Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-gvh9x Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-22T02:27:19.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

History, Cultural Memory, and the Tasks of Translation in T. Obinkaram Echewa's I Saw the Sky Catch Fire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Bella Brodzki
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Across a range of disciplines and discourses, translation has become a central concern for many scholars working in the humanities. Indeed, the notion of translation has begun to inflect the most compelling and consequential debates on meaning and representation. My essay gives attention to Walter Benjamin's redemptive and generative notion of translation as survival and to postmodern currents in translation studies alongside a contemporary Nigerian diasporic novel written in English, I Saw the Sky Catch Fire. Framed by a passing on of the story of the Women's War (the Igbo women's tax revolt against the British in 1929), Echewa's narrative critiques the complicitous practices of translation, colonialism, and anthropology. In this exemplary instance of a type of hybrid postcolonial textuality, processes of intergenerational and intercultural transmission, conceived as both acts of translation and instruments of historical consciousness, perform as well as disrupt the work of cultural memory.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 114 , Issue 2: Reenactments of Memory's Power , March 1999 , pp. 207 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Andrade, Susan “Rewriting History, Motherhood, and Rebellion.” Research in African Literatures 21.1 (1990): 91–110.Google Scholar
Appiah, Kwame Anthony In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. New York: Oxford UP, 1992.Google Scholar
Asad, Talal “The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology.” Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography: Ed. Clifford, James and Marcus, George. Berkeley: U of California P, 1986. 141–14.Google Scholar
Barber, Karin “African-Language Literature and Postcolonial Criticism.” Research in African Literatures 26.4 (1995): 3–30.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter “The Task of the Translator.” Illuminations. Trans. Zohn, Harry. New York: Schocken, 1968. 69–82.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter “Theses on the Philosophy of History.” Illuminations. Trans. Zohn, Harry. New York: Schocken, 1968. 253–25.Google Scholar
Berman, Antoine The Experience of the Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany. Albany: State U of New York P, 1992.Google Scholar
Bernheimer, Charles, ed Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1995.Google Scholar
Bhabha, Homi The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Calloway, Helen Gender, Culture, Empire: European Women in Colonial Nigeria. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1987.10.1007/978-1-349-18307-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheyfitz, Eric The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Colonization from The Tempest to Tarzan. New York: Oxford UP, 1991.Google Scholar
Chow, Rey “In the Name of Comparative Literature.” Bernheimer 107–10.Google Scholar
Clifford, James Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1997.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques The Ear of the Other: Otobiography, Transference, Translation. Trans. Kamuf, Peggy. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1985.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques “Living On: Border Lines.” Deconstruction and Criticism. Ed. Bloom, Harold et al. New York: Continuum, 1979. 75–176.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques “Des Tours de Babel.” Difference in Translation. Ed. Graham, Joseph F. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985. 165–207.Google Scholar
Dingwaney, Anuradha “Translating ‘Third World’ Cultures.” Introduction. Between Languages and Cultures: Translation and Cross-Cultural Texts. Ed. Dingwaney and Maier, Carol. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1995. 3–15.Google Scholar
Echewa, T. Obinkaram I Saw the Sky Catch Fire. New York: Penguin, 1992.Google Scholar
Fabian, Johannes Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia UP, 1983.Google Scholar
Gailey, Harry The Road to Aba: A Study of British Administrative Policy in Eastern Nigeria. New York: New York UP, 1970.Google Scholar
Gasché, Rodolphe “Saturnine Vision and the Question of Difference: Reflections on Walter Benjamin's Theory of Language.” Benjamin's Ground: New Readings of Walter Benjamin. Ed. Nagele, Rainer. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1988. 83–104.Google Scholar
Hammond, Dorothy, and Jablow, Alta The Myth of Africa. New York: Lib. of Social Science, 1977.Google Scholar
Higonnet, Margaret, ed Borderwork: Feminist Engagements with Comparative Literature. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994.10.7591/9781501723025CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lackner, Helen “Colonial Administration and Social Anthropology: Eastern Nigeria, 1920-1940.” Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter. Ed. Asad, Talal. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities, 1988. 123–12.Google Scholar
Leach, Edmond Social Anthropology: London: Oxford UP, 1982.Google Scholar
Leith-Ross, Sylvia African Women. London: Faber, 1939.Google Scholar
Leith-Ross, Sylvia Stepping-Stones: Memoirs of Colonial Nigeria, 1907-1960. London: Owen, 1983.Google Scholar
Mba, Nina E Nigerian Women Mobilized: Women's Political Activity in Southern Nigeria, 1900-1965. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982.Google Scholar
Niranjana, Tejaswini Siting Translation: History, Post-structuralism, and the Colonial Context. Berkeley: U of California P, 1986.Google Scholar
Nora, Pierre “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire” Representations 26 (1989): 7–25.10.2307/2928520CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pratt, Mary Louise “Comparative Literature and Global Citizenship.” Bernheimer 58–65.Google Scholar
Radhakrishnan, R “Postcoloniality and the Boundaries of Identity.” Callaloo 16 (1993): 750–75.10.2307/2932208CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, Sherry Gender in Translation: Cultural Identity and the Politics of Transmission. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty “The Politics of Translation.” Destabilizing Theory: Contemporary Feminist Debates. Eds. Michele Barrett and Anne Phillips. Palo Alto: Stanford UP, 1992. 177–200.Google Scholar
Starn, Randolph. Introduction Representations 26 (1989): 1–6.Google Scholar
Sturge, Kate “Translation Strategies in Ethnography.” Translator 3 (1997): 21–38.10.1080/13556509.1997.10798986CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Allen, Judith “‘Aba Riots’ or ‘Women's War‘? Ideology, Stratification, and the Invisibility of Women.” Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change. Eds. Nancy J. Hafkin and Edna G. Bay. Palo Alto: Stanford UP, 1976. 59–85.Google Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence Introduction. Rethinking Translation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology. Ed. Venuti. London: Routledge, 1992. 1–17.Google Scholar
Zabus, Chantal The African Palimpsest: Indigenization of Language in the West African Europhone Novel. Amsterdam: Rodophi, 1991.Google Scholar