra-
zilian context, the white and male intellectual
cultural elite maintains certain relationship of
domination in opposition to the knowledge
and epistemological practices of Black and in-
digenous women and men, in addition to other
groups whose historical and social dynamics
of oppression prevail. For the Afro-Brazilian
philosopher Djamila Ribeiro,
Relative to white women, there has been a
breakthrough, many of them already conque-
red space and are recognized in their fields.
But, regarding to black women, we still have a
long way to go to combat what black feminists
call epistemicide, the murder of our epistemes,
as if black women don’t produce knowledge.
There is much knowledge produced, but there
is still a vision based in the male and the white.
(Ribeiro, 2016, her emphasis).1
Another important fact to be considered is
how the work of translation is linked to a
defined linguistic (“Who can speak?”) and
interpretive (“Who can read and interpret?”)
community, relating irremediably to linguistic
policies (Hill-Collins & Silva-Reis, 2019):
A linguistic community is often seen as a site of
social equality where speaking a shared langua-
ge ostensibly fosters similar values, ideas and a
common worldview. [...] In contrast, my sen-
se of an interpretive community makes power
relations more central to the act of communi-
cation and translation. Power relations within
an interpretive community regulate who gets to
speak, who is listened to and what knowledge
comes to represent that community to outsi-
ders. Power relations shape who is silenced and
who is heard. (Hill-Collins & Silva-Reis, 2019,
pp. 222-223, their emphasis).
The constitution of these interpretative com-
munities is linked to the formation of power
relations: what the worldviews are, how they
are interpreted, how they are explained to us,
and so on. Therefore, the validation of differ-
ent knowledge-making processes is formed.
In addition, this fact is directly related to the
formation of cultural identity of social sub-
jects. According to Lélia Gonzalez, there is
a process of determining the speech relations
regarding non-dominant groups in Brazilian
society:
Women and non-whites have been spoken of,
defined and classified by an ideological system
of domination which makes infants of us. By
being placed in an inferior position within a
1 Personal communication. February 25, 2016. In-
terview: Brazilian Black feminist philosopher Djami-
la Ribeiro on intersectionality and the Black feminist
movement.
2. Theoretical premises
In Western academia, the categorization of
Black female authorship from the Caribbean
and Latin America as Third World means that
that space will be regulated from a Eurocen-
tric perspective in interpretation and trans-
lation practices. As the Indian scholar Aijaz
Ahmad (1994) points out, Third World litera-
ture does not come to us directly but through
interpretation based on metropolitan coun-
tries: “by the time a Latin American novel ar-
rives in Delhi, it has been selected, translated,
published, reviewed, explicated and allotted a
place in the burgeoning archive of Third World
Literature through a complex set of metropol-
itan mediations” (1994, p. 45).
Within that process of cultural domination,
the knowledge produced by the colonized was
neglected and obscured, represented as inferi-
or to Eurocentric epistemology. Sueli Carneiro
(2005), Afro-Brazilian intellectual, recovers the
concept of epistemicide to describe the processes
of depreciation, elimination or delegitimiza-
tion of non-hegemonic knowledge. In the Bra-
zilian context, the white and male intellectual
cultural elite maintains certain relationship of
domination in opposition to the knowledge
and epistemological practices of Black and in-
digenous women and men, in addition to other
groups whose historical and social dynamics
of oppression prevail. For the Afro-Brazilian
philosopher Djamila Ribeiro,
Relative to white women, there has been a
breakthrough, many of them already conque-
red space and are recognized in their fields.
But, regarding to black women, we still have a
long way to go to combat what black feminists
call epistemicide, the murder of our epistemes,
as if black women don’t produce knowledge.
There is much knowledge produced, but there
is still a vision based in the male and the white.
(Ribeiro, 2016, her emphasis).1
Another important fact to be considered is
how the work of translation is linked to a
defined linguistic (“Who can speak?”) and
interpretive (“Who can read and interpret?”)
community, relating irremediably to linguistic
policies (Hill-Collins & Silva-Reis, 2019):
A linguistic community is often seen as a site of
social equality where speaking a shared langua-
ge ostensibly fosters similar values, ideas and a
common worldview. [...] In contrast, my sen-
se of an interpretive community makes power
relations more central to the act of communi-
cation and translation. Power relations within
an interpretive community regulate who gets to
speak, who is listened to and what knowledge
comes to represent that community to outsi-
ders. Power relations shape who is silenced and
who is heard. (Hill-Collins & Silva-Reis, 2019,
pp. 222-223, their emphasis).
The constitution of these interpretative com-
munities is linked to the formation of power
relations: what the worldviews are, how they
are interpreted, how they are explained to us,
and so on. Therefore, the validation of differ-
ent knowledge-making processes is formed.
In addition, this fact is directly related to the
formation of cultural identity of social sub-
jects. According to Lélia Gonzalez, there is
a process of determining the speech relations
regarding non-dominant groups in Brazilian
society:
Women and non-whites have been spoken of,
defined and classified by an ideological system
of domination which makes infants of us. By
being placed in an inferior position within a
1 Personal communication. February 25, 2016. In-
terview: Brazilian Black feminist philosopher Djami-
la Ribeiro on intersectionality and the Black feminist
movement.
The Critical Enterprise in Translating Black Women Writers’ Authorship:
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo449Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
hierarchy, our humanity is erased because we
are denied the right to be subjects, not only of
our own discourse, but of our own history. This
is characteristic of a patriarchal-racist system
(Gonzalez, 1988, n.d., her emphasis).
The problems considered to be present in all
these processes – epistemicide, and so on – are
determined by broader social phenomena and
could change the perspective of a political so-
cial order, if there were sufficient instruments
for dialogue between dissimilar linguistic and
interpretive communities. In addition, transla-
tion can incorporate structural political func-
tions and activities for the exercise of changing
epistemological perspectives.
The policies that involve the translation of cer-
tain epistemologies are not randomly defined,
but their elaborations consist of verifiable his-
torical-social elements outside the restricted
field of the translational exercise. This is be-
cause translation, as an exercise of knowledge
and as a practice of contact and interaction
with dissimilar ideas and worldviews, is part
of a broader system that encompasses social
practices and, therefore, the traits inherent to
their relationships. An example of this pro-
cess is that of academic training at a global
level. By English being considered a socially
dominant language, the impact of intellectual
production in other languages will be different
(Hill-Collins & Silva-Reis, 2019).
Postcolonial cultural theorists such as Gayatri
Spivak and Tejaswini Niranjana, Susan Bass-
nett and Harish Trivedi speak out against
the prominence given to English: a language
of ex-colonizers, whereby translations into
this language fail to translate the difference
of the view of other languages and more so
the language of the ex-colonized, because the
translator over-adapts the text to the English
culture, effacing, at different levels, elements
of the source culture. Niranjana (1992, p. 2)
affirms: “Translation as a practice shapes, and
takes shape within, the asymmetrical relations
of power that operate under colonialism”.
Bassnett & Trivedi (1999, p. 13) consider that
power relationships unfold in the unequal
struggle of various local languages against
“the one master-language of our postcolonial
world, English”.
With the ‘Cultural turn’ in ts in the 1980s,
propelled by the works of André Lefevere,
Susan Bassnett, Lawrence Venuti, and oth-
ers, translation theorists acknowledged and
insisted that translation is not merely about
linguistic equivalence and fidelity, but that it is
also about questions such as culture, identity,
history, ideology, and that greater significance
should be given to these issues. Thus, the trans-
formations that characterized the cultural turn
centered on the view that text is embedded in a
network of cultural ideological signs in both the
source and target cultures.
The cultural translation theorists aforemen-
tioned consider translation not as being primar-
ily about language in a purely linguistic sense
or the mechanical conversion of lexical units
between languages, but as a form of transfer,
with language representing an expression and
repertory of the cultures involved (Lefevere,
2004). For them, translation cannot be an iso-
lated activity, as there is always a context in
which it takes place, a history from which text
is constructed and another one into which the
text is transferred (Bassnett & Lefevere, 1990).
Lefevere (1992) and others propound that
translation is manipulation. The author initial-
ly uses the term refraction to refer to the adap-
tion of texts into a new audience of readers
in the target culture for the purpose of influ-
encing how the work is read and interpreted.
The notion of refraction was later developed
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo449Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
hierarchy, our humanity is erased because we
are denied the right to be subjects, not only of
our own discourse, but of our own history. This
is characteristic of a patriarchal-racist system
(Gonzalez, 1988, n.d., her emphasis).
The problems considered to be present in all
these processes – epistemicide, and so on – are
determined by broader social phenomena and
could change the perspective of a political so-
cial order, if there were sufficient instruments
for dialogue between dissimilar linguistic and
interpretive communities. In addition, transla-
tion can incorporate structural political func-
tions and activities for the exercise of changing
epistemological perspectives.
The policies that involve the translation of cer-
tain epistemologies are not randomly defined,
but their elaborations consist of verifiable his-
torical-social elements outside the restricted
field of the translational exercise. This is be-
cause translation, as an exercise of knowledge
and as a practice of contact and interaction
with dissimilar ideas and worldviews, is part
of a broader system that encompasses social
practices and, therefore, the traits inherent to
their relationships. An example of this pro-
cess is that of academic training at a global
level. By English being considered a socially
dominant language, the impact of intellectual
production in other languages will be different
(Hill-Collins & Silva-Reis, 2019).
Postcolonial cultural theorists such as Gayatri
Spivak and Tejaswini Niranjana, Susan Bass-
nett and Harish Trivedi speak out against
the prominence given to English: a language
of ex-colonizers, whereby translations into
this language fail to translate the difference
of the view of other languages and more so
the language of the ex-colonized, because the
translator over-adapts the text to the English
culture, effacing, at different levels, elements
of the source culture. Niranjana (1992, p. 2)
affirms: “Translation as a practice shapes, and
takes shape within, the asymmetrical relations
of power that operate under colonialism”.
Bassnett & Trivedi (1999, p. 13) consider that
power relationships unfold in the unequal
struggle of various local languages against
“the one master-language of our postcolonial
world, English”.
With the ‘Cultural turn’ in ts in the 1980s,
propelled by the works of André Lefevere,
Susan Bassnett, Lawrence Venuti, and oth-
ers, translation theorists acknowledged and
insisted that translation is not merely about
linguistic equivalence and fidelity, but that it is
also about questions such as culture, identity,
history, ideology, and that greater significance
should be given to these issues. Thus, the trans-
formations that characterized the cultural turn
centered on the view that text is embedded in a
network of cultural ideological signs in both the
source and target cultures.
The cultural translation theorists aforemen-
tioned consider translation not as being primar-
ily about language in a purely linguistic sense
or the mechanical conversion of lexical units
between languages, but as a form of transfer,
with language representing an expression and
repertory of the cultures involved (Lefevere,
2004). For them, translation cannot be an iso-
lated activity, as there is always a context in
which it takes place, a history from which text
is constructed and another one into which the
text is transferred (Bassnett & Lefevere, 1990).
Lefevere (1992) and others propound that
translation is manipulation. The author initial-
ly uses the term refraction to refer to the adap-
tion of texts into a new audience of readers
in the target culture for the purpose of influ-
encing how the work is read and interpreted.
The notion of refraction was later developed
Norma Diana Hamilton and Israel Victor de Melo450Mujeres y traducción en América Latina y el Caribe
into the concept of rewriting, which envisages
translations as “created or projected images”
of the original source texts Lefevere (1992). In
this conception, texts are seen as being translat-
ed within an imposed ideological framework
that ensures that they function as intended in a
given society.
In our understanding of the concept of “rewrit-
ing”, it refers to the ideological and poetologi-
cal aspects when the translation is conforming
to or rebelling against the dominant ideology
and poetics. In this paper, we intend to observe
whether the translations of the novels selected
for study conform to or rebel against the ex-
pected literary conventions of the hegemonic
English language.
Lefevere (2004) also propounds the concept of
patronage, whereby he identifies within the gen-
eral literary system, a focus on maintaining an
asymmetrical balance of power, rather than the
use of translation to merely convey meaning.
The author envisages relations of power that
become a part of the entire translation pro-
cess. He suggests that such relations determine
which texts are selected for translation, which
guidelines are chosen to govern the procedure
of translation, as well as what position the
translated text occupies in the target culture,
and such interests point to those in charge of
commissioning and translating the work.
The author shows that, with the interests of the
ruling group in mind, it is not uncommon for
texts to be rewritten to adapt to ideological po-
sitions. In tandem with Lefevere’s view, Bass-
nett looks at the heightened presence of transla-
tors, whose skills, she believes, can no longer be
reduced to linguistic competence; the concep-
tions of rewriting and manipulation positions
them at the centre of mediations pertaining to
power and the order of social systems (Bass-
nett & Lefevere, 1990).
Lefevere’s work in ts developed out of
his close ties also with polysystem theory
(Even-Zohar, 2012). The Israeli scholar Itam-
ar Even-Zohar, from the 1970s, developed the
theory, looking at the way in which translated
literature operates as a system. His perspective
is that translated literature works in a system in
itself with regards to the way the target language
culture selects works for translation, as well as to
the way translation norms, behavior and policies
are influenced by other co-systems. Even-Zohar
(2005, p. 3) defines polysystem as “a multiple sys-
tem, a system of various systems which inter-
sect with each other and partly overlap, using
concurrently different options, yet functioning
as one structured whole, whose members are
interdependent”.
Polysytem theory, then, entails the interaction
and (re)positioning of the multiple systems, a
process that occurs in a dynamic hierarchy and
that is transformed according to the histori-
cal moment (Even-Zohar, 2012). The process
of transformation suggests a constant state of
flux and competition, which means that the
position of translated literature is not fixed.
As Even-Zohar explains, translated literature
may occupy a primary position in the poly-
system when it has major influence over the
central system and contributes to transform-
ing the conventional forms of the target sys-
tem. In other cases, when translated literature
assumes a secondary position, it represents
a peripheral system within the polysystem,
because it has no major influence over the
central system and becomes a conservative el-
ement, conforming to the literary aspects of
the target system.
Further on in Even-Zohar’s conception, it is
affirmed that the position occupied by trans-
lated literature in the polysystem may condi-
tion the translation strategy employed by the
into the concept of rewriting, which envisages
translations as “created or projected images”
of the original source texts Lefevere (1992). In
this conception, texts are seen as being translat-
ed within an imposed ideological framework
that ensures that they function as intended in a
given society.
In our understanding of the concept of “rewrit-
ing”, it refers to the ideological and poetologi-
cal aspects when the translation is conforming
to or rebelling against the dominant ideology
and poetics. In this paper, we intend to observe
whether the translations of the novels selected
for study conform to or rebel against the ex-
pected literary conventions of the hegemonic
English language.
Lefevere (2004) also propounds the concept of
patronage, whereby he identifies within the gen-
eral literary system, a focus on maintaining an
asymmetrical balance of power, rather than the
use of translation to merely convey meaning.
The author envisages relations of power that
become a part of the entire translation pro-
cess. He suggests that such relations determine
which texts are selected for translation, which
guidelines are chosen to govern the procedure
of translation, as well as what position the
translated text occupies in the target culture,
and such interests point to those in charge of
commissioning and translating the work.
