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In recent years, the material circumstances governing the production of African literature have been analyzed from a variety of angles. This study goes one step further by charting the trajectories of a corpus of francophone African (sub-Saharan) narratives subsequently translated into English. It examines the role of various institutional agents and agencies-publishers, preface writers, critics, translators, and literary award committees-involved in the value-making process that accrues visibility to these texts that eventually reach the Anglo-American book market. The author evinces that over time different types of publishers dominated, both within the original publishing space as in the foreign literary field, contingent on their specific mission-be it commercial, ideological or educational-as well as on socioeconomic and political circumstances. The study addresses the influence of the editorial paratextual framing-pandering to specific Western readerships-the potential interventionist function of the translator, and the consecrating mechanisms of literary and translation awards affecting both gender and minority representation. Drawing on the work by key sociologists and translation theorists, the author uses an innovative interdisciplinary methodology to analyze the corpus narratives.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Francophone African Narratives in a French and Global Publishing Landscape
Chapter 2: Entering the Anglo-American Book Market
Chapter 3: Literary Awards for Minority Authors and their Impact on Further Consecration Chapter 4: Early Female Writing and its Reception on the Anglo-American Book Market
Chapter 5: Transnational Reception and Appropriation of René Maran's Batouala
Conclusion
Appendix 1: Corpus Narratives and Translations Appendix 2: Mainstream Publishers of French Corpus Narratives
Appendix 3: Specialized Publishers of French Corpus Narratives
Appendix 4: Table A - French to English Translation Awards
Appendix 5: Table B - Any-Language-to-English Translation Awards/Grants and Foreign Fiction Awards
Appendix 6: Table C - Literary Translation Prizes/Awards: Gender and Minority Representation
About the author
Vivan I. Steemers is associate professor of French at Western Michigan University.
Summary
Ferment on the Fringes charts the trajectories of Francophone African narratives that reached the Anglo-American market, by analyzing the various institutional agents and agencies involved in the value-making process that accrues visibility to translated texts that eventually reach the Anglo-American book market.
