The Contexts of the German Translation of Frantz Fanon’s Les Damnés de la terre

Oergel-Dench, Maike

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the translation of Les Damnés de la terre, contextualising it first in its original West German environment, before looking at the later presentation of this Frantz Fanon text in the German Democratic Republic. It considers key aspects of Traugott König's translation in light of both publication contexts. Les Damnés de la terre was the first text by Fanon to be translated into German. In East Germany, Fanon's works were made available in an anthology, published by Reclam in its Universal-Bibliothek in 1986. Traugott König is mainly remembered as the groundbreaking German translator of Jean-Paul Sartre and Gustave Flaubert and, equally importantly, as the editor of Sartre's collected works in German. König was working on Sartre's Critique de la raison dialectique, his first translation of Sartre, when he was asked to translate Les Damnés. König went to study at the newly founded Freie Universität Berlin (FU), situated in the Western sectors of the city.

Citation

Oergel-Dench, M. (2017). The Contexts of the German Translation of Frantz Fanon’s Les Damnés de la terre. In S. Harding, & K. Batchelor (Eds.), Translation and Liberation. Frantz Fanon across Continents and Languages (196-221). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315620626-8

• Online Publication Date: May 9, 2017
• Publication Date: 2017
• Deposit Date: Oct 5, 2020
• Pages: 196-221
• Book Title: Translation and Liberation. Frantz Fanon across Continents and Languages
• Chapter Number: 7
• ISBN: 9781138658738
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315620626-8
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3862146
• Publisher URL: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315620626/chapters/10.4324/9781315620626-8