The author shows that, with the interests of the
ruling group in mind, it is not uncommon for
texts to be rewritten to adapt to ideological po-
sitions. In tandem with Lefevere’s view, Bass-
nett looks at the heightened presence of transla-
tors, whose skills, she believes, can no longer be
reduced to linguistic competence; the concep-
tions of rewriting and manipulation positions
them at the centre of mediations pertaining to
power and the order of social systems (Bass-
nett & Lefevere, 1990).
Lefevere’s work in ts developed out of
his close ties also with polysystem theory
(Even-Zohar, 2012). The Israeli scholar Itam-
ar Even-Zohar, from the 1970s, developed the
theory, looking at the way in which translated
literature operates as a system. His perspective
is that translated literature works in a system in
itself with regards to the way the target language
culture selects works for translation, as well as to
the way translation norms, behavior and policies
are influenced by other co-systems. Even-Zohar
(2005, p. 3) defines polysystem as “a multiple sys-
tem, a system of various systems which inter-
sect with each other and partly overlap, using
concurrently different options, yet functioning
as one structured whole, whose members are
interdependent”.
Polysytem theory, then, entails the interaction
and (re)positioning of the multiple systems, a
process that occurs in a dynamic hierarchy and
that is transformed according to the histori-
cal moment (Even-Zohar, 2012). The process
of transformation suggests a constant state of
flux and competition, which means that the
position of translated literature is not fixed.
As Even-Zohar explains, translated literature
may occupy a primary position in the poly-
system when it has major influence over the
central system and contributes to transform-
ing the conventional forms of the target sys-
tem. In other cases, when translated literature
assumes a secondary position, it represents
a peripheral system within the polysystem,
because it has no major influence over the
central system and becomes a conservative el-
ement, conforming to the literary aspects of
the target system.
Further on in Even-Zohar’s conception, it is
affirmed that the position occupied by trans-
lated literature in the polysystem may condi-
tion the translation strategy employed by the
The Critical Enterprise in Translating Black Women Writers’ Authorship:
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo451Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
translator: if the position is primary, transla-
tors feel less obliged to conform to target liter-
ature models and may contribute to breaking
conventions in the that literary norm. On the
other hand, if translated literature is second-
ary, it is more common for translators to use
existing target-culture models for the tt.
Within the broad literary field, one could
say that translations of Caribbean and Latin
American Black female authorship, seen as
Third World literature operate inside the poly-
system of Western literary canons as peripher-
al to traditional literature of the ex-colonizer.
Bassnett and Trivedi (1999) identify a margin-
alization of Third World literary translations,
in which Europe becomes the great origi-
nal and the colonies are thus seen as copies.
Nevertheless, in our perspective, Third World
literary translations may be representative of
defiance and rebellion to the hegemonic tradi-
tional literature and may contribute to trans-
formations of the hegemonic literature.
Comparatively understanding the histori-
cal and social experiences of colonization in
the Americas, or the Black Atlantic (Gilroy,
1993), Denise Carrascosa defends the theory
that the task of translation would emerge due
to its political character, articulating its rhetor-
ical potential and its subversive impact. For her,
translation, therefore, emerges in the Black At-
lantic as a political task in the Spivakian sense
of strong work with language as an agent that
produces identity, subalternity and, at the same
time, in its rhetorical dimension, as a potential
generator of subversive dissemination (Carras-
cosa, 2016, p. 66, our translation).
A critical political translation of Black fe-
male authorship from the Caribbean and
Latin American contexts demands a critical
awareness of the historical colonial constitu-
tion of the Black female subject, as well as the
male/ female binarity demarcated in language
(Kilomba, 2019). Such an awareness makes it
possible for the translation enterprise to con-
tribute towards pushing forward a more crit-
ically reflexive and just representation of the
Black female subject, as proposed by Black
female authorship.
Black female writings from the Caribbean
and Latin America may be characterized as
having a mestizo consciousness, a concept devel-
oped by the chicana intellectual Glória Anz-
aldúa (1987). Her conception of the mestizo
consciousness points us to a symbolic border
space where there is the transference and shar-
ing of cultural values and the construction
of mixed identities, and where the female
woman of color may conquer and construct
a voice among different interactive cultures. It
involves the crossing of cultural borders and
the creation of a fluid, heterogeneous space
that allows subjects from different perspectives
and backgrounds, subjects who speak different
languages, to come in contact and reach a lev-
el of certain harmonious understanding.
In our interpretation, Black female literature is
representative of Anzaldúa’s conception of the
mestizo consciousness, as it constructs a plural
diverse universe in which the Black female sub-
ject moves away from the position of object to
subject, and becomes politically aware of her
oppressive condition, as well as empowered to
struggle for the transformation of that reality.
In this perspective, we consider that the novels
selected for discussion in this paper constitute
a dimension that characterizes the mestizo
consciousness, as, having their experiences
mediated by the coloniality of gender and race
within their patriarchal racialized society, the
protagonists gradually gain strength to begin
overcoming the oppression they face.
In our perspective, the novels demand trans-
lations that are engaged in contributing to
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo451Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
translator: if the position is primary, transla-
tors feel less obliged to conform to target liter-
ature models and may contribute to breaking
conventions in the that literary norm. On the
other hand, if translated literature is second-
ary, it is more common for translators to use
existing target-culture models for the tt.
Within the broad literary field, one could
say that translations of Caribbean and Latin
American Black female authorship, seen as
Third World literature operate inside the poly-
system of Western literary canons as peripher-
al to traditional literature of the ex-colonizer.
Bassnett and Trivedi (1999) identify a margin-
alization of Third World literary translations,
in which Europe becomes the great origi-
nal and the colonies are thus seen as copies.
Nevertheless, in our perspective, Third World
literary translations may be representative of
defiance and rebellion to the hegemonic tradi-
tional literature and may contribute to trans-
formations of the hegemonic literature.
Comparatively understanding the histori-
cal and social experiences of colonization in
the Americas, or the Black Atlantic (Gilroy,
1993), Denise Carrascosa defends the theory
that the task of translation would emerge due
to its political character, articulating its rhetor-
ical potential and its subversive impact. For her,
translation, therefore, emerges in the Black At-
lantic as a political task in the Spivakian sense
of strong work with language as an agent that
produces identity, subalternity and, at the same
time, in its rhetorical dimension, as a potential
generator of subversive dissemination (Carras-
cosa, 2016, p. 66, our translation).
A critical political translation of Black fe-
male authorship from the Caribbean and
Latin American contexts demands a critical
awareness of the historical colonial constitu-
tion of the Black female subject, as well as the
male/ female binarity demarcated in language
(Kilomba, 2019). Such an awareness makes it
possible for the translation enterprise to con-
tribute towards pushing forward a more crit-
ically reflexive and just representation of the
Black female subject, as proposed by Black
female authorship.
Black female writings from the Caribbean
and Latin America may be characterized as
having a mestizo consciousness, a concept devel-
oped by the chicana intellectual Glória Anz-
aldúa (1987). Her conception of the mestizo
consciousness points us to a symbolic border
space where there is the transference and shar-
ing of cultural values and the construction
of mixed identities, and where the female
woman of color may conquer and construct
a voice among different interactive cultures. It
involves the crossing of cultural borders and
the creation of a fluid, heterogeneous space
that allows subjects from different perspectives
and backgrounds, subjects who speak different
languages, to come in contact and reach a lev-
el of certain harmonious understanding.
In our interpretation, Black female literature is
representative of Anzaldúa’s conception of the
mestizo consciousness, as it constructs a plural
diverse universe in which the Black female sub-
ject moves away from the position of object to
subject, and becomes politically aware of her
oppressive condition, as well as empowered to
struggle for the transformation of that reality.
In this perspective, we consider that the novels
selected for discussion in this paper constitute
a dimension that characterizes the mestizo
consciousness, as, having their experiences
mediated by the coloniality of gender and race
within their patriarchal racialized society, the
protagonists gradually gain strength to begin
overcoming the oppression they face.
In our perspective, the novels demand trans-
lations that are engaged in contributing to
Norma Diana Hamilton and Israel Victor de Melo452Mujeres y traducción en América Latina y el Caribe
giving visibility to the Black female subject.
In partnership with the Black female author,
such translation would seek to empower the
Black female subject by crossing historically
rigid borders, breaking paradigms and decon-
structing monolithic, mono-logical ways of
representing women and their cultures in the
Caribbean and Latin America. Such translation
could be characterized as a social institution,
i.e., as mestizo translation.
The idea of translation as a social institution
is close to what Dyhorrani Beira (2017) evalu-
ates of translation as mestizo practice, recov-
ering the theory of the poétique de la Relation
(Édouard Glissant, 1990). For her, the act of
translating involves relational steps, which can
be assimilated to the constitutions of multiple
identities, that is, “a society/identity open to
the various influences of the world, thus plac-
ing all peoples in contact or in Relation” (Bei-
ra, 2017, p. 190, our translation). In this sense,
for us, mestizo translating means putting dis-
similar peoples and communities in relation.
The approach of Lawrence Venuti on the
practice of translation may contribute to our
perspective in constructing a case for what we
denominate as mestizo translation. His focus is
on the invisibility of translators and he discuss-
es two practices of translation that may serve
the objectives of this paper, as they may con-
tribute to the discussion on the in/visibility of
Black female authorship. The practices are do-
mestication and foreignization, and they are con-
cerned with the translation method.
For Venuti (1998, 2008), domestication is re-
lated to the hegemonic British and American
translation culture, in which translations are
done to adhere to the literary canons of those
cultures. We identify here a juxtaposition of
Venuti’s view with that of the postcolonial
theorists aforementioned, such as Spivak and
Niranjana, who warn against the cultural ef-
fects of the differential in power relations be-
tween colony and ex-colony.
Venuti speaks out against the translation
practice of domestication, as it involves “an
ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to
receiving cultural values”, translating in a flu-
ent, “invisible” style so as to reduce the for-
eignness of the tt (Venuti, 2008, p. 15). On
the other hand, foreignization refers to the de-
velopment of a translation method that values
the non-dominant culture, that is aligned with
the literary and cultural elements of the for-
eign text. It involves a close adherence to the
st structure and syntax.
Venuti (2008, p. 15-16) considers foreigniz-
ing practices to be a “highly desirable [...]
strategic cultural intervention” as they aim at
“send[ing] the reader abroad” by making the
receiving culture aware of the linguistic and
cultural difference inherent in the foreign text.
This is to be achieved by a non-fluent, estrang-
ing or heterogeneous translation style with the
purpose of highlighting the foreign identity of
the st. As such, it may be possible to counter the
unequal and violently domesticating cultural
values of the English-language culture (Venu-
ti, 2008, p. 16).
One can observe a political and ethical dimen-
sion related to practices of domestication and
foreignization that involve the in/visibility
of the st culture in relation to the hegemon-
ic English cultures. As Venuti points out, the
terms domestication and foreignization indicate
fundamentally ethical attitudes towards a for-
eign text and culture, ethical effects produced
by the choice of a text for translation and by
the strategy devised to translate it, whereas
terms like fluency and resistancy indicate fun-
damentally discursive features of translation
strategies in relation to the reader’s cognitive
processing (Venuti, 2008, p. 19).
giving visibility to the Black female subject.
In partnership with the Black female author,
such translation would seek to empower the
Black female subject by crossing historically
rigid borders, breaking paradigms and decon-
structing monolithic, mono-logical ways of
representing women and their cultures in the
Caribbean and Latin America. Such translation
could be characterized as a social institution,
i.e., as mestizo translation.
The idea of translation as a social institution
is close to what Dyhorrani Beira (2017) evalu-
ates of translation as mestizo practice, recov-
ering the theory of the poétique de la Relation
(Édouard Glissant, 1990). For her, the act of
translating involves relational steps, which can
be assimilated to the constitutions of multiple
identities, that is, “a society/identity open to
the various influences of the world, thus plac-
ing all peoples in contact or in Relation” (Bei-
ra, 2017, p. 190, our translation). In this sense,
for us, mestizo translating means putting dis-
similar peoples and communities in relation.
The approach of Lawrence Venuti on the
practice of translation may contribute to our
perspective in constructing a case for what we
denominate as mestizo translation. His focus is
on the invisibility of translators and he discuss-
es two practices of translation that may serve
the objectives of this paper, as they may con-
tribute to the discussion on the in/visibility of
Black female authorship. The practices are do-
mestication and foreignization, and they are con-
cerned with the translation method.
For Venuti (1998, 2008), domestication is re-
lated to the hegemonic British and American
translation culture, in which translations are
done to adhere to the literary canons of those
cultures. We identify here a juxtaposition of
Venuti’s view with that of the postcolonial
theorists aforementioned, such as Spivak and
Niranjana, who warn against the cultural ef-
fects of the differential in power relations be-
tween colony and ex-colony.
Venuti speaks out against the translation
practice of domestication, as it involves “an
ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to
receiving cultural values”, translating in a flu-
ent, “invisible” style so as to reduce the for-
eignness of the tt (Venuti, 2008, p. 15). On
the other hand, foreignization refers to the de-
velopment of a translation method that values
the non-dominant culture, that is aligned with
the literary and cultural elements of the for-
eign text. It involves a close adherence to the
st structure and syntax.
Venuti (2008, p. 15-16) considers foreigniz-
ing practices to be a “highly desirable [...]
strategic cultural intervention” as they aim at
“send[ing] the reader abroad” by making the
receiving culture aware of the linguistic and
cultural difference inherent in the foreign text.
This is to be achieved by a non-fluent, estrang-
ing or heterogeneous translation style with the
purpose of highlighting the foreign identity of
the st. As such, it may be possible to counter the
unequal and violently domesticating cultural
values of the English-language culture (Venu-
ti, 2008, p. 16).
One can observe a political and ethical dimen-
sion related to practices of domestication and
foreignization that involve the in/visibility
of the st culture in relation to the hegemon-
ic English cultures. As Venuti points out, the
terms domestication and foreignization indicate
fundamentally ethical attitudes towards a for-
eign text and culture, ethical effects produced
by the choice of a text for translation and by
the strategy devised to translate it, whereas
terms like fluency and resistancy indicate fun-
damentally discursive features of translation
strategies in relation to the reader’s cognitive
processing (Venuti, 2008, p. 19).
The Critical Enterprise in Translating Black Women Writers’ Authorship:
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo453Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
It is important for us to look briefly at the con-
ceptions of translation strategies. In the perspec-
tive of Luc van Doorslaer (2007), a strategy,
in the technical sense is an overall orientation
of the translator, either towards free or literal
translation, i.e, towards the tt or st, in other
words, towards domestication or foreignization:
if the translator adheres to the literary aspects
of the target text, the strategy points to being
free; if the translator adheres to the literary as-
pects of the source text, the strategy is, more
than likely, literal. The free or literal notion of
translation strategy is also shared by Jean-Paul
Vinay and Jean Darbelnet (1995), who use the
terms oblique translation and direct translation,
respectively.
Going back to Venuti, he recognizes certain
limitation related to the notions of domesti-
cation and foreignization: some degree of do-
mestication is unavoidable as the translation
of a st needs to be intelligible for a receiving
culture. In our analysis of the novels we intend
to look at possible means by which the transla-
tors made an effort to create a certain level of
balance between the foreignization of the text
and making the text intelligible in the target
culture, if such is the case.
