Heterolingualism is one of the defining characteristics of literature in the Caribbean, as authors switch between languages and language varieties in unique and organic ways. The Caribbean region in fact constitutes one of the world’s most extensive and most varied sites of creolization. Caribbean creoles have become important objects of study in linguistics, literary and postcolonial studies, and translation studies.

Due to the heterolingual nature of Caribbean literatures, translation studies has provided useful tools for approaching these original literary texts as a form of ‘intercultural translation’, and Caribbean literary works can be seen to have both an inherently ‘translational’ nature as well as busy lives in translation. Among works translated to many languages are V. S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas (1961), Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994), and Cristina García’s The Agüero Sisters (1997).

This seminar explores the different ways in which heterolingual Caribbean literary works have been translated around the world and the critical debates these translations have generated. The aim is to create an interdisciplinary and comparative platform for scholars of Caribbean literatures, translators, linguists, and creative writers working in different languages and in different literary and publishing contexts to discuss the challenges and the opportunities that the translation of Caribbean literary works presents today, paying special attention to the heterolingual and translational nature of these works.

We welcome contributions that might include but are not restricted to the following topics:

 

• the role of heterolingualism/multilingualism in translated Caribbean works (how are Creole languages translated?)


• translation strategies in translated Caribbean literature


• critique of translations or translation strategies


• the position of translated Caribbean literature in the market; what gets translated and who translates in a specific culture


• the reception of translated Caribbean works in a specific culture


• cultural representation in translated Caribbean literary works


• comparative study of the translations into the same language of different texts


• comparative study of the translations of the same text into different languages


• decolonizing tactics beyond foreignizing vs domesticating paradigms


• the publishing industry and the translation of Caribbean literature


• hypervisibility vs invisibility of translators


• analysis of specific translations


• translatability, untranslatability, withheld translations

An upcoming special issue in Journal of Literary Multilingualism is in the works. Please consider submitting your abstract by April 1, 2025 (CfP available at: https://brill.com/view/journals/jlm/jlm-overview.xml).