Workshop - Traduisons ensemble! Hands on translation workshop from French into English

On 18 March, IFRA-Nigeria hosted the literary translator Mona de Pracontal for a one-of-a-kind event for IFRA-Nigeria: a translation workshop! Students and French-speaking professionals got to enjoy Mona's extensive insights in translation, based on her experience translating many authors into French, including many of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's books and most recently The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma. The workshop gave the participants hands-on French into English translation experience, and introduced them to French literature through the graphic novel Broderies of French-Iranian writer Marjane Satrapi.

Click below to read a more detailed account of the workshop and see pictures of this event!

Barbara Morovich, IFRA-Nigeria's Director, introduced Mona de Pracontal, starting with her degrees in English and American Studies in Paris, and in film history and filmmaking in New York, where she lived for 3 years. She then presented her major translations, including fiction by Hannah Tinti, Donald Westlake, Lawrence Block, Rick Riordan, Frank Baum, Howard Norman and Kaye Gibbons, Cynan Jones, Melvin Burgess and Hanif Kureishi, Conor O'Callaghan and Neil Hegarty, as well as non-fiction by William Burroughs, GloriaSteinemand Eve Ensler. Mona also received, among other prizes, the Baudelaire Prize for literary translation in 2009 for Half of a yellow sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Indeed, she translated many of Chimamanda's novels into French, and most recently translated The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma.

Next, all participants introduced themselves, and their experience working and studying French. After getting to know each other, they started to read and analyze the first few pages of the graphic novel Broderies (Embroideries) by Marjane Satrapi, in which she presents the lives of women of her family in Iran. This French-Iranian novelist and cartoonist is best-known for her graphic novel series turned animated film Persepolis, depicting her childhood in Iran in the midst of the Islamic Revolution.

The students then worked together and in small groups to translate the text into English, with a Nigerian lens. The session was highly interactive, with participants sharing laughs and reflections on language, and the challenges and rewards of the exercise. This raised very interesting questions regarding what can be translated or not, how to work around it, whether or not one should adapt the text to the standards of the country, and the difference between Nigerian English and American/British English.

The session ended with a Q&A session during which Mona reflected on the challenge of translating pidgin or Nigerian regional expressions into French, and on the importance of learning more about Nigerian culture and seeking insights from Nigerians themselves.