Gary Victor and the politics of translation

The work of André Lefevere, amongst others, has sensitized us to the politics of colonial translation/rewriting, but what of authors from the ‘cultural periphery’ who rewrite their own works for reception in the metropolis? This article examines the case of Gary Victor’s A l’angle des rues parallèles – a novel first published in Haiti in 2000 and republished in France in 2003. An analysis of the numerous, and largely unacknowledged alterations (corrections, omissions and additions) made by Victor and his publisher for the French edition leads to the conclusion that Victor’s very deliberate rewriting of his novel can only fully be understood in the context of the political struggles in Haiti 2000–2003, Victor’s own investment in those struggles, and the former colonial power’s role in Haiti at that moment.