New Zealand Indigenous Literature in Slovene Translation

Abstract

By examining the Slovene translations of Witi Ihimaera’s novels The Whale Rider and Whanau II, this discussion focuses on the difficulties involved in translating works from culturally and historically removed literatures. In particular, and in accord with the view that the act of translating is not mere linguistic transference of signifiers, but a “complex task involving difficult negotiations across cultural, linguistic, and historical contexts” (Suoqiao 373−4), it highlights how particular narrative styles and cultural markers of Maori writing (such as colloquial diction and words in Maori language) have been transmitted from the source to the target texts, and scrutinises different strategies employed to bring this writing to Slovene readers. – Although both translators took account of cultural differences, their presuppositions regarding cultural and conceptual foreignness were not always correct. This is particularly true of the translation of The Whale Rider. The latter is also indicative of some other translator’s choices, which justifies a constant need for new translations. In her effort to retain the authenticity of the source text achieved by the inclusion of Māori words and phrases, the translator went too far with her interventions into the text. However, it is not the unauthorised intrusions that are the most problematic, not least because some of them seem to be necessary for the translated text to be comprehensible in a culturally estranged environment; what is more disputable is the loss of important cultural and historical information. The inclusion of Māori words without sufficient contextualization prevents the full comprehension of the text and merely adds to an exotic representation of Māori cultures.