ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relation between translation, trauma, and memory in Petit pays, the literary debut of Gaël Faye. The novel tells the story of 11-year old Gabriel, whose untroubled childhood in Bujumbura is disrupted when civil war breaks out in Burundi, and genocidal violence ravages his mother’s native country, Rwanda. I focus on both interlingual and intralingual translation, analysing the ways in which the connection between translation and traumatic memory features in the story-world and is imagined as a process underlying testimonial writing. In the first section, I demonstrate how interlingual translation opens a window onto the world for the monolingual protagonist, but, at the same time, shatters the illusion of childhood innocence, as various translator figures in the novel uncover elements of traumatic family history and subdued (colonial) violence. The second section is dedicated to processes of intergenerational transmission, where translation is conceived of as a therapeutic tool to deal with loss and traumatic memory. I draw on Bella Brodzki’s work to underscore the importance of translation as survival, and to connect the work of the memorialist to that of the (self-)translator. The third and final section covers the international circulation, via translation, of Petit pays.
