ABSTRACT
The history and politics of translation in the French Caribbean region cannot be researched separately from the history of French imperialism. Travelogues, newspapers, books, anthologies, official documents, and histories have always borne the mark of the colonial brush. The most problematic term in any study of the Caribbean is ‘Creole’ because historically it has been appropriated by white people and black people, and has different connotations in the islands and Louisiana. In this chapter ‘translation’ may refer to the transfer of texts from one language into another (interlingual), or within the same language (intralingual), rarely as a metaphorical concept. In spite of the existence of many individuals rising to the level of heroes in the French islands and Haiti at the beginning of the nineteenth century, French writers remain mostly silent about them, with the notable exceptions of Hugo’s Bug-Jargal and Lamartine’s play, Toussaint Louverture.
