ABSTRACT
Postcolonial literature distinguishes itself by incorporating hybrid language and indigenous words. While theorists have proposed various translation strategies to address the challenges of translating culturally specific items, strategies for translating hybrid language and indigenous words in postcolonial literature have not been adequately addressed. Using a descriptive translation studies framework, this chapter explores Mozambican writer Mia Couto’s strategies for creating linguistic hybridity and use of indigenous words in his postcolonial novel A varanda do frangipani (1996), and translation strategies for these items in the English translation Under the frangipani (2001) by David Brookshaw. The study finds that the translator domesticated the translation except where internal glosses were provided by the ST author, thereby defacing Couto’s Mozambican identity, and argues for foreignising strategies in the translation of postcolonial literature.
