The challenge of multilingualism in a partial translation of the play, requiem for the Last Kaiser

Abstract

Requiem for the Last Kaiser by the Cameroonian playwright Bate Besong, is a play characterised by singular translational challenges. These challenges range from the presence of many different languages in the text to the use of humour and intratextual references taken from a various range of sources such as the Bible, world history and politics, etc. In our 21st century world, where translation has been described as the language of Europe by Umberto Eco, Africa’s literary treasures should be given a wider readership by means of translation, starting with French, to introduce the writer’s work to French-speaking Cameroonians and from there to other Francophones. The aim of this research was to determine in what way multilingualism in the play could affect its translation and, secondly, how to translate the various multilingual utterances. The focus was put on the rendition of the play’s multilingual elements in a language or languages understandable to a French-speaking readership while keeping the author’s initial intention in mind. This was done firstly by gathering relevant knowledge on theatre as well as literary and theatrical translation, and on the other hand on literary multilingualism and multilingual translation. Subsequently, 28 text segments including multilingual utterances were extracted from the source text, analysed using a combination of the functionalist approach and hermeneutics, and translated. Several translation strategies and procedures were used, among which literalism was particularly successful. It was found that these could not be generalised and that translation choices should be made for each individual utterance. The play impacts on the literary, sociolinguistic, political, and sociological domains, as it dates from the 1990s, a period of Cameroonian history marked by popular uprisings and the struggle for democracy. Attempting a partial translation of Requiem for the Last Kaiser was a means of contributing to the field of multilingual theatre translation, sharing the richness of Bate Besong’s literary work and giving Cameroonian literature in English the port of access it needs since it has not yet attained the recognition it surely deserves.