Venuti’s foreignizing practice of translation
is similar to what we understand as a mestizo
practice of translation relating specifically to
Black female writing. A mestizo translation
of Black female authorship would be a kind if
translation that finds a balance between giving
visibility to the st culture and making the text
intelligible in the target culture. It is a kind of
translation that is non-fluent, estranging, het-
erogenous, demonstrative of resistance (Venu-
ti, 2008) to the hegemonic English language
and culture. It involves creating a space in
which dissimilar peoples and communities are
put in relation, and in such a space, the Black
female subjectivity is given visibility, instead
of being obscured, as is common in traditional
Eurocentric literature and translation.
3. Methodology
As the aim of this paper is to discuss the po-
litical agency of the translation of Afro-Carib-
bean and Latin American female authorship
with focus on describing the process and prod-
uct, it is important to draw on Gideon Toury’s
perspective of descriptive translation. His
work in developing Descriptive Translation
Studies (1995, thereby, dts) as a subfield in ts
contributed to transforming the perspective of
the field from regarding translation as mere-
ly attempting to reproduce meanings through
linguistic equivalence, to seeing it as the con-
structing of a text within a given socio-cultur-
al context. Toury developed a target-oriented
perspective in his dts, which was a reaction to
normative, prescriptive, and synchronic theo-
retical frameworks, and has aimed at reaching
a general translation approach.
In his perspective, translations are the “facts
of the culture which hosts them” transla-
tions and their translators cannot be thought
separate from the culture in which they exist
(Toury, 1995, p. 24). His approach deals with
a group of relations which control the transla-
tion activity rather than focusing only on the
aspect of equivalence. He considers equivalence
on a level that is descriptive and functional,
which differs from the traditional, invariant,
ideal and prescriptive concept of equivalence.
In individual studies, to carry out a description
of the translation product and process, taking
into consideration the wider role of the so-
ciocultural system, Toury (1995) suggests the
following three-phase methodology for analy-
sis: (i) look at the text within the target culture
system and analyze its significance, observing
whether it is adequate or acceptable; (ii) develop
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo453Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
It is important for us to look briefly at the con-
ceptions of translation strategies. In the perspec-
tive of Luc van Doorslaer (2007), a strategy,
in the technical sense is an overall orientation
of the translator, either towards free or literal
translation, i.e, towards the tt or st, in other
words, towards domestication or foreignization:
if the translator adheres to the literary aspects
of the target text, the strategy points to being
free; if the translator adheres to the literary as-
pects of the source text, the strategy is, more
than likely, literal. The free or literal notion of
translation strategy is also shared by Jean-Paul
Vinay and Jean Darbelnet (1995), who use the
terms oblique translation and direct translation,
respectively.
Going back to Venuti, he recognizes certain
limitation related to the notions of domesti-
cation and foreignization: some degree of do-
mestication is unavoidable as the translation
of a st needs to be intelligible for a receiving
culture. In our analysis of the novels we intend
to look at possible means by which the transla-
tors made an effort to create a certain level of
balance between the foreignization of the text
and making the text intelligible in the target
culture, if such is the case.
Venuti’s foreignizing practice of translation
is similar to what we understand as a mestizo
practice of translation relating specifically to
Black female writing. A mestizo translation
of Black female authorship would be a kind if
translation that finds a balance between giving
visibility to the st culture and making the text
intelligible in the target culture. It is a kind of
translation that is non-fluent, estranging, het-
erogenous, demonstrative of resistance (Venu-
ti, 2008) to the hegemonic English language
and culture. It involves creating a space in
which dissimilar peoples and communities are
put in relation, and in such a space, the Black
female subjectivity is given visibility, instead
of being obscured, as is common in traditional
Eurocentric literature and translation.
3. Methodology
As the aim of this paper is to discuss the po-
litical agency of the translation of Afro-Carib-
bean and Latin American female authorship
with focus on describing the process and prod-
uct, it is important to draw on Gideon Toury’s
perspective of descriptive translation. His
work in developing Descriptive Translation
Studies (1995, thereby, dts) as a subfield in ts
contributed to transforming the perspective of
the field from regarding translation as mere-
ly attempting to reproduce meanings through
linguistic equivalence, to seeing it as the con-
structing of a text within a given socio-cultur-
al context. Toury developed a target-oriented
perspective in his dts, which was a reaction to
normative, prescriptive, and synchronic theo-
retical frameworks, and has aimed at reaching
a general translation approach.
In his perspective, translations are the “facts
of the culture which hosts them” transla-
tions and their translators cannot be thought
separate from the culture in which they exist
(Toury, 1995, p. 24). His approach deals with
a group of relations which control the transla-
tion activity rather than focusing only on the
aspect of equivalence. He considers equivalence
on a level that is descriptive and functional,
which differs from the traditional, invariant,
ideal and prescriptive concept of equivalence.
In individual studies, to carry out a description
of the translation product and process, taking
into consideration the wider role of the so-
ciocultural system, Toury (1995) suggests the
following three-phase methodology for analy-
sis: (i) look at the text within the target culture
system and analyze its significance, observing
whether it is adequate or acceptable; (ii) develop
Norma Diana Hamilton and Israel Victor de Melo454Mujeres y traducción en América Latina y el Caribe
a textual analysis of the st and the tt so as
to identify relationships between correspond-
ing segments or coupled pairs in the two texts,
observing word choices and translation shifts
(obligatory and non-obligatory); (iii) construct
argument related to the patterns identified in
the two texts, as this may contribute to recon-
structing the process of translation for this st–
tt pair.
It is important for us to take into consideration
also the work done “On describing transla-
tions” by José Lambert & Hendrik van Gorp
(1985). Having been influenced by Even-Zo-
har’s and Toury’s early work, they propose a
methodology for the description of relations
between the st and tt literary systems (Lam-
bert & van Gorp, 1985, pp. 52-53):
1. Preliminary data: observe the title and title
page for presence or absence of genre indica-
tion, the author’s name, translator’s name, and
so on; identify metatexts on title page, in prefa-
ce, in footnotes, […].
2. Macro-level: look at the division of the text
(in chapters), titles of chapters, internal narrati-
ve structure, authorial comment […].
3. Micro-level: identify shifts in translation;
look at the selection of words, dominant gram-
matical patterns, forms of speech reproduction
(direct, indirect, free indirect speech), narrative,
perspective and point of view, […].
4. Systemic context: point out oppositions be-
tween micro- and macro-levels and between text
and theory [norms, models], intertextual rela-
tions [other translations and creative works] […].
In our perspective, Lambert & Gorp’s model
complements Toury’s model. As one may ob-
serve, their model makes it possible to carry
out a more detailed description of the transla-
tion product and process in general.
Due to the nature of this research, it was nec-
essary for us to select parts of Toury’s and
Lambert & Gorp’s model, as well as include
Venuti’s perspective on translation practice, in
order to carry out our analyses. Thus, the as-
pects we selected for description include: (1) a
textual analysis of the tt: the title and title
page for presence or absence of the author’s
name, translator’s name; metatexts whether
they are in the text or separate to identify the
translators’ comments (Lambert & van Gorp,
1985); (2) a textual analysis of the st and the
tt: relationships between corresponding seg-
ments or coupled pairs (Toury, 1995) in the two
texts, observing word choices related princi-
pally to the category of race and gender.
With the information gathered from items
(1) and (2) above, we constructed arguments
regarding the translation product, observing
whether it is non-fluent, estranging, heteroge-
nous or fluent, homogenous, domesticating
(Venuti, 1998). We also constructed argu-
ments regarding the translation process, spe-
cifically in relation to decisions made and the
translation strategy employed.
4. Discussion on the translation product
and process
4.1. The Women of Tijucopapo
The University of Nebraska Press published
The women of Tijucopapo in 1994. The front cov-
er of the book bears only the title in English
—literally translated from the original As mul-
heres de Tijucopapo—along with Felinto’s name,
which points the reader directly to Felinto as
sole author. We think that this information is
misleading to a certain level, as it suggests that
the book is entirely from Felinto’s perspective.
It contributes to a certain invisibility of the
translator’s voice, whose name, Irene Mat-
thews, first appears on the title page, along
with Felinto’s name, the title of the English
version, as well as the title in Portuguese.
a textual analysis of the st and the tt so as
to identify relationships between correspond-
ing segments or coupled pairs in the two texts,
observing word choices and translation shifts
(obligatory and non-obligatory); (iii) construct
argument related to the patterns identified in
the two texts, as this may contribute to recon-
structing the process of translation for this st–
tt pair.
It is important for us to take into consideration
also the work done “On describing transla-
tions” by José Lambert & Hendrik van Gorp
(1985). Having been influenced by Even-Zo-
har’s and Toury’s early work, they propose a
methodology for the description of relations
between the st and tt literary systems (Lam-
bert & van Gorp, 1985, pp. 52-53):
1. Preliminary data: observe the title and title
page for presence or absence of genre indica-
tion, the author’s name, translator’s name, and
so on; identify metatexts on title page, in prefa-
ce, in footnotes, […].
2. Macro-level: look at the division of the text
(in chapters), titles of chapters, internal narrati-
ve structure, authorial comment […].
3. Micro-level: identify shifts in translation;
look at the selection of words, dominant gram-
matical patterns, forms of speech reproduction
(direct, indirect, free indirect speech), narrative,
perspective and point of view, […].
4. Systemic context: point out oppositions be-
tween micro- and macro-levels and between text
and theory [norms, models], intertextual rela-
tions [other translations and creative works] […].
In our perspective, Lambert & Gorp’s model
complements Toury’s model. As one may ob-
serve, their model makes it possible to carry
out a more detailed description of the transla-
tion product and process in general.
Due to the nature of this research, it was nec-
essary for us to select parts of Toury’s and
Lambert & Gorp’s model, as well as include
Venuti’s perspective on translation practice, in
order to carry out our analyses. Thus, the as-
pects we selected for description include: (1) a
textual analysis of the tt: the title and title
page for presence or absence of the author’s
name, translator’s name; metatexts whether
they are in the text or separate to identify the
translators’ comments (Lambert & van Gorp,
1985); (2) a textual analysis of the st and the
tt: relationships between corresponding seg-
ments or coupled pairs (Toury, 1995) in the two
texts, observing word choices related princi-
pally to the category of race and gender.
With the information gathered from items
(1) and (2) above, we constructed arguments
regarding the translation product, observing
whether it is non-fluent, estranging, heteroge-
nous or fluent, homogenous, domesticating
(Venuti, 1998). We also constructed argu-
ments regarding the translation process, spe-
cifically in relation to decisions made and the
translation strategy employed.
4. Discussion on the translation product
and process
4.1. The Women of Tijucopapo
The University of Nebraska Press published
The women of Tijucopapo in 1994. The front cov-
er of the book bears only the title in English
—literally translated from the original As mul-
heres de Tijucopapo—along with Felinto’s name,
which points the reader directly to Felinto as
sole author. We think that this information is
misleading to a certain level, as it suggests that
the book is entirely from Felinto’s perspective.
It contributes to a certain invisibility of the
translator’s voice, whose name, Irene Mat-
thews, first appears on the title page, along
with Felinto’s name, the title of the English
version, as well as the title in Portuguese.
The Critical Enterprise in Translating Black Women Writers’ Authorship:
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo455Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
The title page also points the reader to an af-
terword written by Matthews, in which she
briefly presents her interpretation of Felinto’s
novel. In our interpretation, this reference to
the afterword could entice the reader to go di-
rectly to Matthew’s interpretation before the
actual reading of the novel. In the afterword,
as we discuss further, Matthews contextualizes
the novel, explaining cultural elements that, at
first glance, might seem difficult for the read-
er from the target culture to understand. As
such, it seems to us that the afterword facil-
itates the interpretation of the novel for this
kind of reader. This represents a sign of do-
mestication of the novel, an aspect that we ob-
serve further on.
The next page in the novel, which bears infor-
mation on its edition and publication, shows
that the book comes under the edition of Lat-
in American Women Writers, through a team
of academic editors from Colombia Univer-
sity, the University of California at Berkeley,
and Stanford University; and it was published
by the University of Nebraska Press. This
suggests that the translation project and pub-
lication of the version in English involved a
conjoint effort from members of different
universities, except that the process of trans-
lation was carried out integrally by Matthews.
Such an effort initially suggests that the proj-
ect had a support network from the American
academia.
Nevertheless, the support network seems to
have departed from a plural perspective, be-
cause, further on, in the “Note on the trans-
lation”, Matthews points out that, during the
translation activity, she was able to visit Felin-
to in Brazil, through funding from the Nation-
al Endowment for the Humanities and by the
accompaniment of members from a research
group from the department of Spanish and
Portuguese at the University of Maryland.
She also acknowledges research support from
Northern Arizona University. We consider
relevant the involvement of the Spanish and
Portuguese department in the project, as such
aspects could have had profound impact in the
construction of the general Latin American
perspective of the translation.
The page of contents tells us that the book in-
cludes: “Note on the translation”, the translat-
ed text itself under the heading “The Women
of Tijucopapo”, “Glossary” and “Afterword”.
In the “Note on the translation”, other than
the initial circumstances of the project afore-
mentioned, Matthews discusses some of the
challenges she faced in translating the novel,
and the strategies she employed to overcome
them. She describes the Portuguese text as
containing a “harsh message and tone”, and
that she made an effort to carry over into the
English version the “short, sharp sentences”
of Felinto’s writing, as well as the book’s “el-
liptical structure”.
Such a structure of which Matthews speaks,
in our reading, refers also to the repetition of
certain phrases in the original version. In our
interpretation, such repetition by the young
adult narrator-protagonist, Rísia, – who trav-
els on foot from the urbanized city of São
Paulo to get to the fictitious rural place of her
mother’s birth, Tijucopapo, located in the state
of Pernambuco in the Northeastern region of
Brazil – points to her constant re-visit to scath-
ing moments in her childhood, as she attempts
to get beyond them. Rísia’s story, set in the
1970’s, with continuous flashbacks to the past,
seems to a singular one in virtue of her gender,
class, and racial background. On that journey,
becoming aware of her own cruelty towards a
classmate is one of the first scathing memories
for Rísia that she has to face up to. The nar-
rator re-describes or re-mentions, at different
moments in the narrative, the reaction of her
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo455Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
The title page also points the reader to an af-
terword written by Matthews, in which she
briefly presents her interpretation of Felinto’s
novel. In our interpretation, this reference to
the afterword could entice the reader to go di-
rectly to Matthew’s interpretation before the
actual reading of the novel. In the afterword,
as we discuss further, Matthews contextualizes
the novel, explaining cultural elements that, at
first glance, might seem difficult for the read-
er from the target culture to understand. As
such, it seems to us that the afterword facil-
itates the interpretation of the novel for this
kind of reader. This represents a sign of do-
mestication of the novel, an aspect that we ob-
serve further on.
The next page in the novel, which bears infor-
mation on its edition and publication, shows
that the book comes under the edition of Lat-
in American Women Writers, through a team
of academic editors from Colombia Univer-
sity, the University of California at Berkeley,
and Stanford University; and it was published
by the University of Nebraska Press. This
suggests that the translation project and pub-
lication of the version in English involved a
conjoint effort from members of different
universities, except that the process of trans-
lation was carried out integrally by Matthews.
Such an effort initially suggests that the proj-
ect had a support network from the American
academia.
Nevertheless, the support network seems to
have departed from a plural perspective, be-
cause, further on, in the “Note on the trans-
lation”, Matthews points out that, during the
translation activity, she was able to visit Felin-
to in Brazil, through funding from the Nation-
al Endowment for the Humanities and by the
accompaniment of members from a research
group from the department of Spanish and
Portuguese at the University of Maryland.
