Translation of African Literature: A German Model?

Volume entitled: Translation-Transnation 1994-2004. Dix ans d' echanges littéraires entre l'Afrique du Sud et la France / Ten years of literary exchange between South Africa and France. Numéro special Rassemblé et dirigé par Jean-Pierre RICHARD, Université Paris 7, en collaboration avec Denise GODWIN, rédactrice de l'AFSSA Special issue collated and edited by Jean-Pierre RICHARD, University of Paris 7, in collaboration with AFSSA editor, Denise GODWINWhether translated into French or German, African literature represents a very small percentage publications every year, no more than 0.5% of translated fiction published each year. As to the nature of production, there is no shortage of common points: anglophone hypertrophy, at the expense of literatures in African languages ​​of non-European origin; predominance of English authors from South Africa and Nigeria; over- representation of four authors (Brink, Breytenbach, Coetzee, Gordimer), this "white quartet" nevertheless occupying more space in French (half of the South African titles published) than in German (a fifth). The colonial history explains another major difference between the two cultures regarding the translation of African literature: since 1945, nearly four times more titles were translated into German than into French, some 611 titles against 165, all original languages ​​combined. Reason being that no African authors write in German, while several write in French. Paradoxically, in French, the rise of Negritude in the 1950s penalized African literatures not of French origin, at the same time as it created in Germany around the translater Jahn Janheinz a tradition whose translational benefits would later extend to all literatures of Africa, once over the crisis of the disenchantment following some African Independences