A Tempestuous Translation: Aimé Césaire’s Une tempête

Abstract

This article contends that Aimé Césaire’s Une tempête (an anti-colonialist adaptation of The Tempest), epitomizes translation as interpretation and creative revision. With a striking fidelity to Shakespeare’s play, Césaire engages with the racial and class conflicts intrinsic to The Tempest and gives voice to the occluded colonized and oppressed. Une tempête stands out as a translation through time (the era of black civil rights and African liberation movements), and space (creatively refashioning Shakespearean references into a francophone Caribbean location).

Keywords

• Shakespeare
• Césaire
• translation
• Tempest
• post-colonialism