On Becoming in Translation: Articulating Feminisms in the Translation of Marie Vieux-Chauvet's Les Rapaces

• Main Author: Shread, Carolyn P T
• Format: Others
• Published: ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst 2008
• Subjects: Haiti; Marie Vieux Chauvet; translation; narrative theory; feminism; metramorphosis; Comparative literature; Arts and Humanities; Comparative Literature
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/199; https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1223&context=theses

This thesis discusses aspects of feminist translation as exemplified by my French to English translation of Marie Vieux-Chauvet’s novel, Les Rapaces (1984). Articulating feminist translation as a form of activism, I argue that feminism manifests in translation not only informatively, through linguistic and cultural representation, but also through formative processes that are constitutive of texts. Describing some of the key moments in the creation of The Raptors, I show how these relate to Bracha Ettinger’s concept of metramorphic processes and to my own elaboration of her theory with regard to the generative aspect of becoming in translation. Viewing translation as a transformative encounter, from the perspectives of both the translator and the translation’s Haitian American audience, I underline the contribution of feminine paradigms for innovating translation theory and practice.