Postcolonial Literature and Translation: A Grounded Commonality of Multiculturalism

Abstract

The study theorizes that multiculturalism is a grounded commonality and a contact zone of postcolonial literature and translation. It concentrates on some of the common cultural aspects in the fields. Therefore, this study aims to emphasize the multiculturalism of postcolonial literary text compared to some multicultural features of translation. The study looks into how the cultural differences travel in the inter-lingual translation of the postcolonial literature from English to African. In postcolonial literature, the cultural aspect plays the role of otherness in the text and shows the ethical aspect of translation as it reveals the presence of others. During translation, cultural difference is, therefore, the substance of postcolonial literature. The paper recommends studying the inter-lingual translation of postcolonial literature in terms of the paradoxical status of monolingual literature in which cultural difference is seen as a spectral presence of other languages.