“The translatress in her own person speaks”1: Ada Prospero’s preface and note to I loro occhi

Abstract

A few months after its controversial American release, the first Italian translation of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God appeared during the height of fascist repression, in May 1938. The work of an antifascist militant and feminist activist, Ada Prospero’s version of Hurston’s novel faced multiple challenges with the props of several paratextual elements. This article analyzes specific translational strategies in light of Prospero’s theoretical standpoint, as expressed in her Preface and Translator’s Note. The specificity of feminine discourse and language, and the gendered identity of author and translator created a condition of equality that accounts for Prospero’s intervention in the text and her unusual visibility in the paratext. In search of an imaginary dialogue with Hurston’s “womanism”, Prospero finds a common ground with her source writer, thus pursuing her own literary and political agenda. She addresses the question of how to translate black vernacular and metaphorical language, but then must mediate between theoretical claims and practical constraints, especially when dealing with sexual imagery, erotic talk and the representation of woman’s body. Informed by recent scholarship on translation and censorship in fascist Italy (Billiani: 2007; Rundle & Sturge: 2010), this article focuses on issues of decorum, modesty and self-censorship, in light of the feminization of the practice of translation in patriarchal societies (Simon: 1996; von Flotow: 1997). It also asks whether translation maintains or reverses gender constructs, and whether gender differences are played out or reinforced in actual practices of translation.