The report contains information from African and specialized West European publications and radio on political, economic, and sociological developments.

The report contains information from African and specialized West European publications and radio on political, economic, and sociological developments.

How realistic is it to expect translation to render the world intelligible in a context shaped by different historical trajectories and experiences? Can we rely on human universals to translate through the unique and specific webs of meaning that languages represent? If knowledge production is a kind of translation, then it is fair to assume that the possibility of translation has largely rested on the idea that Western experience is the repository of these human universals against the background of which different human experiences can be rendered intelligible. The problem with this assumption, however, is that there are limits to Western claims to universalism, mainly because these claims were at the service of the desire to justify imperial expansion. This book addresses issues arising from these claims to universalism in the process of producing knowledge about diverse African social realities. It shows that the idea of knowledge production as translation can be usefully deployed to inquire into how knowledge of Africa translates into an imperial attempt at changing local norms, institutions and spiritual values. Translation, in this sense, is the normalization of meanings issuing from a local historical experience claiming to be universal. The task of producing knowledge of African social realities cannot be adequately addressed without a prior critical engagement with how translation has come to shape our ways of rendering Africa intelligible.

This Element explores the politics of literary translation via case studies from the Heinemann African Writers Series and the work of twenty-first-century literary translators in Cameroon. It intervenes in debates concerning multilingualism, race and decolonization, as well as methodological discussion in African literary studies, world literature, comparative literature and translation studies. The task of translating African literary texts has developed according to political and socio-economic contexts. It has contributed to the consecration of a canon of African classics and fuelled polemics around African languages. Yet retranslation remains rare and early translations are frequently criticised. This Element's primary focus on the labour rather than craft or art of translation emphasises the material basis that underpins who gets to translate and how that embodied labour occurs within the process of book production and reception. The arguments draw on close readings, fresh archival material, interviews, and co-production and observation of literary translation workshops.

This report contains translations/transcriptions of articles and/or boradcast on Sub-Saharan Africa Report.