This paper will present recent research into literary translation training initiatives in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon. Drawing on over sixty interviews with translators, writers, students, academics, publishers and other literary activists in these three countries, the paper will map some of the recurrent questions and issues raised by the research to date and discuss its future directions. This feasibility study and scoping exercise, conducted in February – July 2018, is being carried out as part of the broader AMLA (Arts Management and Literary Activism) project, developed since 2016 in partnership with the Centre for African Cultural Excellence, the University of Bristol and the University of Exeter. This strand of AMLA seeks to better understand current training provision and support networks for literary translators based on the African continent with the aim of increasing the visibility of literary translation as a creative craft. In turn it evokes central issues of literary infrastructure, linguistic legacies and solidarities, and points to the need to consider together the material and theoretical dimensions of translation as expressive practice.
Dr Georgina Collins is a freelance translator and former lecturer in Translation Studies, specialising in the translation of francophone African poetry. She is currently working as a Research Associate based at the University of Bristol on the AMLA (Arts Management and Literary Activism) project. In this role she isconducting research on literary translation training initiatives in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon. Her translations include ‘Teibashin’ a short story by Felwine Sarr published in Wasafiri in 2016 and The Other Half of History: An Anthology of Francophone African Women’s Poetry in Translation (2007). She has also published academic scholarship in Francosphères journal and The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture.