Francophone African Narratives and the Anglo-American Book Market: Ferment on the Fringes (After the Empire: The Francophone World and Postcolonial France)

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. Cover Francophone African Narratives and the Anglo-American Book Market Series page Francophone African Narratives and the Anglo-AmericanBook Market: Ferment on the Fringes Copyright Dedication Contents List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1 Francophone African Narratives in a French and Global Publishing Landscape The Unpopularity of Frenchness Publication of the Original French Editions The Publisher: Creator of Symbolic Capital Recognition of Francophone (African) Fiction in France The Translation Time Lag Notes Chapter 2 Entering the Anglo-American Book Market Publishers of the English Translations of the Corpus Narratives Publishers of French to English Translations in General The Mission of American University Presses The Availability of Corpus Narratives World, International, and Third-World Literature Selecting and Branding Francophone African Texts in Translation Contextualization by the English Paratext Notes Chapter 3 Literary Awards for Minority Authors and Their Impact on Further Consecration Prestigious French Literary Prizes Francophone and African Literary Prizes Anglo-American Translation Awards/Grants and Foreign Fiction Prizes Gender Diversity and Minority Representation in Translation Awards/Grants and Foreign Fiction Awards Recent Efforts to Remedy Gender Imbalance in Translation Notes Chapter 4 Early Female Writing and Its Reception on the Anglo-American Book Market Feminine Writing and Its Paratext Anglophone Paratext and Reception: To Be Translated or Not to Be The Literary Translator as Advocate and Activist Notes Chapter 5 Transnational Reception and Appropriation of René Maran’s Batouala Reception of Batouala in France Batouala’s Preface Batouala’s Reception in Germany Batouala’s Reception in the United States Reception of Batouala’s French Edition in the Netherlands Reception of Batouala’s French Edition in the Dutch East Indies Reception of Batouala’s Dutch Translation in the Netherlands Reception of Batouala’s Dutch Translation in the Dutch East Indies Notes Notes Appendix 1 Corpus Narratives and Translations Appendix 2 Categorization of Mainstream Publishers in France Appendix 3 Specialized Publishers of French Corpus Narratives West Africa Canada Appendix 4 Table A—French to English Translation Awards Appendix 5 Table B—Any-Language-to-English Translation Awards/Grants and Foreign Fiction Awards1 Appendix 6 Table C—Literary Translation Prizes/Awards: Gender and Minority Representation in Corpus Narratives Archives Bibliography Index About the Author "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"-- Provided by publisher