She also acknowledges research support from
Northern Arizona University. We consider
relevant the involvement of the Spanish and
Portuguese department in the project, as such
aspects could have had profound impact in the
construction of the general Latin American
perspective of the translation.
The page of contents tells us that the book in-
cludes: “Note on the translation”, the translat-
ed text itself under the heading “The Women
of Tijucopapo”, “Glossary” and “Afterword”.
In the “Note on the translation”, other than
the initial circumstances of the project afore-
mentioned, Matthews discusses some of the
challenges she faced in translating the novel,
and the strategies she employed to overcome
them. She describes the Portuguese text as
containing a “harsh message and tone”, and
that she made an effort to carry over into the
English version the “short, sharp sentences”
of Felinto’s writing, as well as the book’s “el-
liptical structure”.
Such a structure of which Matthews speaks,
in our reading, refers also to the repetition of
certain phrases in the original version. In our
interpretation, such repetition by the young
adult narrator-protagonist, Rísia, – who trav-
els on foot from the urbanized city of São
Paulo to get to the fictitious rural place of her
mother’s birth, Tijucopapo, located in the state
of Pernambuco in the Northeastern region of
Brazil – points to her constant re-visit to scath-
ing moments in her childhood, as she attempts
to get beyond them. Rísia’s story, set in the
1970’s, with continuous flashbacks to the past,
seems to a singular one in virtue of her gender,
class, and racial background. On that journey,
becoming aware of her own cruelty towards a
classmate is one of the first scathing memories
for Rísia that she has to face up to. The nar-
rator re-describes or re-mentions, at different
moments in the narrative, the reaction of her
Norma Diana Hamilton and Israel Victor de Melo456Mujeres y traducción en América Latina y el Caribe
classmate Luciana and her teacher, who are
appalled by a verbally abusive letter that she
wrote to her classmate, as seen in Example 1.
The repetition of this event is duly expressed
in the English version, as seen in the segment
above: the translation is direct (Vinay & Darbel-
net, 1995), heterogenous (Venuti, 1998, 2008),
without evidences of shifts; the structure of the
sentences maintains short phrases separated by
commas, as in the Portuguese text.
We also identify the repetition in the Portu-
guese text as part of the aesthetics that rep-
resents the childish realm of the protagonist:
she keeps revisiting childhood moments in her
mind, as a way of constructing self-empower-
ment. It is as if the narrator is telling us that
the child within her is still very much alive and
is still quite disgruntled. With regards to that,
Matthews seems to regard the language of the
Portuguese text as being “colloquial, person-
al, sometimes childlike” (Felinto & Matthews,
1994, p. viii). She affirms that she tried not to
lose the “obsessively immature and reiterative
nature of the search into and out of the truth
of the self ” (p. viii).
Matthews’ assertion may be initially perceived
as a kind of diminution of Felinto’s aesthetics.
However, she seems to have made real effort
to maintain such aesthetics in the translation
of the text. In our perspective, the “childlike”
language of the Portuguese text and its main-
tenance in the English version is important as
it reinforces the element of the interior mono-
logue that dominates the narrative: as an op-
pressed Black female subject, initially, Rísia
cannot speak to the oppressor (Spivak, 1988);
she speaks to herself, which represents her
processing of the past and the present, as a
way of finding strength to grow and overcom-
ing the pain of the oppression she has faced
and still faces.
Matthews also affirms that, during the trans-
lation process, in cases where she had doubts
regarding the accurateness of words due to
Felinto’s crafty and spasmodic writing, she
chose to translate words in a literal sense that
might seem “awkward” (Felinto & Matthews,
1994, viii) in English, rather than choosing
words in English that would not draw atten-
tion, but would give inadequate meaning. We
identify the translation of the place of birth
of the protagonist as an example of a kind of
“awkwardness” of which the translator speaks
(see Example 2).
We observe a direct translation (Vinay & Dar-
belnet, 1995), in which the hyphen is main-
tained, “moon-town” for “vila-lua”, which is
Example 1
Portuguese English
Dona Penha sentou-se pasmada diante de mim,
a carta na mão, Luciana ao lado dela, Luciana
assoando [sic] um resto de choro num lenço
amarrotado. Foi o dia de maior vergonha de minha
vida (Felinto, 1982 p. 29).
Miss Penha sat down astonished in front of me, the
letter in her hand, Luciana by her side, Luciana
wiping the end of a sob, from her nose with a wrinkled
handkerchief. It was the most shameful day in my life
(Felinto & Matthews, 1994, p. 16).
Example 2
Portuguese English
A Poti é a vila-lua onde nasci. (Felinto, 1982, p. 55). Poti is the moon-town where I was born. (Felinto &
Matthews, 1994, p. 43).
classmate Luciana and her teacher, who are
appalled by a verbally abusive letter that she
wrote to her classmate, as seen in Example 1.
The repetition of this event is duly expressed
in the English version, as seen in the segment
above: the translation is direct (Vinay & Darbel-
net, 1995), heterogenous (Venuti, 1998, 2008),
without evidences of shifts; the structure of the
sentences maintains short phrases separated by
commas, as in the Portuguese text.
We also identify the repetition in the Portu-
guese text as part of the aesthetics that rep-
resents the childish realm of the protagonist:
she keeps revisiting childhood moments in her
mind, as a way of constructing self-empower-
ment. It is as if the narrator is telling us that
the child within her is still very much alive and
is still quite disgruntled. With regards to that,
Matthews seems to regard the language of the
Portuguese text as being “colloquial, person-
al, sometimes childlike” (Felinto & Matthews,
1994, p. viii). She affirms that she tried not to
lose the “obsessively immature and reiterative
nature of the search into and out of the truth
of the self ” (p. viii).
Matthews’ assertion may be initially perceived
as a kind of diminution of Felinto’s aesthetics.
However, she seems to have made real effort
to maintain such aesthetics in the translation
of the text. In our perspective, the “childlike”
language of the Portuguese text and its main-
tenance in the English version is important as
it reinforces the element of the interior mono-
logue that dominates the narrative: as an op-
pressed Black female subject, initially, Rísia
cannot speak to the oppressor (Spivak, 1988);
she speaks to herself, which represents her
processing of the past and the present, as a
way of finding strength to grow and overcom-
ing the pain of the oppression she has faced
and still faces.
Matthews also affirms that, during the trans-
lation process, in cases where she had doubts
regarding the accurateness of words due to
Felinto’s crafty and spasmodic writing, she
chose to translate words in a literal sense that
might seem “awkward” (Felinto & Matthews,
1994, viii) in English, rather than choosing
words in English that would not draw atten-
tion, but would give inadequate meaning. We
identify the translation of the place of birth
of the protagonist as an example of a kind of
“awkwardness” of which the translator speaks
(see Example 2).
We observe a direct translation (Vinay & Dar-
belnet, 1995), in which the hyphen is main-
tained, “moon-town” for “vila-lua”, which is
Example 1
Portuguese English
Dona Penha sentou-se pasmada diante de mim,
a carta na mão, Luciana ao lado dela, Luciana
assoando [sic] um resto de choro num lenço
amarrotado. Foi o dia de maior vergonha de minha
vida (Felinto, 1982 p. 29).
Miss Penha sat down astonished in front of me, the
letter in her hand, Luciana by her side, Luciana
wiping the end of a sob, from her nose with a wrinkled
handkerchief. It was the most shameful day in my life
(Felinto & Matthews, 1994, p. 16).
Example 2
Portuguese English
A Poti é a vila-lua onde nasci. (Felinto, 1982, p. 55). Poti is the moon-town where I was born. (Felinto &
Matthews, 1994, p. 43).
The Critical Enterprise in Translating Black Women Writers’ Authorship:
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo457Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
Instead of the word desembestada, perhaps a
word that is more commonly intelligible in
Brazil is desenfreada. We notice that in the trans-
lation, the choice of the translator is the word
“uncurbed”, which is less intelligible in En-
glish language settings that words such as
“unchecked” “unrestrained”, words that are
more commonly used. As such, in our per-
spective, the translator mirrors the logic of
the choice of words of the author of the text:
selecting words that create certain level of awk-
wardness or sentiment of estrangement (Venu-
ti, 1998, 2008) in the reader.
In our reading of the novel in Portuguese, the
spasmodic or disconnectedness of which Mat-
thews speaks to describe Felinto’s writing makes
up the author’s aesthetics, which carries profound
meaning to the text: it portrays the perplexity,
uncertainty, turbulence of Rísia’s reality, that
Felinto wishes to inflict on the reader through
a level of frustration in the reading of the text.
It is possible to find constant abrupt changes
in the narrator’s chain of thought in both the
Portuguese and English texts (Example 4).
The translation proves to be direct (Vinay &
Darbelnet, 1995), following the sequence and
broken logic of the first version. This kind of
writing is distinct from traditional literature
related both to the st and the tt.
The perplexity, uncertainty and ambivalent
feelings within which the protagonist oscil-
lates, in consequence of her turbulent, unsta-
ble reality is also expressed through a language
that is not “of peace”. This expression is taken
from a poem, “Da Paz” [Of Peace], written by
Brazilian Marcelino Freire (2013), in which a
Black mother from a favela, who has lost her
Example 3
Portuguese English
[...] eu montaria cavalos e sairia desembestada.
(Felinto, 1982, p. 127).
[...] I could ride horses and take-off uncurbed. (Felinto &
Matthews, 1994, p. 112).
Example 4
Portuguese English
Vou dizer sobre quando e como foi que minha mãe
nasceu, antes que seja tarde. Nema e Ruth eram irmãs
e eram pessoas que me levavam para passear. Na
casa de Lita, no fundo da casa da Lita, armava-se
uma goiabeira. Julieta tinha tudo de gente rica. Titia
bebe álcool puro em copo. Irmã Naninha [...]. Irmã
Lurdes é crente [...]. Minha avó deu minha mãe numa
noite de luar. A Poti é a vila-lua onde nasci. Eu que vôo
nos aviões de Varig (Felinto, 1982, p. 55).
I’m going to talk about how and when it was that my
mother was born, before it gets too late. Nema and
Ruth were sisters and they were the persons who took
me out on walks. In Lita’s house, at the back of Lita’s
house stood a guava tree. Julieta had everything that
rich people have. Auntie drinks glassfuls of pure alcohol.
Sister Naninha [...]. Sister Lourdes is a believer [...]. My
grandmother gave my mother away on a moonlight.
Poti is the moon-town where I was born. I, who fly in
Varig’s planes (Felinto & Matthews, 1994, p. 43).
a word that does not commonly appear in the
usage of the English language, but however, is
intelligible in the target culture.
It is important for us to point out that since
the Portuguese text comes to us from a specif-
ic region in Brazil, the Northeastern region, it
includes words that are specific to the region and
that might seem awkward to Brazilian readers
from other regions. Moreover, since the author
constructs a fictitious town to which the narrator
is headed, the text also includes words that might
be unusual even to readers from the Northeast-
ern region, such as those shown in Example 3.
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo457Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
Instead of the word desembestada, perhaps a
word that is more commonly intelligible in
Brazil is desenfreada. We notice that in the trans-
lation, the choice of the translator is the word
“uncurbed”, which is less intelligible in En-
glish language settings that words such as
“unchecked” “unrestrained”, words that are
more commonly used. As such, in our per-
spective, the translator mirrors the logic of
the choice of words of the author of the text:
selecting words that create certain level of awk-
wardness or sentiment of estrangement (Venu-
ti, 1998, 2008) in the reader.
In our reading of the novel in Portuguese, the
spasmodic or disconnectedness of which Mat-
thews speaks to describe Felinto’s writing makes
up the author’s aesthetics, which carries profound
meaning to the text: it portrays the perplexity,
uncertainty, turbulence of Rísia’s reality, that
Felinto wishes to inflict on the reader through
a level of frustration in the reading of the text.
It is possible to find constant abrupt changes
in the narrator’s chain of thought in both the
Portuguese and English texts (Example 4).
The translation proves to be direct (Vinay &
Darbelnet, 1995), following the sequence and
broken logic of the first version. This kind of
writing is distinct from traditional literature
related both to the st and the tt.
The perplexity, uncertainty and ambivalent
feelings within which the protagonist oscil-
lates, in consequence of her turbulent, unsta-
ble reality is also expressed through a language
that is not “of peace”. This expression is taken
from a poem, “Da Paz” [Of Peace], written by
Brazilian Marcelino Freire (2013), in which a
Black mother from a favela, who has lost her
Example 3
Portuguese English
[...] eu montaria cavalos e sairia desembestada.
(Felinto, 1982, p. 127).
[...] I could ride horses and take-off uncurbed. (Felinto &
Matthews, 1994, p. 112).
Example 4
Portuguese English
Vou dizer sobre quando e como foi que minha mãe
nasceu, antes que seja tarde. Nema e Ruth eram irmãs
e eram pessoas que me levavam para passear. Na
casa de Lita, no fundo da casa da Lita, armava-se
uma goiabeira. Julieta tinha tudo de gente rica. Titia
bebe álcool puro em copo. Irmã Naninha [...]. Irmã
Lurdes é crente [...]. Minha avó deu minha mãe numa
noite de luar. A Poti é a vila-lua onde nasci. Eu que vôo
nos aviões de Varig (Felinto, 1982, p. 55).
I’m going to talk about how and when it was that my
mother was born, before it gets too late. Nema and
Ruth were sisters and they were the persons who took
me out on walks. In Lita’s house, at the back of Lita’s
house stood a guava tree. Julieta had everything that
rich people have. Auntie drinks glassfuls of pure alcohol.
Sister Naninha [...]. Sister Lourdes is a believer [...]. My
grandmother gave my mother away on a moonlight.
Poti is the moon-town where I was born. I, who fly in
Varig’s planes (Felinto & Matthews, 1994, p. 43).
a word that does not commonly appear in the
usage of the English language, but however, is
intelligible in the target culture.
It is important for us to point out that since
the Portuguese text comes to us from a specif-
ic region in Brazil, the Northeastern region, it
includes words that are specific to the region and
that might seem awkward to Brazilian readers
from other regions. Moreover, since the author
constructs a fictitious town to which the narrator
is headed, the text also includes words that might
be unusual even to readers from the Northeast-
ern region, such as those shown in Example 3.
Norma Diana Hamilton and Israel Victor de Melo458Mujeres y traducción en América Latina y el Caribe
Example 5
Portuguese English
Me vem barro na boca, gosto vermelho, cuspo farinha,
os dentes rangem. Eu tinha cinco anos e comia terra
e cagava lombriga abestalhada, os olhos arregalados
como os de bota, sem que nada me impedisse, porém,
de correr em disparada no outro dia e deslizar de
cima a baixo do morro de terra, me embolando me
enrolando, comendo, cuspindo e cagando e dizendo
aos ventos que dissessem a eles: “Vão à merda das
minhas lombrigas, papai e mamãe, vocês que se
intrigam e me intrigam nas suas intrigas me fazendo
chorar tanto assim (Felinto, 1982, p. 15, our emphasis).
