Call a spade a spade, Mr. Translator!

Abstract

Translation has always been a noble profession, as it aims to advance humanism, nation-building and cross-cultural cooperation. These goals were frequently under-emphasised when considering translators’ work in South Africa. Although some translators tried to remain faithful to this noble duty, others who translated English books into African languages supported the dominant culture and narrative. The translations of the Long Walk to Freedom into isiXhosa and Sesotho sa Leboa show how different cultural aspects of the original text were hidden, excluding a particular group in each culture. This study employs a qualitative approach to investigate the various translators’ arbitrary choices to determine whether it was morally, professionally and democratically appropriate to prevent readers from obtaining the original content. The discussion of the results will follow House’s functional-pragmatic model for translation quality assessment in a descriptive translation studies (DTS) framework. In the context of autobiographies, the study highlights the disregard for the readership’s autonomy and information access, and it sensitises translators to the need to stay faithful to the author rather than euphemising cultural taboos.