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Toni Morrison

 | 
Maryemma Graham
, 
Andrée-Anne Kekeh-Dika
, 
Janis A. Mayes

III. Ramifications

Interior Designs : Re-introducing Morrison / Translation as Black Literary Passaging—Beyond the Ordinary Visible

Afterword

Figurations de l’intériorité : Toni Morrison sous l’angle de la traduction, les voies de passages afro-américaines – Au-delà du visible ordinaire

Janis A. Mayes

Abstract

“Interior Designs : Re-introducing Morrison/Translation as Black Literary Passaging— Beyond The Ordinary Visible” is a “across-borders” approach to the ordinary visible in Morrison’s literary imagination and life. Focusing on my translation of Morrison’s poem, “The Dead of September 11 (2001)”/ “Les Morts du 11 Septembre (2001),” I consider literacy, knowledge, culture, and language politics alongside a discussion of the literary translation strategies I use. Each of the three improvisational sections, or “interior design,” responds to two important questions Morrison poses : “Other than melanin and subject matter, whatmay make me a black writer ? Other than my own ethnicity—what is going on in my work that makes me believe it is demonstrably inseparable from a cultural specificity that is Afro-American ?” These responses explain the linguistic and stylistic decisions Morrison takes in the poem’s English version and choices I make in the French version, derived from intertextual readings and interdisciplinary influences on Morrison’s work.

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Estratto del testo

The conventional wisdom of the tower of babel story is that the collapse was a misfortune. That it was the distraction, or the weight of many languages that precipitated the tower’s failed architecture.That one monolithic language would have expedited the building and heaven would have been reached… Perhaps the achievement of paradise was premature, a little hasty if no one could take the time to understand other languages, other views, other narrative periods.Toni Morrison, The Nobel Lecture in Literature, 19931

Interior Design : Building Black Book Languages and Culture in the Work of Toni Morrison

“In the beginning there were no words. In the beginning was the sound, and they all knew what that sound sounded like.”2 Throughout her corpus, Toni Morrison uses ordinary words in her book language and lyrics to explore imponderable questions and ideas such as love, good and evil, fate and immortality. Morrison accentuates both the aural and quality of words3 by using language directly f...

Autore

Janis A. Mayes is Associate Professor of African American Studies at Syracuse University, and literary translator of “Les Morts du 11 Septembre (2001)” from “The Dead of September 11 (2001)” by Toni Morrison, A Rain of Words : A Bi-lingual Anthology of Women’s Poetry in Francophone Africa (Ed., Irène Assiba d’Almeida), “The Blind Kingdom” (Le Royaume aveugle, Véronique Tadjo), “Ramener les blues chez soi” (“Taking the Blues Back Home,” Jayne Cortez), and The City Where No One Dies (La Ville nul ne meurt, Bernard Dadié ). She is a Fulbright scholar, former President of the African Literature Association, member of the Présence Africaine editorial board, and founding director of the Syracuse University study-abroad program, Paris Noir : Literature, Art and Contemporary Life in Diaspora.

Janis A. Mayes (Associate Professor) enseigne à Syracuse University (NY). Elle est aussi traductrice littéraire, «  Les Morts du 11 Septembre (2001) » / «  The Dead of September 11 (2001) » de Toni Morrison, A Rain of Words : A Bi-lingual Anthology of Women’s Poetry in Francophone Africa (Irène Assiba d’Almeida [dir.]), «  The Blind Kingdom » (Le Royaume aveugle de Véronique Tadjo), «  Ramener les blues chez soi » («  Taking the Blues Back Home », Jayne Cortez), and The City Where No One Dies(La Ville nul ne meurt de Bernard Dadié ). Elle a été récipiendaire Fulbright, présidente de l’Association de littérarure africaine (ALA) et fait partie du comité éditorial de Présence africaine. Elle a mis en place le Syracuse University study-abroad program (Paris Noir : Literature, Art and Contemporary Life in Diaspora) qu’elle dirige depuis plusieurs années.

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