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This paper focuses on Maryse Condé's "Moi, Tituba, Sorcière... Noire de Salem," a novel based on the historical person, Tituba Indian.
An enslaved woman from Barbados, Tituba was one of the first three to be accused in the infamous witch trials of Salem Village, Massachusetts in February of 1692. Inspired by this incident, "Moi, Tituba" is the imaginative, fictionalized autobiography of Tituba.
This paper identifies in Condé’s work and thought a philosophy of translation as violent. Condé espouses this philosophy of translation as critical re-invention and destructive re-writing, undermining the archive she translates and thereby disavowing the dominant discourses perpetuated by that archive. Through violent translation, "Moi, Tituba" disrupts how Tituba — and enslaved peoples generally — have been marginalized and misrepresented in the archive.
An enslaved woman from Barbados, Tituba was one of the first three to be accused in the infamous witch trials of Salem Village, Massachusetts in February of 1692. Inspired by this incident, "Moi, Tituba" is the imaginative, fictionalized autobiography of Tituba.
This paper identifies in Condé’s work and thought a philosophy of translation as violent. Condé espouses this philosophy of translation as critical re-invention and destructive re-writing, undermining the archive she translates and thereby disavowing the dominant discourses perpetuated by that archive. Through violent translation, "Moi, Tituba" disrupts how Tituba — and enslaved peoples generally — have been marginalized and misrepresented in the archive.