My mouth is filled with dirt, it tastes of red, I spit grit, Igrind
my teeth. I was five years old and I waseating dirt and
shitting round worms like crazy, my eyes bulging out like
a dolphin’s; that didn’t stop me from stampeding out
the next day, however, and sliding from the top to the
bottom of the mound dirt, wrapping myself in dirt, and
rolling in it, and eating and spitting, and shitting, and
bawling into the four winds to go tell them: “You go to
hell and take my worms with you, papa and mama,
and take your quarreling and your quarreling about me
and your quarrels that make me cry so hard (Felinto &
Matthews, 1994, p. 2, our emphasis).
son to police violence, says that “Peace” is
a luxury. In our interpretation of the poem,
“Peace” is constructed as a form of silencing
of the oppressed, and to resist, therefore, the
oppressed cannot be “of peace”; he/she must
face the oppressor with brute force, intensity.
It is in this sense that Felinto’s language is vi-
olent, disturbing, provocative, “hard-core”, it
is not “of peace”. It is a language of struggle
and resistance (Example 5).
At this stage in Rísia’s memory, we see a
childlike language that expresses defiance
and intensity, which is also firmly expressed
in Matthew’s version. The translation seems
to us to be direct (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1995),
with insignificant shifts: in “eyes bulging” for
“olhos arregalados” we see the gerund used in
place of the past participle. We say the shift
is insignificant as it does not take away from
the meaning of phrase. Also, in our perspec-
tive, the vocabulary proves to be precise in terms
of the intensity of the event described: “grind”
for “rangem”, etc. Similar to the st, one could
say that the translation creates an estranging
(Venuti, 1998, 2008) effect.
As the novel unfolds, we see Rísia develop-
ing into a woman. Still through her memory,
we recognize that her childlike defiance turns
into unmoving struggle that, again, is not “of
peace”. She wishes to create a “War code” (Fe-
linto, 1982, p. 18) through a foreign language, so
that her truths could become known around the
world - “os fatos seriam mais mundiais” (p. 18),
and, as such, in our interpretation, women
around the world could build a chain of struggle
by sharing their stories, as well. Then, women’s
struggle would move from the status of being
personal to being public, political. One could
say that Rísia’s desire is being accomplished
through the political agency of Matthews, who
has translated and published Rísia’s story in for-
eign land. And Risia’s desire is duly expressed
in the English version (in Example 6).
Example 6
Portuguese English
Me disseram que vivo é em guerra. Em pé de guerra.
E vivo mesmo, e acrescento que vivo em batalha, em
bombardeio, em choque. E só vou conseguir sossegar
quando matar um. É que quando eu era pequena
alimentei durante todo o tempo a ideia de matar o
meu pai. Não matei. Não o matarei mais. Mas ficou à
vontade, essa de matar um (Felinto, 1982, p. 18).
They told me I live as if I were at war. On the warpath.
And I definitely do, and I’d add that live in combat,
under bomb attack, in conflict. And I won’t calm down
till I kill someone. When I was a little girl, I always clung
on to the idea that I would kill my father. I didn’t kill him.
I wouldn’t kill him now. But the desire to kill someone
remained (Felinto & Matthews, 1994, p. 5).
Example 5
Portuguese English
Me vem barro na boca, gosto vermelho, cuspo farinha,
os dentes rangem. Eu tinha cinco anos e comia terra
e cagava lombriga abestalhada, os olhos arregalados
como os de bota, sem que nada me impedisse, porém,
de correr em disparada no outro dia e deslizar de
cima a baixo do morro de terra, me embolando me
enrolando, comendo, cuspindo e cagando e dizendo
aos ventos que dissessem a eles: “Vão à merda das
minhas lombrigas, papai e mamãe, vocês que se
intrigam e me intrigam nas suas intrigas me fazendo
chorar tanto assim (Felinto, 1982, p. 15, our emphasis).
My mouth is filled with dirt, it tastes of red, I spit grit, Igrind
my teeth. I was five years old and I waseating dirt and
shitting round worms like crazy, my eyes bulging out like
a dolphin’s; that didn’t stop me from stampeding out
the next day, however, and sliding from the top to the
bottom of the mound dirt, wrapping myself in dirt, and
rolling in it, and eating and spitting, and shitting, and
bawling into the four winds to go tell them: “You go to
hell and take my worms with you, papa and mama,
and take your quarreling and your quarreling about me
and your quarrels that make me cry so hard (Felinto &
Matthews, 1994, p. 2, our emphasis).
son to police violence, says that “Peace” is
a luxury. In our interpretation of the poem,
“Peace” is constructed as a form of silencing
of the oppressed, and to resist, therefore, the
oppressed cannot be “of peace”; he/she must
face the oppressor with brute force, intensity.
It is in this sense that Felinto’s language is vi-
olent, disturbing, provocative, “hard-core”, it
is not “of peace”. It is a language of struggle
and resistance (Example 5).
At this stage in Rísia’s memory, we see a
childlike language that expresses defiance
and intensity, which is also firmly expressed
in Matthew’s version. The translation seems
to us to be direct (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1995),
with insignificant shifts: in “eyes bulging” for
“olhos arregalados” we see the gerund used in
place of the past participle. We say the shift
is insignificant as it does not take away from
the meaning of phrase. Also, in our perspec-
tive, the vocabulary proves to be precise in terms
of the intensity of the event described: “grind”
for “rangem”, etc. Similar to the st, one could
say that the translation creates an estranging
(Venuti, 1998, 2008) effect.
As the novel unfolds, we see Rísia develop-
ing into a woman. Still through her memory,
we recognize that her childlike defiance turns
into unmoving struggle that, again, is not “of
peace”. She wishes to create a “War code” (Fe-
linto, 1982, p. 18) through a foreign language, so
that her truths could become known around the
world - “os fatos seriam mais mundiais” (p. 18),
and, as such, in our interpretation, women
around the world could build a chain of struggle
by sharing their stories, as well. Then, women’s
struggle would move from the status of being
personal to being public, political. One could
say that Rísia’s desire is being accomplished
through the political agency of Matthews, who
has translated and published Rísia’s story in for-
eign land. And Risia’s desire is duly expressed
in the English version (in Example 6).
Example 6
Portuguese English
Me disseram que vivo é em guerra. Em pé de guerra.
E vivo mesmo, e acrescento que vivo em batalha, em
bombardeio, em choque. E só vou conseguir sossegar
quando matar um. É que quando eu era pequena
alimentei durante todo o tempo a ideia de matar o
meu pai. Não matei. Não o matarei mais. Mas ficou à
vontade, essa de matar um (Felinto, 1982, p. 18).
They told me I live as if I were at war. On the warpath.
And I definitely do, and I’d add that live in combat,
under bomb attack, in conflict. And I won’t calm down
till I kill someone. When I was a little girl, I always clung
on to the idea that I would kill my father. I didn’t kill him.
I wouldn’t kill him now. But the desire to kill someone
remained (Felinto & Matthews, 1994, p. 5).
The Critical Enterprise in Translating Black Women Writers’ Authorship:
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo459Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
We observe once more that the translation is
direct (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1995), with insig-
nificant obligatory shifts: for instance, the use
of the phrasal verb “clung on to” for “alimen-
tei” adds prepositions to the sentence.
Felinto’s language of resistance cannot be a
monolithic, mono-logical one. It is a language
of plurality. It decentralizes the language of
the colonizer, through plurilingualism. As we
have mentioned, it is a language that by pre-
senting unusual words in the source culture,
causes estrangement (Venuti, 1998, 2008) in
the Brazilian reader in terms of the logic of the
Portuguese language. We have also pointed
out that such aspect is replicated in the target
text.
Thus, in looking at Felinto’s heterogenous lan-
guage in another aspect, it is possible to find
words in Tupi-Guarani in the Portuguese text.
That language belongs to one group of the
indigenous peoples in Brazil. “Poti” (Felinto,
1982, p. 55) and “seriema” (ibid, p. 34), for in-
stance, are Tupi words inserted in the narra-
tive that invite the reader to dig deeper to find
their meanings.
In the English version, these words do ap-
pear unformatted, not being set apart, like in
the Portuguese version. However, the words
appear in the Glossary at the end of book,
in which Matthews explains these and other
words, to facilitate the reading in English.
Perhaps, that may implicate in the translator
giving too much information to the reader.
Nevertheless, as the Glossary is separated
from the text and comes at the end of the nov-
el, we would not say that Matthews’ intention
is to domesticate the text. In fact, we believe
that, this is where she establishes a certain
level of balance between the foreignization of
the text and making the text intelligible in the
target culture.
One of the relevant issues to be reflected on in
looking at the critical enterprise of the trans-
lation is the constitution of the Black identity,
and more specifically, the Black female sub-
ject. In the Portuguese text, we realize that the
constitution of Blackness is a question that Rí-
sia grapples with, as she goes through a pain-
ful retrospective process of growth.
The constitution of Blackness is very much a
part of Rísia’s search for the understanding
of origins, her ancestry. In her narrative of
that past, we notice that, still in her childish
unawareness, she does not demarcate clear
cut words to express Black identity of peo-
ple in opposition to the literal “darkness” of
things. More specifically, she uses words like
“preta/o”, “negra/o”, “escura/o” interchange-
ably for things; and “negra/o” or “preta/o” for
people.
The Black community in the Brazilian context
commonly uses “negra/o” or “morena/o” for
Black people, while “preta/o” may have both
positive and negative connotations, depending
on the context. A spouse might affectionately
call his or her partner “preta/o”; a parent may
lovingly call a child “pretinha/o”. On the oth-
er hand, in contexts that are marked by racial
tensions, “preta/o” is more commonly used in
an offensive way, rather than “negra/o”.
In the Portuguese text, Rísia’s interchangeable
use of “preta/o”, “negra/o” regardless of the
context reinforces her grappling with trying to
understand her Black identity in her process
of growth (Example 7).
In the first excerpt in Portuguese above, Rísia
discusses the circumstances of the birth of her
mother and her grandmother’s struggle. In
such desperate conditions described, in which
she sees her grandmother crippled by pregnan-
cy, the words “preto” and “negra” are used in
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo459Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
We observe once more that the translation is
direct (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1995), with insig-
nificant obligatory shifts: for instance, the use
of the phrasal verb “clung on to” for “alimen-
tei” adds prepositions to the sentence.
Felinto’s language of resistance cannot be a
monolithic, mono-logical one. It is a language
of plurality. It decentralizes the language of
the colonizer, through plurilingualism. As we
have mentioned, it is a language that by pre-
senting unusual words in the source culture,
causes estrangement (Venuti, 1998, 2008) in
the Brazilian reader in terms of the logic of the
Portuguese language. We have also pointed
out that such aspect is replicated in the target
text.
Thus, in looking at Felinto’s heterogenous lan-
guage in another aspect, it is possible to find
words in Tupi-Guarani in the Portuguese text.
That language belongs to one group of the
indigenous peoples in Brazil. “Poti” (Felinto,
1982, p. 55) and “seriema” (ibid, p. 34), for in-
stance, are Tupi words inserted in the narra-
tive that invite the reader to dig deeper to find
their meanings.
In the English version, these words do ap-
pear unformatted, not being set apart, like in
the Portuguese version. However, the words
appear in the Glossary at the end of book,
in which Matthews explains these and other
words, to facilitate the reading in English.
Perhaps, that may implicate in the translator
giving too much information to the reader.
Nevertheless, as the Glossary is separated
from the text and comes at the end of the nov-
el, we would not say that Matthews’ intention
is to domesticate the text. In fact, we believe
that, this is where she establishes a certain
level of balance between the foreignization of
the text and making the text intelligible in the
target culture.
One of the relevant issues to be reflected on in
looking at the critical enterprise of the trans-
lation is the constitution of the Black identity,
and more specifically, the Black female sub-
ject. In the Portuguese text, we realize that the
constitution of Blackness is a question that Rí-
sia grapples with, as she goes through a pain-
ful retrospective process of growth.
The constitution of Blackness is very much a
part of Rísia’s search for the understanding
of origins, her ancestry. In her narrative of
that past, we notice that, still in her childish
unawareness, she does not demarcate clear
cut words to express Black identity of peo-
ple in opposition to the literal “darkness” of
things. More specifically, she uses words like
“preta/o”, “negra/o”, “escura/o” interchange-
ably for things; and “negra/o” or “preta/o” for
people.
The Black community in the Brazilian context
commonly uses “negra/o” or “morena/o” for
Black people, while “preta/o” may have both
positive and negative connotations, depending
on the context. A spouse might affectionately
call his or her partner “preta/o”; a parent may
lovingly call a child “pretinha/o”. On the oth-
er hand, in contexts that are marked by racial
tensions, “preta/o” is more commonly used in
an offensive way, rather than “negra/o”.
In the Portuguese text, Rísia’s interchangeable
use of “preta/o”, “negra/o” regardless of the
context reinforces her grappling with trying to
understand her Black identity in her process
of growth (Example 7).
In the first excerpt in Portuguese above, Rísia
discusses the circumstances of the birth of her
mother and her grandmother’s struggle. In
such desperate conditions described, in which
she sees her grandmother crippled by pregnan-
cy, the words “preto” and “negra” are used in
Norma Diana Hamilton and Israel Victor de Melo460Mujeres y traducción en América Latina y el Caribe
negative connotations. In the second excerpt
in Portuguese, there is the word “negra” is as-
sociated with “lama imunda”. In our interpre-
tation, in her early retrospective thought, Rísia
makes an association with dirtiness and being
Black: this seems to be an interiorization of
the oppression and inferiority that is imposed
on her as a child.
Nevertheless, in our reading, it is possible to
identify in Rísia’s thoughts seeds of resignifi-
cation of Blackness, as she approaches the
final stages of her growth. When Rísia final-
ly arrives in Tijucapo, after having travelled
– not coincidentally – for nine months, the
word Black is associated with the possibility of
freedom and overcoming. “The black earth”
of which Rísia makes a lot of references to
throughout the narrative is now used in a pos-
itive connotation: it is associated with free-
dom, as she rides horses freely on that earth,
“nesse lugar onde eu montaria cavalos e sairia
desembestada ao encontro da explicação que
talvez esteja no onde a praia encontra a lama,
o negro tijuco” (Felinto, 1982, p. 127).
Taking into consideration what we have ar-
gued thus far, Matthew’s translation points to
an orientation towards the st, a foreignization
(Venuti, 1998, 2008) of the text; the transla-
tion strategy is literal. To the reader from the
target culture, the text will seem non-fluent,
estranging and heterogenous (Venuti, 1998,
2008). This aspect of the translation is repre-
sentative of Felinto’s style of writing, which
is carried over into the target text: an evident
desired effect, on the part of the translator.
4.2. Who slashed Celanire’s throat?
The English version of Célanire cou-coupé (Edi-
tions Robert Laffont, 2000), a novel by Guade-
loupian Maryse Condé, received the title Who
slashed Celanire’s throat? and was published by
the New Yorker editorial group Atria Books in
2004, four years after the original text was pub-
lished in French. The translator who signs this
version is the author’s spouse, Richard Philcox.
The fact that Philcox establishes a close rela-
tionship with the author means, for the com-
parative scientific purposes, only a possibility
of interpretation regarding the dialogue process
inherent to the translation dynamics, which is
revealed by the participation of Maryse Condé
in the translation stages. The detail that there
is a certain participation of the author or not
can vary depending on the translation process,
however, what we describe mainly concerns
certain translation strategies and certain pa-
ratextual elements: title, presentation of the
translator, preface, translation notes etc.
Example 7
Portuguese English
Era 1935, todos os raios da lua escapuliam do céu
preto alumiando o caminho [...]. Minha avó nem
sequer açoitava o bicho; vinha pachorrenta [...].
