Translating Caribbean thresholds of pain from without: Hispaniola out of bounds, Hispaniola unbound?
This paper focuses on The Farming of Bones, a fictitious testimonio in which Haitian author Edwidge Danticat relates the 1937 genocide perpetrated against Haitians along the River Massacre in Hispaniola and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a postmodern tale revisiting Trujillo’s dictatorship by...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès
2019-04-01
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| Series: | Miranda: Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/miranda/16164 |
| _version_ | 1817990671082979328 |
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| author | Laëtitia Saint-Loubert |
| author_facet | Laëtitia Saint-Loubert |
| author_sort | Laëtitia Saint-Loubert |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This paper focuses on The Farming of Bones, a fictitious testimonio in which Haitian author Edwidge Danticat relates the 1937 genocide perpetrated against Haitians along the River Massacre in Hispaniola and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a postmodern tale revisiting Trujillo’s dictatorship by Dominican author Junot Díaz. In the context of the Parsley Massacre, as the genocide came to be known, language served as an instrument of repression and death. Yet, as will be argued, a counter-poiesis of non-assimilative, multilingual translation can be observed in both novels and will be examined as a locus of re-generation. The sites of original and repeated trauma, marked by various silences, breaks, and blanks in both narratives will turn into sites of recovery, insofar as the two novels privilege acts of (re)telling and (re)membering that escape the confines of repressive, monolinguistic tendencies and promote strategies of “assertive nontranslation” instead (Ch’ien). Díaz’s postmodern techniques, aimed at debunking Dominican myths whilst subverting traditional modes of writing and reading, will be studied alongside Danticat’s re-enactments of the Shibboleth to discuss how their decentring strategies may help build a transcultural Caribbean memory. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-14T01:03:13Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-3bdf7dc22d3d4dda8042e33c39968280 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2108-6559 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-14T01:03:13Z |
| publishDate | 2019-04-01 |
| publisher | Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Miranda: Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone |
| spelling | doaj.art-3bdf7dc22d3d4dda8042e33c399682802022-12-22T02:21:21ZengUniversité Toulouse - Jean JaurèsMiranda: Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone2108-65592019-04-011810.4000/miranda.16164Translating Caribbean thresholds of pain from without: Hispaniola out of bounds, Hispaniola unbound?Laëtitia Saint-LoubertThis paper focuses on The Farming of Bones, a fictitious testimonio in which Haitian author Edwidge Danticat relates the 1937 genocide perpetrated against Haitians along the River Massacre in Hispaniola and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a postmodern tale revisiting Trujillo’s dictatorship by Dominican author Junot Díaz. In the context of the Parsley Massacre, as the genocide came to be known, language served as an instrument of repression and death. Yet, as will be argued, a counter-poiesis of non-assimilative, multilingual translation can be observed in both novels and will be examined as a locus of re-generation. The sites of original and repeated trauma, marked by various silences, breaks, and blanks in both narratives will turn into sites of recovery, insofar as the two novels privilege acts of (re)telling and (re)membering that escape the confines of repressive, monolinguistic tendencies and promote strategies of “assertive nontranslation” instead (Ch’ien). Díaz’s postmodern techniques, aimed at debunking Dominican myths whilst subverting traditional modes of writing and reading, will be studied alongside Danticat’s re-enactments of the Shibboleth to discuss how their decentring strategies may help build a transcultural Caribbean memory.http://journals.openedition.org/miranda/16164HispaniolatranslationShibbolethre-memberingthresholds of painthresholds of recovery |
| spellingShingle | Laëtitia Saint-Loubert Translating Caribbean thresholds of pain from without: Hispaniola out of bounds, Hispaniola unbound? Miranda: Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone Hispaniola translation Shibboleth re-membering thresholds of pain thresholds of recovery |
| title | Translating Caribbean thresholds of pain from without: Hispaniola out of bounds, Hispaniola unbound? |
| title_full | Translating Caribbean thresholds of pain from without: Hispaniola out of bounds, Hispaniola unbound? |
| title_fullStr | Translating Caribbean thresholds of pain from without: Hispaniola out of bounds, Hispaniola unbound? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Translating Caribbean thresholds of pain from without: Hispaniola out of bounds, Hispaniola unbound? |
| title_short | Translating Caribbean thresholds of pain from without: Hispaniola out of bounds, Hispaniola unbound? |
| title_sort | translating caribbean thresholds of pain from without hispaniola out of bounds hispaniola unbound |
| topic | Hispaniola translation Shibboleth re-membering thresholds of pain thresholds of recovery |
| url | http://journals.openedition.org/miranda/16164 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT laetitiasaintloubert translatingcaribbeanthresholdsofpainfromwithouthispaniolaoutofboundshispaniolaunbound |