This book reveals the heterogeneous image of translation using positive metaphors featuring bridge building between languages and cultures, neutral ones such as translation finding place in intercultures, but also controversial aspects of translation as a potential source of conflict. The articles address a variety of topics, all connected with cultural challenges to translation between Africa and the West discussing linguistic, political and ideological aspects of translation, ranging from problems related to Bible translation to the position of African postcolonial literature. The languages discussed range from North to South, from global to local ones, varying from sacred terms to obscene language. Methodological approaches not only cover linguistics, literary and translation studies, featuring especially skopos theory and relevance theory, but also cultural studies and anthropology.

The Editors: Stella Linn is senior lecturer in translation studies and translation at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). Her research interests include the interaction between culture and translation and the reception of translated literature. Maarten Mous is professor of African linguistics at the University of Leiden. He worked on several East African languages and is particularly interested in language description and language contact. Marianne Vogel is coordinator at the Department of German Language and Culture at the University of Groningen. In her publications she focuses on cultural differences, the literary field, and discourse and gender analysis.

: Kwaku Gyasi: Translation as a postcolonial practice: the African writer as translator – Harriet Hill: The effect of translation on cultural categories: evidence from the Adioukrou Bible – Claertje Frieke-Kappers: The communicative value of acculturated language: the case of Budu adjectives – Jan Jansen: Three contesting agendas to canonize the Sunjata epic in Mali and beyond – Michel Lafon : Des difficultés de traduire la littérature africaine ou défense et illustration des notes de bas de page. A propos d’une première traduction en français d’un roman shona, de Ch. Mungoshi – Raja Lahiani: Translation as an inter-cultural exercise. The pioneering translations of the Mu‘allaqāt – Margreet de Lange: Translation and nation-building in post-apartheid South Africa – Emilie Sanon-Ouattara: Translation in former African colonies: a case study of a sermon translated from French into Jula – Gerrit J. van Steenbergen: Incongruent worldviews: Some implications for translating the Bible in Pökot – Lourens de Vries: Translation functions and interculturality – Lalbila A. Yoda: Explicitation in translation: the case of medical translation from French into Mooré. Inhaltsverzeichnis