Franci Vosloo

Taking off one’s blouse on a balcony in Cape Town: The fictionalization of translation theory in Antjie Krog’s A change of tongue

In her literary non-fiction book A change of tongue, South African author, poet and translator Antjie Krog includes a chapter titled “A translation.” This autobiographical fictional chapter deals with language and articulation, cultural distance and transfer, belonging and identity, with Krog as translator-protagonist. Interwoven into the account is her encounter with a translation theorist, whereby Krog enacts translation theory, blurring the divide between theory and writing/translating. This paper explores the way in which Krog fictionalizes translation theory, creating a “new” narrative, a metanarrative of transformance (Godard 1990). Krog’s method of constructing meaning as a way of transformation and/or transformance operates not only on the level of translation as linguistic process, but also on the level of translation as symbolic trope. The manner in which the Self and the Other switch roles in Krog’s narrative is discussed against the background of translatorial identity shifting.

Keywords: Antjie Krog, translatorial identity shifting, transformance, fictionalization of translation

Biography

Franci Vosloo is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Translation Studies in the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch at Stellenbosch University. She has a PhD and MA in Translation Studies and a BA in Archaeology, Geography, and Classical Culture, bringing a broad range of interests to her current research on literary non-fiction and translation. Her research explores, among other subjects, the fictional elements of literary non-fiction and how these are transformed through autobiography, thus fictionalizing the “translator-protagonist” as well as translation theory itself. Her publications include “Inhabiting the Translator’s Habitus: Antjie Krog as Translator” (2014) and “Translational Intertexts in A Change of Tongue: Preliminary Thoughts” (2009).