Minha vó era tão negra que se arrastava. Ela levava
a minha mãe, a que seria dada (Felinto, p. 20, our
emphasis)
It was 1935, all the rays of the moon stole from the black
sky along a path through the hills lighting the way [...].
My grandmother was so black that she crawled. She was
bringing my mother, who was to be given away (Felinto
& Matthews, 1994, p. 7, our emphasis)
Todas as ideias me remetem às mulheres de
Tijucopapo [...]. Também sei desenhar. Desenhar que
estourou uma bomba de lama que se bipartiu em
mim em seringa nos olhos, o meu choro e em minha
mãe na bolsa que parte. E nasci eu. Sou feita de lama
imunda [...]. Eu sou feita de lama que é negra de terra
(Felinto, 1982, p. 56).
Every thought reminds me of the women of Tijucopapo
[...] I know how to draw, too. How to draw a mud bomb
that bursts into two around me and spayed into my eyes,
my tears, and into my mother around the birth sack. And
I was born. I am made of filthy mud. [...] I am made of
mud that is black with earth (Felinto & Matthews, 1994,
p. 45).
negative connotations. In the second excerpt
in Portuguese, there is the word “negra” is as-
sociated with “lama imunda”. In our interpre-
tation, in her early retrospective thought, Rísia
makes an association with dirtiness and being
Black: this seems to be an interiorization of
the oppression and inferiority that is imposed
on her as a child.
Nevertheless, in our reading, it is possible to
identify in Rísia’s thoughts seeds of resignifi-
cation of Blackness, as she approaches the
final stages of her growth. When Rísia final-
ly arrives in Tijucapo, after having travelled
– not coincidentally – for nine months, the
word Black is associated with the possibility of
freedom and overcoming. “The black earth”
of which Rísia makes a lot of references to
throughout the narrative is now used in a pos-
itive connotation: it is associated with free-
dom, as she rides horses freely on that earth,
“nesse lugar onde eu montaria cavalos e sairia
desembestada ao encontro da explicação que
talvez esteja no onde a praia encontra a lama,
o negro tijuco” (Felinto, 1982, p. 127).
Taking into consideration what we have ar-
gued thus far, Matthew’s translation points to
an orientation towards the st, a foreignization
(Venuti, 1998, 2008) of the text; the transla-
tion strategy is literal. To the reader from the
target culture, the text will seem non-fluent,
estranging and heterogenous (Venuti, 1998,
2008). This aspect of the translation is repre-
sentative of Felinto’s style of writing, which
is carried over into the target text: an evident
desired effect, on the part of the translator.
4.2. Who slashed Celanire’s throat?
The English version of Célanire cou-coupé (Edi-
tions Robert Laffont, 2000), a novel by Guade-
loupian Maryse Condé, received the title Who
slashed Celanire’s throat? and was published by
the New Yorker editorial group Atria Books in
2004, four years after the original text was pub-
lished in French. The translator who signs this
version is the author’s spouse, Richard Philcox.
The fact that Philcox establishes a close rela-
tionship with the author means, for the com-
parative scientific purposes, only a possibility
of interpretation regarding the dialogue process
inherent to the translation dynamics, which is
revealed by the participation of Maryse Condé
in the translation stages. The detail that there
is a certain participation of the author or not
can vary depending on the translation process,
however, what we describe mainly concerns
certain translation strategies and certain pa-
ratextual elements: title, presentation of the
translator, preface, translation notes etc.
Example 7
Portuguese English
Era 1935, todos os raios da lua escapuliam do céu
preto alumiando o caminho [...]. Minha avó nem
sequer açoitava o bicho; vinha pachorrenta [...].
Minha vó era tão negra que se arrastava. Ela levava
a minha mãe, a que seria dada (Felinto, p. 20, our
emphasis)
It was 1935, all the rays of the moon stole from the black
sky along a path through the hills lighting the way [...].
My grandmother was so black that she crawled. She was
bringing my mother, who was to be given away (Felinto
& Matthews, 1994, p. 7, our emphasis)
Todas as ideias me remetem às mulheres de
Tijucopapo [...]. Também sei desenhar. Desenhar que
estourou uma bomba de lama que se bipartiu em
mim em seringa nos olhos, o meu choro e em minha
mãe na bolsa que parte. E nasci eu. Sou feita de lama
imunda [...]. Eu sou feita de lama que é negra de terra
(Felinto, 1982, p. 56).
Every thought reminds me of the women of Tijucopapo
[...] I know how to draw, too. How to draw a mud bomb
that bursts into two around me and spayed into my eyes,
my tears, and into my mother around the birth sack. And
I was born. I am made of filthy mud. [...] I am made of
mud that is black with earth (Felinto & Matthews, 1994,
p. 45).
The Critical Enterprise in Translating Black Women Writers’ Authorship:
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo461Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
A first detail to reflect on in the English ver-
sion of the novel is that there are no transla-
tion notes, preface or afterword containing any
description of the translation process or strat-
egies, verifiable when comparing st and tt or
using interviews with the translator.
Initially looking at the title, we have a seman-
tic-communicative change: Célanire cou-coupé
becomes Who slashed Celanire Throat?. Between
the transitions from a declarative sentence, in
French, to an interrogative one, in English, the
focus on the name of the character Célanire –
a métisse guadeloupéenne – changes its position,
giving rise to questions about the authorship
of the cut on her neck. In a more restricted
sense, the apparent attention to the female
character is lost due to an anonymous autho-
rial focus. In part, this could be explained by
the plot lines. Célanire had been abandoned
by her family and should be sacrificed. The
sacrifice attempt was unsuccessful because a
doctor decides to adopt her after treating her
wounds. With that, the scars remain and the
child grows up cultivating a desire for revenge.
The mystery about her history is notorious in the
novel, and for that reason, it would explain
the interrogative proposition in the English
version. However, there are other aspects to
consider. The novel takes place in a colonial
setting – chronologically and geographically.
The character’s desire for revenge indicates
a certain tone of approximation between her
story and the history of colonial violence,
whose wounds are difficult to heal (Fanon,
1952). Another point that can be observed is
that the word cou-coupé phonetically carries
the syllabic repetition characteristic of a pop-
ular culture, as it also means a species of bird
– Amadina fasciata – present mainly in sub-Sa-
haran Africa.
The novel, subtitled Fantastic Tale, presents
a narrative of four spatial plot plans: Ivory
Coast, Cayenne, Guadeloupe, and Peru, be-
tween the years of the first decade of the 20th
century. For that fact, there is in Who slashed
Celanire’s throat? the constancy of words of Af-
rican origin, expressions and words in Creole,
and, finally, in Spanish. In the original text, in
French, the author decided to add a glossary,
containing brief explanations about words like
yavogou, an honorary title, or brujas, witches.
The text, imbued with hybrid elements, in the
Antillean context, takes on its own meaning
in relation to literary language. In the English
version, Philcox demonstrates these words as
they appear in the original text, differentiated
only by the use of italics. It is noted, then, the
use of non-English speaking origin words in
italics, different from the strategic choice de-
fined by the author in her original edition.
What is striking is the fact that there seem to
be separate editorial and translation agree-
ments for the original text, in French, and for
Example 8
French English
Au loin, des lumières apparurent dont la vue sembla
leur donner des ailes aux talons : Adjame-Santey.
Le tipoye se mit à cahoter comme si les vagues
de l’océan le ballottaient. Malgré cela, Célanire
s’engourdit dans un demi-sommeil jusqu’à ce qu’un
brouhaha de voix surexcitées l’en tire. Une troupe de
askaris, comiques avec leurs jambes enroulées de
bandes de molleton et leurs chéchias de travers, avait
manqué renverser les porteurs. (Condé, 2000, p. 18).
Lights appeared in the distance, the sight of which
seemed to put wings on their heels, and Adjame-
Santey come into view. The tipoye began to jolt as if
buffeted by the ocean’s waves. Indifferent to all this,
Celanire sank into a semi-slumber until a commotion of
excited voices awoke her. A troop of askaris, a comical
sight with their legs swathed in strips of cotton fleece
and tarbooshes askew, had almost collided with the
porters. (Condé & Philcox, 2004, p. 6, their emphasis).
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo461Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
A first detail to reflect on in the English ver-
sion of the novel is that there are no transla-
tion notes, preface or afterword containing any
description of the translation process or strat-
egies, verifiable when comparing st and tt or
using interviews with the translator.
Initially looking at the title, we have a seman-
tic-communicative change: Célanire cou-coupé
becomes Who slashed Celanire Throat?. Between
the transitions from a declarative sentence, in
French, to an interrogative one, in English, the
focus on the name of the character Célanire –
a métisse guadeloupéenne – changes its position,
giving rise to questions about the authorship
of the cut on her neck. In a more restricted
sense, the apparent attention to the female
character is lost due to an anonymous autho-
rial focus. In part, this could be explained by
the plot lines. Célanire had been abandoned
by her family and should be sacrificed. The
sacrifice attempt was unsuccessful because a
doctor decides to adopt her after treating her
wounds. With that, the scars remain and the
child grows up cultivating a desire for revenge.
The mystery about her history is notorious in the
novel, and for that reason, it would explain
the interrogative proposition in the English
version. However, there are other aspects to
consider. The novel takes place in a colonial
setting – chronologically and geographically.
The character’s desire for revenge indicates
a certain tone of approximation between her
story and the history of colonial violence,
whose wounds are difficult to heal (Fanon,
1952). Another point that can be observed is
that the word cou-coupé phonetically carries
the syllabic repetition characteristic of a pop-
ular culture, as it also means a species of bird
– Amadina fasciata – present mainly in sub-Sa-
haran Africa.
The novel, subtitled Fantastic Tale, presents
a narrative of four spatial plot plans: Ivory
Coast, Cayenne, Guadeloupe, and Peru, be-
tween the years of the first decade of the 20th
century. For that fact, there is in Who slashed
Celanire’s throat? the constancy of words of Af-
rican origin, expressions and words in Creole,
and, finally, in Spanish. In the original text, in
French, the author decided to add a glossary,
containing brief explanations about words like
yavogou, an honorary title, or brujas, witches.
The text, imbued with hybrid elements, in the
Antillean context, takes on its own meaning
in relation to literary language. In the English
version, Philcox demonstrates these words as
they appear in the original text, differentiated
only by the use of italics. It is noted, then, the
use of non-English speaking origin words in
italics, different from the strategic choice de-
fined by the author in her original edition.
What is striking is the fact that there seem to
be separate editorial and translation agree-
ments for the original text, in French, and for
Example 8
French English
Au loin, des lumières apparurent dont la vue sembla
leur donner des ailes aux talons : Adjame-Santey.
Le tipoye se mit à cahoter comme si les vagues
de l’océan le ballottaient. Malgré cela, Célanire
s’engourdit dans un demi-sommeil jusqu’à ce qu’un
brouhaha de voix surexcitées l’en tire. Une troupe de
askaris, comiques avec leurs jambes enroulées de
bandes de molleton et leurs chéchias de travers, avait
manqué renverser les porteurs. (Condé, 2000, p. 18).
Lights appeared in the distance, the sight of which
seemed to put wings on their heels, and Adjame-
Santey come into view. The tipoye began to jolt as if
buffeted by the ocean’s waves. Indifferent to all this,
Celanire sank into a semi-slumber until a commotion of
excited voices awoke her. A troop of askaris, a comical
sight with their legs swathed in strips of cotton fleece
and tarbooshes askew, had almost collided with the
porters. (Condé & Philcox, 2004, p. 6, their emphasis).
Norma Diana Hamilton and Israel Victor de Melo462Mujeres y traducción en América Latina y el Caribe
its English version. In Who slashed Celanire’s
Throat?, there is no glossary, nor explanatory
notes, leaving the reader in charge of the se-
mantic verification of words of African, Cre-
ole and Spanish-speaking origin.
When observing the description of the charac-
ter Célanire, in the original text, we have the
record shown in Example 9.
There is an assimilation between the color of
the character and an apparent constant mourn-
ing – “comme un grand deuil” –, which is rec-
onciled with her mood. There is, moreover, the
assumption of their place of origin – “de la Gua-
deloupe or de la Martinique”. The description of
the character sometimes seems to be metaphori-
cally supported by the description of the islands
of origin and the configuration of this social,
historical and, nonetheless, religious space. In
this highlighted excerpt, we examine the strat-
egies adopted during the translation process
that contributed to mitigate or to insist on the
features defined in the original text. Through
this exemplified excerpt, we can identify the
definition of a translation strategy for words
that are certainly complex to be translated, es-
pecially those that refer to the Caribbean black
linguistic community. The words nègre, noire,
négresse and métisse can cause certain problems
for different sociolinguistic groups. The Black
community affectionately adopts them. When
the non-black community receives and enun-
ciates them, they can have other meanings and
generate political discomfort. In Philcox’s ver-
sion, the solutions to the problem appear as
“natives”, “black”, “dark skin” and “hybrid”.
In an interview with researchers Doris Y.
Kadish and Françoise Massardier-Kenney, in
1996, Richard Philcox portrays certain pro-
cesses of translation of Maryse Condé’s nov-
els. Among them, he reveals that he judges,
alongside the author, the translation of certain
novels, trying to avoid possible mistakes. The
example presented in this interview is the En-
glish version of the novel Ségou (1984, 1985),
whose translation is signed by Barbara Bray
– which, according to Philcox, makes some
mistakes. When asked about possible consid-
erable mistakes in the definition of words, he
argues, “Africa’s vocabulary was inaccurate. A
pagne was translated as G-string, and l’hivernage
was winter, and other such things” (Philcox,
Kadish & Massardier-Kenney, 1996, p. 750).
The definitions around the adoption of literal
translation and the attempt to approach the text
as fluently as possible ends up constituting
what Venuti (2008) classifies as domestication.
Regarding the case of the English version of
Example 9
French English
Célanire Pinceau. Patronyme peu commun ! [...] Elle
ne parlait guère. Elle ne semblait pas curieuse, excitée
comme ses compagnes, impatientes de commencer
leur apostolat. En plus, sa couleur la mettait à part,
cette peau noire qui l’habillait comme un vêtement
de grand deuil. Elle n’était pas franchement négresse.
Plutôt métisse d’on ne savait combien de races.
[...]. D’où sortait-elle ? De la Guadeloupe ou de la
Martinique. Enfin, d’une de ces colonies qui n’ont de
français que le nom, habitées par des nègres baptisés,
qui font quand même bamboula, jurent comme
païens, battent le tambour et boivent des alcools forts.
(Condé, 2000, pp. 13-14)
Celanire Pinceau. A most unusual name! [...] She hardly
spoke. She did not seem curious or excited like her
traveling companions, who were eager to begin their
missionary work. What’s more, her color set her apart,
that dark skin that clothed her like a garment of deep
mourning. Her features were not strictly black – rather, a
hybrid of goodness knows how many races [...] Where
did she come from? From Guadeloupe or Martinique.
Well, from one of those colonies that are only French by
name, where the natives have been baptized yet still
run wild, swear like heathens, beat the drum, and drink
strong liquor. (Condé & Philcox, 2004, pp. 1-2)
its English version. In Who slashed Celanire’s
Throat?, there is no glossary, nor explanatory
notes, leaving the reader in charge of the se-
mantic verification of words of African, Cre-
ole and Spanish-speaking origin.
