Abstract
The present article consists of a theoretical contribution in the fields of translation studies, post-colonial studies and African literature. It takes as its basis the beginning of the novel The River between, by Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa T’hiongo, and some considerations made by scholars like Edward Said and Conceição Lima, proposing a way of thinking about the relations between native African languages and the languages of imperial metropolises in African literature that problematizes the celebration of diasporic hybrids. To this end, it uses the essays Decolonising the Mind, also authored by T’hiongo, and “Translation and Culture”, by Gayatri Spivak, in the sense of elaborating the image of the “translation Rio”, that is, a place of encounters, transits and displacements, but also “survival”, or fortleben, to use Walter Benjamim’s term.
Keywords
African Literature; Translation Studies; Post-Colonial Studies