Translating Black Feminism: The Case of the East and West German Versions of Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood

Abstract

Feminism in Translation Studies has received a considerable amount of attention in the West, most especially in Canada from where it emanated. Also, studies in translation and Black Feminism have been carried out by scholars such as Silva-Reis and Araujo (2018) and Amissine (2015). There has, however been few studies focusing on the translation of literary texts by African feminist writers into German. This study therefore examined how Womanism in Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood was transferred into German. Against this backdrop, the two translations published during the division of Germany into two states by different political ideologies were analyzed. In doing this, Postcolonial Theory of translation as conceived by Spivak (2004) was employed. The study aimed at determining how translation mechanisms have influenced the manner in which black feminist activism is represented in a distinct socio-cultural environment. This is with the focus to indicate how Womanism is represented differently in the two German translations of the African novel.