Translating African-American Neo-Slave Narratives: Black English in "The Good Lord Bird" and "The Underground Railroad"

This paper studies how two recent neo-slave narratives have been translated into Spanish: The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride, and The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead. Since they were both published simultaneously in Spain in September 2017, special attention is paid to the strategies use...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Sanz Jiménez, Miguel
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/97856
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/97856
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:African American Literature
Black English
Colson Whitehead
James McBride
Literary Translation
Slave Narratives
Filología inglesa
5701.12 Traducción
Descripción
Sumario:This paper studies how two recent neo-slave narratives have been translated into Spanish: The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride, and The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead. Since they were both published simultaneously in Spain in September 2017, special attention is paid to the strategies used to render Black English, which marks slaves’ otherness, in the target polysystem. An overview of the origin, rise, and evolution of neo-slave narratives precedes the features of African-American Vernacular English portrayed in the novels that belong to this sub-genre. After some insights into the issue of translating literary dialect, the risks it entails, and the different strategies that can be used, the Spanish versions of McBride’s and Whitehead’s works are analyzed accordingly and contrasted.