A growing number of bilingual writers are now self-translating their work, from or into English. Why is this happening? What does the process of self-translation imply in terms of cultural negotiation? And what happens to the cultural dimension of the self-translated text in this translative movement?

Self-translation has been efined as “the act of translating one’s own writings into another language and the result of such an undertaking” (Grutman 2001, 17).

The reasons why nowadays writers decide to self-translate are manifold and closely linked to growing migratory flows, diasporic movements and transnational relocations, which have created new generations of bilingual writers, especially in settler countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States, or in former colonial powers such as France, Spain and the UK.

Drawing upon existing literature and a series of one-on-one interviews with six self- translators, I have identified and compiled a list of reasons for which writers decide to self-translate based on their self-perceived level of bilingual proficiency and socio-cultural status (that is, whether they are emerging writers or already established writers, whether they are mainly active in a minority language or in a majority one). I have also produced a Table that summarizes my findings and that I provide herewith (see Table 1).

Whatever the reasons for self-translating may be, in most cases English is always part of the equation (whether writers decide to self-translate from or into it). Undoubtedly, as Philipson (2009, p. 10) remarks, nowadays English plays a dominant role not only as “lingua economica” but also as “lingua emotiva,” “lingua bellica,” “lingua academica,” and, most importantly, “lingua cultura.” As publishing consultant Jane Friedman notes,

When it comes to global sales, books in English are at an advantage. English is spoken as a first language by around 375 million people and as a second language by an additional 375 million people. Around 750 million people speak English as a foreign language (where English is not spoken as a first or second language). One out of four of the world’s population speaks English to some level of competence, and demand from the other three-quarters is increasing (n.p.).

Thus, for most writers the choice of English – especially when adopted in a translingual mode as the primary language of creative expression – is highly justified by its role as the dominant global idiom (De Swaan 2001; Philipson 2009).

Self-translation requires a huge effort in terms of cultural mediation and literary re-creation. As such, it is usually practiced by a small number of writers who are not only bilingually but also biculturally proficient. As they move into the role of translators of their own work, writers need to devise strategies of cultural reframing and intertextual transfer which imply a renegotiation of their cultural identity and creative sensibility. In so doing, more or less consciously, these writers use the process of self-translation to translate not only their texts but also their cultural selves into another linguistic and cultural milieu, contesting the idea of a single, self-contained identity and embracing instead the notion of a dialectic, pluricultural self.You can read t

The whole article “Translingual writing and bilingual self- translation as transcultural mediation” published in Traditions and Transitions (Sofia University), here.

I myself have self-translated from Italian into English my transcultural novel The Afrikaner (Guernica, Toronto, 2019), inspired by the five years I spent in South Africa as an international reporter. www.ariannadagnino.com

Alan Twigg’s review of my novel The Afrikaner in the spring issue of “BC Booklook” goes to the core of the predicament faced by the protagonist of the story, Zoe du Plessis, a young female scientist (33) who grew up in South Africa in a deeply entrenched white family: “Zoe is little concerned with money, status or personal appearance. Instead she seeks belonging.”

Later on, Twigg thus describes and comments on Zoe’s field expedition in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia in a hunt for fossils and for herself: “In the field, near an encampment of twenty some Bushmen people, in charge of men under strenuous circumstances, able to have a brief shower only once a week, Zoe proceeds to explore her place in South African society, contemporary and otherwise, with a candour that makes The Afrikaner increasingly engaging.”

At the end of his review Twigg hints at the film transposition of Zoe’s story, which would allow to show southern Africa’s majestic beauty, its cultural complexity and historical fault lines.

