Ancestralidade, ritual e encruzilhada: sobre a praxis de tradução negra em A morte e o Elesin do Alâfin E O ẸLẸṢIN DO ALÂFIN

Abstract

Black Translation, as a component belonging to the field of Translation Studies, presents itself as a theoretical and methodological mechanism for the development of Afro-centered translation projects whose main purpose is the construction of an egalitarian dialogue between texts produced and translated from productions African and Afrodiasporic. Based on this principle, the development and application of an Afrocentric translation project, this research had as its general objective to make the literary translation of the play Death and The King's Horseman, by the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, written in English and Yoruba, into Brazilian Portuguese. For the development of this production, an Afro-centered translation project was matured, which focused mainly on revisiting the concept of Translation of Encruzilhada, coined by researcher and translator Luciana Reis (2016) and, furthermore, revised by researcher Feva Omo Iyanu (2018), seeking to add other elements that embody the theoretical and methodological power of this translation tool. In this sense, the concept was embodied from its re-elaboration, taking into account the following theoretical and methodological factors: i think of translation from the perspective of ancestry; ii re-establish the issue of time and temporalities in the translation process, taking as a starting point the encruzilhadas (crossroads) and Afro-Brazilian religious manifestations; iii and, finally, discuss the ritual as a translation tool that composes the perspective of Translation of Encruzilhada, pondering the process of black translation as a translation practice based on the body. Therefore, for the first part, centered on the historiographical reconstruction of Candomblé Terreiros (religious temples), African and Afrodiasporic tradition, memory and history in Brazil, as well as the political and philosophical perspectives of ancestry, the dialogue was established, among others intellectuals, from Verger (1981), Reis (2005), Silveira (2005), Luiz Mott (1986), Laura de Mello e Souza (1986), Parés (2018), Moraes (1916), Freitas (1977), Bordieu (1979), Sodré (2017), Kabengele Munanga (2016), Tigana Santos (2019), Maurício Waldman (1998), Hampaté Bâ (2010), Kwasi Wiredu (2010) and Vanda Machado (2013); for the second part, whose centrality was based on elaborating on Space and Territory, the perspectives of African Time and Spiral-Imagetic-Time, the exchanges were made from names such as Santos (2001), Ediho Lokanga (2021) , SILVA-REIS (2018), Sodré (2019), Milton Santos (2001), Borges and Caputo (2016), Edson Carneiro (2008), Carrascosa (2016), John Mbiti (1989), Sunday Babalola and Olusegun Alokan (2013) ), ZorBari-Nwitambu and Sylva Ezema Kalu (2018), Kazeem (2016), Beniste (2010), Juana Elbein (2012) and Martins (2021); in the third part, concentrated on Ritual as a Black-Ethos and its consequences for the translation process in the Translation of Encruzilhada, the elaborations were gestated from intellectuals such as Etim (2019), Fromm (1950), Kyalo (2013), Soyinka (1976), Santos (2012) and Burley (2020). In addition to opening the theoretical and methodological field in the field of Translation Studies, which is also inserted in the field of Literary Studies, this research resulted in the Afro-centered translation of the play Death and The King's Horseman, contributing, in the same way, to the development of studies focused on other areas of knowledge such as the areas of Performing Arts, History, Sociology, Linguistics, Anthropology, Ethnic Studies and Religion.