Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of the book. The book comprises methodological and sociohistorical overviews of literary translation practice and theory. It focuses on product-oriented research and reception and process-oriented research in literary translation. The book proposes a blueprint curriculum for an MA in African literary translation. It focuses on the Spanish and Catalan translations of two contemporary Indian-African diasporic autobiographical postcolonial writers, namely Achmat Dangor and Moyez Vassanji in the context of their reception in Spain. The book constructs a new model exploring the old question of translating culture-specific items. Building on Katan within a descriptive translation studies framework, she constructs a model for the systematic mapping of a text’s linguistic-cultural constellation, arguing that the multicultural character of contemporary African literary texts precludes binary domestication versus foreignisation labels. The multilingualism prevalent across most of the continent has resulted in hybrid languages in which writers draw from their own multilingual background.