Cross-cultural translation in South African autobiographical writing: the case of Sindiwe Magona

Translation takes place at the border crossings between cultures. Etymologically (from transferre, translatio), J. Hillis Miller (1996:207) reminds us, it means to be carried from one place to another, to be 'transported across the borders between one language and another, one country and another, one culture and another'. Translation is a way of negotiating, for various and often conflicting reasons, the frontiers that demarcate distinct cultural zones-in the words of Sanford Budick (1996:11), translation 'necessarily marks the border crossing where, if anywhere, one culture passes over to the other, whether to inform it, to further its development. to capture or enslave it, or merely to open a space between the other and itself.