When observing the description of the charac-
ter Célanire, in the original text, we have the
record shown in Example 9.
There is an assimilation between the color of
the character and an apparent constant mourn-
ing – “comme un grand deuil” –, which is rec-
onciled with her mood. There is, moreover, the
assumption of their place of origin – “de la Gua-
deloupe or de la Martinique”. The description of
the character sometimes seems to be metaphori-
cally supported by the description of the islands
of origin and the configuration of this social,
historical and, nonetheless, religious space. In
this highlighted excerpt, we examine the strat-
egies adopted during the translation process
that contributed to mitigate or to insist on the
features defined in the original text. Through
this exemplified excerpt, we can identify the
definition of a translation strategy for words
that are certainly complex to be translated, es-
pecially those that refer to the Caribbean black
linguistic community. The words nègre, noire,
négresse and métisse can cause certain problems
for different sociolinguistic groups. The Black
community affectionately adopts them. When
the non-black community receives and enun-
ciates them, they can have other meanings and
generate political discomfort. In Philcox’s ver-
sion, the solutions to the problem appear as
“natives”, “black”, “dark skin” and “hybrid”.
In an interview with researchers Doris Y.
Kadish and Françoise Massardier-Kenney, in
1996, Richard Philcox portrays certain pro-
cesses of translation of Maryse Condé’s nov-
els. Among them, he reveals that he judges,
alongside the author, the translation of certain
novels, trying to avoid possible mistakes. The
example presented in this interview is the En-
glish version of the novel Ségou (1984, 1985),
whose translation is signed by Barbara Bray
– which, according to Philcox, makes some
mistakes. When asked about possible consid-
erable mistakes in the definition of words, he
argues, “Africa’s vocabulary was inaccurate. A
pagne was translated as G-string, and l’hivernage
was winter, and other such things” (Philcox,
Kadish & Massardier-Kenney, 1996, p. 750).
The definitions around the adoption of literal
translation and the attempt to approach the text
as fluently as possible ends up constituting
what Venuti (2008) classifies as domestication.
Regarding the case of the English version of
Example 9
French English
Célanire Pinceau. Patronyme peu commun ! [...] Elle
ne parlait guère. Elle ne semblait pas curieuse, excitée
comme ses compagnes, impatientes de commencer
leur apostolat. En plus, sa couleur la mettait à part,
cette peau noire qui l’habillait comme un vêtement
de grand deuil. Elle n’était pas franchement négresse.
Plutôt métisse d’on ne savait combien de races.
[...]. D’où sortait-elle ? De la Guadeloupe ou de la
Martinique. Enfin, d’une de ces colonies qui n’ont de
français que le nom, habitées par des nègres baptisés,
qui font quand même bamboula, jurent comme
païens, battent le tambour et boivent des alcools forts.
(Condé, 2000, pp. 13-14)
Celanire Pinceau. A most unusual name! [...] She hardly
spoke. She did not seem curious or excited like her
traveling companions, who were eager to begin their
missionary work. What’s more, her color set her apart,
that dark skin that clothed her like a garment of deep
mourning. Her features were not strictly black – rather, a
hybrid of goodness knows how many races [...] Where
did she come from? From Guadeloupe or Martinique.
Well, from one of those colonies that are only French by
name, where the natives have been baptized yet still
run wild, swear like heathens, beat the drum, and drink
strong liquor. (Condé & Philcox, 2004, pp. 1-2)
The Critical Enterprise in Translating Black Women Writers’ Authorship:
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo463Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
Condé’s novel, we could judge the pertinence
of not making her text fluent enough to struc-
turally modify the author’s aesthetic proposal.
However, it would also be appropriate to ques-
tion whether there is even a glossary, or even a
preface, containing any description of access to
the text for English-speaking readers – different
from the original text, in French. The Guade-
loupian author “would say that it is not bad
to make the reader work” (Philcox, Kadish &
Massardier-Kenney, 1996, p. 751).
Some excerpts from the novel can serve as an
example of this translation strategy, which,
on the one hand, retrieves words in non-hege-
monic vernacular languages, and, on the other
hand, requires the reader to search to under-
stand their meanings (Example 10).
Example 10
French English
Félix Koffi, le nouveau chrétien, qui à présent
baragouinanit quelques mots de français, se précipita
vers elle :
— Ce wa ben ? Ce wa ben ? (Condé, 2000, p. 56)
Felix Koffi, the new Christian, who could now put
together a few words of French, rushed toward her:
“Ça wa ben? Ça wa ben?” (Condé & Philcox, 2004, p.
46)
Here, the expression “Ce wa ben ?” comes from
French expression “Ça va bien ?”. In the En-
glish version, it remained as it was. For a fran-
cophone or francophile reader, the identification
may be immediate, for others, not.
In the examples below, some words in Creole,
such as “kwi de kwak”, “gwo-ka”, “poto-mitan”,
“nèg-kann”, maintained as in the original (Ex-
amples 11, 12, and 13).
Example 11
French English
Ses soins, ils les dispensait gratis ou presque : en
échange, un peu de miel sauvage, une tranche de
mérou, un agouti, des œufs de caret, un kwi de kwak
faisaient son bonheur. (Condé, 2000, p. 101)
He meted out his treatment free of charge or almost,
in exchange for the joy of a little wild honey, a slice of
grouper, an agouti, turtle eggs, or a gourd of cassava
kwak. Condé & Philcox, 2004, p. 90)
Example 12
French English
L’assistance, déjà déconcertée par les airs de beguine,
se demanda si on allait se mettre à battre le ka. Elle
n’en crut pas ses oreilles quand Célanire, montée
en vitesse sur le podium, fit en phrases bien torunées
et bien senties un éloge de la culture traditionnelle.
Culture traditionnelle dont le gwo ka était le poto-
mitan. Pourquoi en avoir honte ainsi du créole, lang
manman-aw ? (Condé, 2000, p. 145)
The guests, already disconcerted by the beguines,
wondered if they were going to start beating the
gwo-ka drums. They could not believe their ears when
Celanire, who had leaped onto the podium, began
praising the merits of cultural traditions, of which the
gwo-ka drum was the poto-mitan, in an eloquent,
articulate speech. Why be ashamed of it? Why be
ashamed of Kréyol, our Patwa mother tongue? (Condé
& Philcox, 2004, p. 134-135)
Example 13
French English
[...] n’avait pas abuse d’elle comme le premier nèg-
kann venu. (Condé, 2000, p. 149)
[...] had taken advantage of her like the first uncouth
nèg kann to come along. (Condé & Philcox, 2004,
p. 139)
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo463Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
Condé’s novel, we could judge the pertinence
of not making her text fluent enough to struc-
turally modify the author’s aesthetic proposal.
However, it would also be appropriate to ques-
tion whether there is even a glossary, or even a
preface, containing any description of access to
the text for English-speaking readers – different
from the original text, in French. The Guade-
loupian author “would say that it is not bad
to make the reader work” (Philcox, Kadish &
Massardier-Kenney, 1996, p. 751).
Some excerpts from the novel can serve as an
example of this translation strategy, which,
on the one hand, retrieves words in non-hege-
monic vernacular languages, and, on the other
hand, requires the reader to search to under-
stand their meanings (Example 10).
Example 10
French English
Félix Koffi, le nouveau chrétien, qui à présent
baragouinanit quelques mots de français, se précipita
vers elle :
— Ce wa ben ? Ce wa ben ? (Condé, 2000, p. 56)
Felix Koffi, the new Christian, who could now put
together a few words of French, rushed toward her:
“Ça wa ben? Ça wa ben?” (Condé & Philcox, 2004, p.
46)
Here, the expression “Ce wa ben ?” comes from
French expression “Ça va bien ?”. In the En-
glish version, it remained as it was. For a fran-
cophone or francophile reader, the identification
may be immediate, for others, not.
In the examples below, some words in Creole,
such as “kwi de kwak”, “gwo-ka”, “poto-mitan”,
“nèg-kann”, maintained as in the original (Ex-
amples 11, 12, and 13).
Example 11
French English
Ses soins, ils les dispensait gratis ou presque : en
échange, un peu de miel sauvage, une tranche de
mérou, un agouti, des œufs de caret, un kwi de kwak
faisaient son bonheur. (Condé, 2000, p. 101)
He meted out his treatment free of charge or almost,
in exchange for the joy of a little wild honey, a slice of
grouper, an agouti, turtle eggs, or a gourd of cassava
kwak. Condé & Philcox, 2004, p. 90)
Example 12
French English
L’assistance, déjà déconcertée par les airs de beguine,
se demanda si on allait se mettre à battre le ka. Elle
n’en crut pas ses oreilles quand Célanire, montée
en vitesse sur le podium, fit en phrases bien torunées
et bien senties un éloge de la culture traditionnelle.
Culture traditionnelle dont le gwo ka était le poto-
mitan. Pourquoi en avoir honte ainsi du créole, lang
manman-aw ? (Condé, 2000, p. 145)
The guests, already disconcerted by the beguines,
wondered if they were going to start beating the
gwo-ka drums. They could not believe their ears when
Celanire, who had leaped onto the podium, began
praising the merits of cultural traditions, of which the
gwo-ka drum was the poto-mitan, in an eloquent,
articulate speech. Why be ashamed of it? Why be
ashamed of Kréyol, our Patwa mother tongue? (Condé
& Philcox, 2004, p. 134-135)
Example 13
French English
[...] n’avait pas abuse d’elle comme le premier nèg-
kann venu. (Condé, 2000, p. 149)
[...] had taken advantage of her like the first uncouth
nèg kann to come along. (Condé & Philcox, 2004,
p. 139)
Norma Diana Hamilton and Israel Victor de Melo464Mujeres y traducción en América Latina y el Caribe
The glossary for the French version contains
the following definitions: kwi, “calebasse
évidée coupée en deux”; kwak, “granulés
de manioc”; ka, gwo-ka tambour, “l’instru-
ment roi” (Condé, 2000, p. 248). There is no
mention in the glossary of poto-mitan. For
nèg-kann, there is an explanatory note at the
bottom of the page: “manant, homme sans
éducation” (Condé, 2000, p. 149).
The case of the translation of Condé’s novel
is especially complex because it requires, at
least, the articulation of aesthetic elements
defined by the author that make her narratives
part of the sociolinguistic composition of her
place of origin – as Felinto’s novel.
The maintenance of words in Creole, the em-
phasis in italics, the non-use of glossary or ex-
planatory notes permeate the translation strate-
gy and are related, in some way, to editorial
policies. The relevance of these questions of
editorial strategic choices has to do with the
position defined by the author to refuse the op-
position “colonial language/mother tongue”
(Lappin-Fortin, 2013) interfered in her text.
The aesthetic language of Condé “is not the
language that can be understood in France,
[but] a mixture between the language of a per-
son born in Guadeloupe [...] with the sound
of the different sounds of language, and my
personal language” (Condé & Barbour, 2006,
p. 14). Her plurilinguistic aesthetic-literary
trait also has to do with the place from which
the novelist writes: the Antilles. Moreover, in
the spectrum of the structural set of the novel,
there is a relatively broad panorama of the sto-
ries surrounding the character Celanire, set in
Ivory Coast, Cayenne, Guadeloupe and Peru.
There are, therefore, marks of other identities
– mestizos – in her text, which is not isolated
from the prominent linguistic fabric of the re-
gions figured in her novel. In that sense, a rea-
son for a glossary in the French edition. It is in
the interest of Condé’s translator to safeguard the
features that characterize her text geographically.
So, in his words,
When people speak, we are very tempted to
take a Jamaican dialect as equivalent, or even,
since it is an American publisher, to take Black
American English. It is a very big temptation
to dive into black American when it comes to
certain characters. As I am very interested in
the language, I often have these expressions of
slang and of Black-American language which
one hears on television or around oneself. But I
had to dismiss them because I felt that it did not
correspond at all to the island of Guadeloupe
(Philcox, Kadish & Massardier-Kenney, 1996,
p. 752, our translation).
In the case of the translation of Afro-Carib-
bean texts, the dispute concerns the transposi-
tion of a speech close to the editorial expecta-
tions of the target linguistic audience. That is
to say, when the publisher sees in the group of
African American readers a commercial pos-
sibility, the strategy is to correlate Caribbean
French – spoken by a majority Black commu-
nity – with Black American English. In this
correlation of forces, the Caribbean French is
mistakenly assimilated to the Black linguistic
community of the United States – the pub-
lisher’s country of origin and whose citizens
make up the target audience. However, the
translation strategy was, in this sense, based
on the heterogeneity of Condé’s text, seeking
to define parameters that are not only linguis-
tic, but political. In this sense, Philcox’s trans-
lation strategy is literal.
Translation as a mestizo practice implies a
critical position in relation to the translation
exercise. That is to say, it should not be carried
out specifically by a non-Western community,
which may, at times, not have a critical polit-
ical stance in the face of the relational action
between the source texts and the translated
The glossary for the French version contains
the following definitions: kwi, “calebasse
évidée coupée en deux”; kwak, “granulés
de manioc”; ka, gwo-ka tambour, “l’instru-
ment roi” (Condé, 2000, p. 248). There is no
mention in the glossary of poto-mitan. For
nèg-kann, there is an explanatory note at the
bottom of the page: “manant, homme sans
éducation” (Condé, 2000, p. 149).
The case of the translation of Condé’s novel
is especially complex because it requires, at
least, the articulation of aesthetic elements
defined by the author that make her narratives
part of the sociolinguistic composition of her
place of origin – as Felinto’s novel.
The maintenance of words in Creole, the em-
phasis in italics, the non-use of glossary or ex-
planatory notes permeate the translation strate-
gy and are related, in some way, to editorial
policies. The relevance of these questions of
editorial strategic choices has to do with the
position defined by the author to refuse the op-
position “colonial language/mother tongue”
(Lappin-Fortin, 2013) interfered in her text.
The aesthetic language of Condé “is not the
language that can be understood in France,
[but] a mixture between the language of a per-
son born in Guadeloupe [...] with the sound
of the different sounds of language, and my
personal language” (Condé & Barbour, 2006,
p. 14). Her plurilinguistic aesthetic-literary
trait also has to do with the place from which
the novelist writes: the Antilles. Moreover, in
the spectrum of the structural set of the novel,
there is a relatively broad panorama of the sto-
ries surrounding the character Celanire, set in
Ivory Coast, Cayenne, Guadeloupe and Peru.
There are, therefore, marks of other identities
– mestizos – in her text, which is not isolated
from the prominent linguistic fabric of the re-
gions figured in her novel. In that sense, a rea-
son for a glossary in the French edition. It is in
the interest of Condé’s translator to safeguard the
features that characterize her text geographically.
So, in his words,
When people speak, we are very tempted to
take a Jamaican dialect as equivalent, or even,
since it is an American publisher, to take Black
American English. It is a very big temptation
to dive into black American when it comes to
certain characters. As I am very interested in
the language, I often have these expressions of
slang and of Black-American language which
one hears on television or around oneself. But I
had to dismiss them because I felt that it did not
correspond at all to the island of Guadeloupe
(Philcox, Kadish & Massardier-Kenney, 1996,
p. 752, our translation).