You can read the whole review here:

https://issuu.com/bcbookworld/docs/spring_2020_issue

Arianna Dagnino, The Afrikaner. A Novel  (Guernica, 2019)

Bilingualism and self-translation may be used to question or redefine one’s cultural identity and to dislocate and decentralize contextual dominant idioms. I stress the word contextual because idioms become dominant depending on the context in which they are actively practiced and pursued. The writer Antonio D’Alfonso’s Italian, for instance, is perceived as a minority language in the Canadian context, but it is definitely lived as a dominant idiom by migrant or foreign writers trying to find their way into the Italian literary system. In this regard, D’Alfonso, like the writer Tim Parks (who lives in Italy and mainly writes in English), is considered an outsider whose Italian is not sufficiently refined or literary enough in the eyes of the local/national intelligentsia. As the Italian writer Francesca Marciano comments, “Italians haven’t yet got rid of a certain elitist and pretentious view of literary style. They still have to undergo the stylistic revolution that the English went through with its Hemingways, Carvers and Faulkners” (Dagnino and Marciano, 2017).

By his own admission, D’Alfonso started off self-translating with the aim of expanding his readership and acquiring literary recognition outside the stifling cultural and linguistic borders of French Quebec:

Most of my essays written in French have never been published in French. All my essays I had to translate and publish in English. My anti-nationalism […] is clearly not appreciated by my French-language publishers […].

Dagnino and D’Alfonso, 2017

D’Alfonso thus started off as a Widener, willing to expose his work to a wider, English-reading audience. In the process, though, he understood that he could also use self-translation as a tool to call into question the centrality of two of the most influential languages (and their related literary cultures) on the global scene—namely, English and French. Consequently, he assumed the role of a Decentralizer:

Translations are required to demonstratively promote the nation’s agenda. This is why in many cases, it is the translator who is applauded and not the author of the original text. When critics speak of one translation being better than another, it is often because the translator has elaborated something that is uniquely national. We experience this reservation whenever we have to negotiate the French translation of an English-language writer: does the publisher hire a translator from Canada or one from France? This proves that language is irrefutably centralized. Whenever translation is decentralized, it is ignored.

Dagnino and D’Alfonso, 2017

That is why D’Alfonso’s self-translations may also be read—quoting him—as “subversive acts, perhaps the most subversive acts in the world today” (ibid.). We should not forget that, indeed, we are dealing with a global literary scene in which, if we just look at the United States, the biggest publishing market on earth, only an infinitesimal part of published books are translations: “The sad statistics indicate that in the United States and the United Kingdom, for example, only two to three percent of books published each year are literary translations” (Grossman, 2011, n.p.).[17] A closer look reveals an even worse state of affairs, as the two to three percent figure is considerably bolstered by technical manuals and other non-fiction texts. For literary fiction and poetry, the figure is actually closer to 0.7%.[18]

D’Alfonso’s task of acting as a language dislocator through self-translation is tremendously ambitious and perhaps defiantly hopeless, as he admits:

(Self-)Translation means leaving your windows open for the passers-by… [But] who are we to want to pretend to have something new to offer to cultures that have shut tight the gates of national imagination? […] If one considers that translations are rarely read and never reviewed, a translation is a waste of time for any writer who is content on reading himself and his buddies. Why read an author who introduces a worldview and works in a style totally foreign to yours? To do so would demonstrate an openness of spirit that is, in fact, atypical.

Dagnino and D’Alfonso, 2017

Full article

You can read the full article by Arianna Dagnino, published in the journal TTR, here: https://www.ariannadagnino.com/post/bilingual-writers-self-translation-and-the-stylistic-revolution

Arianna Dagnino, “Breaking the Linguistic Minority Complex through Creative Writing and Self-Translation.” TTR-Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction, Volume 32, Issue 2, 2e semestre 2019/2020, pp. 107-129.

Biographical note

Arianna Dagnino is a writer, researcher and literary translator with extensive experience as an international reporter. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature and Sociology from the University of South Australia and currently teaches at the University of British Columbia. The recipient of a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship (2017-2019) at the University of Ottawa (School of Translation and Interpretation), her publications include Transcultural Writers and Novels in the Age of Global Mobility (Purdue University Press, 2015), The Afrikaner (Guernica, 2019), a transcultural novel set in South Africa which she self-translated from Italian into English, and several books on the impact of information technology and global mobility: I nuovi nomadi (Castelvecchi, 1996), Uoma (Mursia, 2000), and Jesus Christ Cyberstar (Ipoc, 2008). www.ariannadagnino.com

Listen to an audio excerpt from Arianna Dagnino’s novel “The Afrikaner” read by the Los Angeles-based, South African actor Dennis Kleinman from A World Voice: Transcending Geographic Boundaries.

