Translating African-American Neo-Slave Narratives: Black English in "The Good Lord Bird" and "The Underground Railroad"

Abstract

This paper studies how two recent neo-slave narratives have been translated into Spanish: The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride, and The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead. Since they were both published simultaneously in Spain in September 2017, special attention is paid to the strategies used to render Black English, which marks slaves’ otherness, in the target polysystem. An overview of the origin, rise, and evolution of neo-slave narratives precedes the features of African-American Vernacular English portrayed in the novels that belong to this sub-genre. After some insights into the issue of translating literary dialect, the risks it entails, and the different strategies that can be used, the Spanish versions of McBride’s and Whitehead’s works are analyzed accordingly and contrasted.