Translating for Future Readers: Glossing Haitian Literature in English Translation

Drawing on Édouard Glissant’s definition of glossaire included in Malemort (1975); its English translation in the glossary of Poetics of Relation (2010), Betsy Wing’s translation of his Poétique de la relation (1990), which did not include a glossary; and Katherine McKittrick’s decolonial challenge of glossaries, this essay focuses on the role that the glossary plays in the translation of Haitian novels into English. It examines how the act of glossing provides an entry point into how translators of Haitian literature have approached polyglossic Haitian writing and the cultural layers present in Haitian fiction. It then explores how the author has crafted glossaries in the Haitian novels that he has translated to achieve translational goals that challenge the often violent, colonial function of categorizing words in languages other than English, the dominant language of the US literary market. The essay concludes by reflecting on how the glossary might prepare the ground for future readers to relate to Haitian literature beyond colonial, paternalistic, and heterosexist frames.