In the case of the translation of Afro-Carib-
bean texts, the dispute concerns the transposi-
tion of a speech close to the editorial expecta-
tions of the target linguistic audience. That is
to say, when the publisher sees in the group of
African American readers a commercial pos-
sibility, the strategy is to correlate Caribbean
French – spoken by a majority Black commu-
nity – with Black American English. In this
correlation of forces, the Caribbean French is
mistakenly assimilated to the Black linguistic
community of the United States – the pub-
lisher’s country of origin and whose citizens
make up the target audience. However, the
translation strategy was, in this sense, based
on the heterogeneity of Condé’s text, seeking
to define parameters that are not only linguis-
tic, but political. In this sense, Philcox’s trans-
lation strategy is literal.
Translation as a mestizo practice implies a
critical position in relation to the translation
exercise. That is to say, it should not be carried
out specifically by a non-Western community,
which may, at times, not have a critical polit-
ical stance in the face of the relational action
between the source texts and the translated
The Critical Enterprise in Translating Black Women Writers’ Authorship:
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo465Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
texts. Therefore, mestizo translation cannot be
apprehended strictly by the place from which
it takes place.
What is expected as a question is the perception
of the translator’s stance in face of the nuanc-
es, the particularities and, above all, the im-
pact, on the political-linguistic level, of the
definition of the translation stzrategy. This is
because, as many authors argue, translation
becomes a tool for building political allianc-
es between women from different linguistic
communities.
5. Conclusion
In our overall observation of the English ver-
sions, it is possible to identify a partnership,
on behalf of the translators, with the Portu-
guese and French texts: they walk hand in
hand with the authors’ proposal, portraying
the gruesome reality through which the Black
female protagonists undergo, in order to find a
beam of hope to construct a positive identity.
Matthews’ translation, which points to an ori-
entation towards the st, is affirmative of a crit-
ical enterprise/ political agency, as it mirrors
the complex artistic maneuvers of Felinto’s
writing to give visibility to the painful reflec-
tions of the protagonist on her existence as
a Black woman in an oppressive society that
disenchants her.
The direct contact between Philcox and
Condé made it possible, in an assimilable way,
to raise awareness regarding the text by the
Guadeloupian author, which shows itself, aes-
thetically and socially plural. As the translator
defines his starting point, articulating mestizo
and specific elements without disrupting the
st according to the tt, we can identify his crit-
ical action in the face of editorial limitations
or impositions.
Thinking in terms of the polysystem (Even-Zo-
har, 2012), we could say that Matthews’ and
Philcox’ translation, as part of ‘Third World’
literature, represents a peripheral system, as
they, supposedly, would have no major influ-
ence over the central system, and, thereby, as-
sume a secondary position. Nevertheless, they
do not become conservative elements that
conform to the literary aspects of the target
system. On the contrary, in reflecting also on
the conception of rewriting (Lefevere, 1992),
one could say that Matthews’ and Philcox’s
texts rebel against the dominant ideology and
poetics. Matthews’ text is defiant to the general
linguistic/literary aspect of the target litera-
ture, and, as such, may contribute to break-
ing conventions in the hegemonic language.
Philcox’s text seeks to rescue Condé’s literary
plurilingualism, strictly Antillean, so as not to
eliminate its aesthetic subjectivity.
By developing a translation that is non-fluent,
estranging and heterogenous, which is demon-
strative of resistance to the hegemonic English
language and culture (Venuti, 2008; Niranja-
na, 1992), Matthews and her team have creat-
ed a textual space in which dissimilar peoples
and communities are put in relation; in such
space, the Black female subjectivity is given
visibility, and that is representative of what we
have denominated mestizo translation.
As for the Afro-Antillean text, we hope not to
mistakenly assimilate the language spoken by
the Guadeloupian Black community to Black
English, from the United States. Likewise, how
can we safeguard, in the English version, the
peculiarities of a Portuguese language spoken
by the Black community in Brazil? One has to
reflect on that, because, in one way or another,
it demands a structural change in the sociolin-
guistic and, therefore, political systems.
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo465Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
texts. Therefore, mestizo translation cannot be
apprehended strictly by the place from which
it takes place.
What is expected as a question is the perception
of the translator’s stance in face of the nuanc-
es, the particularities and, above all, the im-
pact, on the political-linguistic level, of the
definition of the translation stzrategy. This is
because, as many authors argue, translation
becomes a tool for building political allianc-
es between women from different linguistic
communities.
5. Conclusion
In our overall observation of the English ver-
sions, it is possible to identify a partnership,
on behalf of the translators, with the Portu-
guese and French texts: they walk hand in
hand with the authors’ proposal, portraying
the gruesome reality through which the Black
female protagonists undergo, in order to find a
beam of hope to construct a positive identity.
Matthews’ translation, which points to an ori-
entation towards the st, is affirmative of a crit-
ical enterprise/ political agency, as it mirrors
the complex artistic maneuvers of Felinto’s
writing to give visibility to the painful reflec-
tions of the protagonist on her existence as
a Black woman in an oppressive society that
disenchants her.
The direct contact between Philcox and
Condé made it possible, in an assimilable way,
to raise awareness regarding the text by the
Guadeloupian author, which shows itself, aes-
thetically and socially plural. As the translator
defines his starting point, articulating mestizo
and specific elements without disrupting the
st according to the tt, we can identify his crit-
ical action in the face of editorial limitations
or impositions.
Thinking in terms of the polysystem (Even-Zo-
har, 2012), we could say that Matthews’ and
Philcox’ translation, as part of ‘Third World’
literature, represents a peripheral system, as
they, supposedly, would have no major influ-
ence over the central system, and, thereby, as-
sume a secondary position. Nevertheless, they
do not become conservative elements that
conform to the literary aspects of the target
system. On the contrary, in reflecting also on
the conception of rewriting (Lefevere, 1992),
one could say that Matthews’ and Philcox’s
texts rebel against the dominant ideology and
poetics. Matthews’ text is defiant to the general
linguistic/literary aspect of the target litera-
ture, and, as such, may contribute to break-
ing conventions in the hegemonic language.
Philcox’s text seeks to rescue Condé’s literary
plurilingualism, strictly Antillean, so as not to
eliminate its aesthetic subjectivity.
By developing a translation that is non-fluent,
estranging and heterogenous, which is demon-
strative of resistance to the hegemonic English
language and culture (Venuti, 2008; Niranja-
na, 1992), Matthews and her team have creat-
ed a textual space in which dissimilar peoples
and communities are put in relation; in such
space, the Black female subjectivity is given
visibility, and that is representative of what we
have denominated mestizo translation.
As for the Afro-Antillean text, we hope not to
mistakenly assimilate the language spoken by
the Guadeloupian Black community to Black
English, from the United States. Likewise, how
can we safeguard, in the English version, the
peculiarities of a Portuguese language spoken
by the Black community in Brazil? One has to
reflect on that, because, in one way or another,
it demands a structural change in the sociolin-
guistic and, therefore, political systems.
Norma Diana Hamilton and Israel Victor de Melo466Mujeres y traducción en América Latina y el Caribe
References
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Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera:
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Araújo, C. de G. S., Silva, L. de M., & Sil-
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Bassnett, S. & Trivedi, H. (1999). Post-colonial
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Bassnett, S. (2004). Translation studies. Shang-
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Beira, D. (2017). Da negritude cesariana à an-
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Carrascosa, D. (2016). Traduzindo no Atlânti-
co negro: por uma práxis teórico-política
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www.geledes.org.br/da-paz-de-marceli-
no-freire-por-naruna-costa/
Gilroy, P. (1993). The Black Atlantic: Modernity
and double consciousness. Harvard Univer-
sity Press.
Glissant, É. (1990). Poétique de la relation. Ga-
llimard.
Gonzalez, L. (1988). For an Afro-Latin
American Feminism. In B. Stob & N.
Terrell, Confronting the crisis in Latin Amer-
ica: Women Organizing for Change. isis In-
ternational. http://feministarchives.
isiswomen.org/47-books/confront-
ing-the-crisis-in-latin-america-women-or-
ganizing-for-change/828-for-an-afro-lat-
in-american-feminism
Hill-Collins, P., & Silva-Reis, D. (2019).
Black feminist thought and translation
studies: Interview with Patrícia Hill
Collins. Revista Ártemis, 27(1), 222-228.
https://doi.org/10.22478/ufpb.1807-
8214.2019v27n1.46708
Kilomba, G. (2019). Memórias da plantação:
episódios de racismo cotidiano (J. Oliveira,
trans.). Cobogó.
Lambert, J.-R. & van Gorp, H. (1985). On de-
scribing translations. In T. Hermans, The
manipulation of translation. Croom Helm.
References
Ahmad, A. (1994). In theory: Classes, nations,
literatures. Oxford University Press.
Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera:
the new mestiza. Aunt Lute Books.
Araújo, C. de G. S., Silva, L. de M., & Sil-
va-Reis, D. (2019). Estudos da tra-
dução & mulheres negras à luz do
feminismo. Revista Ártemis, 27(1), 2-13.
https://doi.org/10.22478/ufpb.1807-
8214.2019v27n1.46694
Bassnett, S. & Lefevere, A. (1990). Translation,
history and culture. Pinter.
Bassnett, S. & Trivedi, H. (1999). Post-colonial
translation: Theory and practice. Routledge.
Bassnett, S. (2004). Translation studies. Shang-
hai Foreign Language Education Press.
Beira, D. (2017). Da negritude cesariana à an-
tilhanidade glissantiana: o caminho para
crioulidade e a tradução como prática
mestiça. Translatio, 13, 185-200.
Carneiro, A. S. (2005). A construção do outro
como não-ser como fundamento do ser. [Doc-
toral dissertation], Universidade de São
Paulo, São Paulo, sp.
Carrascosa, D. (2016). Traduzindo no Atlânti-
co negro: por uma práxis teórico-política
de tradução entre literaturas afrodiaspó-
ricas. Cadernos de Literatura em Tradução,
(16). http://www.revistas.usp.br/clt/arti-
cle/view/115270
Condé, M. & Barbour, S. (2006). Emerging
perspectives on Maryse Condé: A writer of her
own. Africa World.
Condé, M. (1984). Ségou : Les murailles de terre.
Laffont.
Condé, M. (1985). Ségou : La terre en miettes.
Laffont.
Condé, M. (2000). Célanire cou-coupé. Robert
Laffont.
Condé, M. & Philcox, R. (2004). Who slashed
Celanire’s throat? Atria.
Even-Zohar, I. (2005). Papers in cultural re-
search. Unit of Culture Research, Tel Aviv
University.
Even-Zohar, I. (2012). The position of trans-
lated literature within the literary poly-
system. In L. Venuti (Ed.), The translation
studies reader. Routledge.
Fanon, F. (1952). Peau noire, masques blancs.
Éditions du Seuil.
Felinto, M. (1982). As mulheres de Tijucopapo.
Paz e Terra.
Felinto, M. & Matthews, I. (1994). The women
of Tijucopapo. University of Nebraska Press.
Freire, M. (2013). Da Paz, de Marcelino Frei-
re por Naruna Costa. Geledés. https://
www.geledes.org.br/da-paz-de-marceli-
no-freire-por-naruna-costa/
Gilroy, P. (1993). The Black Atlantic: Modernity
and double consciousness. Harvard Univer-
sity Press.
Glissant, É. (1990). Poétique de la relation. Ga-
llimard.
Gonzalez, L. (1988). For an Afro-Latin
American Feminism. In B. Stob & N.
Terrell, Confronting the crisis in Latin Amer-
ica: Women Organizing for Change. isis In-
ternational. http://feministarchives.
isiswomen.org/47-books/confront-
ing-the-crisis-in-latin-america-women-or-
ganizing-for-change/828-for-an-afro-lat-
in-american-feminism
Hill-Collins, P., & Silva-Reis, D. (2019).
Black feminist thought and translation
studies: Interview with Patrícia Hill
Collins. Revista Ártemis, 27(1), 222-228.
https://doi.org/10.22478/ufpb.1807-
8214.2019v27n1.46708
Kilomba, G. (2019). Memórias da plantação:
episódios de racismo cotidiano (J. Oliveira,
trans.). Cobogó.
Lambert, J.-R. & van Gorp, H. (1985). On de-
scribing translations. In T. Hermans, The
manipulation of translation. Croom Helm.
The Critical Enterprise in Translating Black Women Writers’ Authorship:
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo467Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
Lappin-Fortin, K. (2013) Les quatre voix du
duo Condé-Philcox. The French Review,
86(3), 535-546. https://www.jstor.org/
stable/23510845
Lefevere, A. (1992). Translation, rewriting and
the manipulation of literary fame. Routledge.
Lefevere, A. (2004). Mother Courage’s cu-
cumbers: text, system and refraction in a
theory of literature. In: L. Venuti (Ed.),
The translation studies reader. Routledge.
Niranjana, T. (1992). Siting translation: History,
post-structuralism, and the colonial context.
University of California Press.
Philcox, R., Kadish, D. Y. & Massardier-Ken-
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entretien avec Richard Philcox. The French
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and the interpretation of culture. Macmillan.
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Beyond, revised edition. John Benjamins.
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(Eds.), The metalanguage of translation (spe-
cial issue) Target, 19(2), 217-233.
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Towards an ethics of difference. Routledge.
Venuti, L. (2008). The translator’s invisibility: A
history of translation. Routledge.
Vinay, J.-P. & Darbelnet, J. (1995). Comparative
stylistics of French and English: A methodolo-
gy for translation. John Benjamins.
How to cite this article: Hamilton, N. & Melo, I. (2020). The critical enterprise in translating
Black women writers’ authorship: A description on Who slashed Celanire’s throat? and The women
of Tijucopapo. Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción, 13(2), 445-467. https://doi.
org/10.17533/udea.mut.v13n2a12
A Description on Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? and The Women of Tijucopapo467Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción Vol. 13, N.°2, 2020, July-December,pp.445-467
Lappin-Fortin, K. (2013) Les quatre voix du
duo Condé-Philcox. The French Review,
86(3), 535-546. https://www.jstor.org/
stable/23510845
Lefevere, A. (1992). Translation, rewriting and
the manipulation of literary fame. Routledge.
Lefevere, A. (2004). Mother Courage’s cu-
cumbers: text, system and refraction in a
theory of literature. In: L. Venuti (Ed.),
The translation studies reader. Routledge.
Niranjana, T. (1992). Siting translation: History,
post-structuralism, and the colonial context.
University of California Press.
Philcox, R., Kadish, D. Y. & Massardier-Ken-
ney, F. (1996). Traduire Maryse Condé :
entretien avec Richard Philcox. The French
Review, 69(5), 749-761.
Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In
C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism
and the interpretation of culture. Macmillan.
Toury, G. (1995). Descriptive translation studies:
Beyond, revised edition. John Benjamins.
van Doorslaer, L. (2007). Risking conceptual
maps. In Y. Gambier & L. van Doorslaer
(Eds.), The metalanguage of translation (spe-
cial issue) Target, 19(2), 217-233.
Venuti, L. (1998). The scandals of translation:
Towards an ethics of difference. Routledge.
Venuti, L. (2008). The translator’s invisibility: A
history of translation. Routledge.
Vinay, J.-P. & Darbelnet, J. (1995). Comparative
stylistics of French and English: A methodolo-
gy for translation. John Benjamins.
How to cite this article: Hamilton, N. & Melo, I. (2020). The critical enterprise in translating
Black women writers’ authorship: A description on Who slashed Celanire’s throat? and The women
of Tijucopapo. Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción, 13(2), 445-467. https://doi.
org/10.17533/udea.mut.v13n2a12