Translation of Religious Beliefs, Practices and Superstition in Ligny’s Le Monde S’effondre (French Translation of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart): A Re - Evaluation

Abstract

The impact of the contact between Europe and Africa through colonisation can be said to be most felt in the area of religion. this is because the contact resulted in changes, modifications, transformations and even the death of well-established beliefs, cultures, schools of thought and behaviours. The first novels written by African writers, such as Chinua Achebe, Ferdinand Oyono and Seydou Badian,  centred mostly on these changes especially in the area of religion.  Even though these novels clearly showed the defeat of the African Traditional Religion (ATR) in the face of the White man’s religion, Christianity, they also serve as archives of the religious practices, beliefs and fundamental aspects of the religion that existed in Africa before European intrusion. The translation of African novels, therefore, is very important for the preservation of the African culture across the ages. Adopting the analytical approach, this paper re – evaluates the translation of religious beliefs, practices and superstition in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. The paper found that for a translator to arrive at a faithful translation, such a translator must have a deep knowledge of the culture from where the novel comes especially if the translator comes from a different culture. The paper concludes that though the translator, who is a European, translated many of the cultural items and situations in the novel acceptably, there are many instances of mistranslations, under translations and omissions which resulted in the loss of meanings.