Audiobook (Chatpter 1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rogbi6kmmkw&feature=youtu.be

The Afrikaner. A Novel (and now also a screenplay!)

hashtag#TheAfrikaner

I thank the South African writer Toni Henning for her review of my novel “The Afrikaner” (Guernica Editions, Toronto, 2019). One comment struck me most and made me ponder over the total freedom writers can and should have when devising their stories and the characters that inhabit them: “I can hardly believe that the author is not South African.”

Here is Toni Henning‘s full review:
“The Afrikaner stirred a number of emotions in me; pride in the beauty of the landscapes and places of South Africa, my beloved country, incredibly described by Arianna Dagnino; the pain of loss, new and old; shame and frustration triggered by the recount of history and the fact that, so many years later, we, as a nation, are still struggling to break free; disheartened that the potential of Africa is lost due to this continent’s people’s short-sightedness and the world’s indifference; and, hope that even the most dire circumstances can be healed. Arianna’s characters are genuine; their emotions are raw; their lives are real. Having read the book I can hardly believe that the author is not South African. To read The Afrikaner is to find The Rainbow Nation exposed.”

https://www.guernicaeditions.com/title/9781771833578
https://blogs.ubc.ca/afrikaner/

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXmKFWMLgKM

Let’s not forget that books – fiction as much as nonfiction – are our true companions and sometimes even our real saviours in times of crisis.

South African actor Gys de Villiers (“Mandela: A Long Walk to Freedom”) has kindly accepted to provide his feedback on my novel The Afrikaner, a story of hate, love, guilt and scientific obsession inspired by the five years (1996-2000) I spent in newly post-apartheid South Africa as an international reporter for the Italian press.

I am grateful for his comments, which support my understanding of how creative writers should go about their craft when dealing with other cultural landscapes and the multifarious workings of human nature – that is, with great humbleness, the utmost respect, an open mind, and an unquenchable curiosity. These elements are at the basis of any attempt at cultural permeation, interpretation, and understanding.

You can read Gys de Villier’s full feedback on The Afrikaner here:

“I really enjoyed your story. It was quite moving and I felt intrigued to continue reading till the end.

It is uncanny how you as a foreigner could pinpoint so accurately my own well-guarded emotions about being an Afrikaner.

There were times when I was very surprised at your insight into my psyche as an Afrikaner. I wanted to shout out, no you can’t share that with the world; like the complex military situation during conscription, also the lingering suspicion, resentment and racism that is still part of South Africa.

I like the exploration of Zoe into her maternal line, trying to understand and break free from the supposed curse.  I also felt her deep love and loss of Dario [her lover].

I enjoyed Zoe’s interactions with the Khoisan Koma [the shaman] and wanted more of that.

I thought Sam was a very recognizable character that I might have known in SA.

I also loved Zoe’s relationship with Georgina, the old housekeeper which is all too familiar and which forms the base of stability in many a South African household.

The determination with which Zoe tackles her archaeological digs reminds me of all the strong Afrikaner women I know and have known including my mother and sisters.

The story was quite moving and I felt intrigued to continue reading till the end.

Good luck with your film version.”

Hate, Love, Guilt and Redemption under African Skies

https://www.guernicaeditions.com/title/9781771833578

“It’s simply immense in scope, character development, historical reconstruction, poetic sensibility, human empathy. I consider it a sort of secular Bible for the creative writer. It belongs to another era but it still speaks to us, to all fundamental weaknesses and strengths as human beings.” Which book am I talking about? You can discover it by reading my interview with the “well-seasoned librarian” Dean Jones, originally published in his ongoing series on Medium, the platform with 120 million curious readers.