Surviving and Challenging the Colonized Scene of Translation: Innu in Natasha Kanapé Fontaine’s Poetry

Surviving and Challenging the Colonized Scene of TranslationInnu in Natasha Kanapé Fontaine's Poetry Malou Brouwer (bio) Indigenous literatures written in French in Quebec are, on the one hand, similar to Indigenous literatures written in English in Anglo-Canada in that they share the cultural, political, and historical conditions of colonization.1 On the other hand, they differ as they exist within the specific political and cultural context of Francophone Quebec that holds a minority status within Canada as a whole. In part due to colonization and ongoing colonialism, Francophone and Anglophone Indigenous literatures in Canada remain separated by linguistic barriers. However, writers and scholars increasingly understand and envision the field of Indigenous literatures as traversing and, sometimes, transcending linguistic and geographical—often national—boundaries. In this respect, translation plays an increasing role in the field and acts as a key means of facilitating dialogue between writers and readers of Indigenous literatures. In this article, I examine translation and language politics in Natasha Kanapé Fontaine's poetry. Kanapé Fontaine is an Innu writer, pluridisciplinary artist, performer, and activist from Pessamit, a First Nations reserve and Innu community in what is now called the province of Quebec. In her poetry, she often makes use of Innu words and expressions. Examining italicization and glossaries, more specifically, I aim to show the extent to which the use of Innu language in Kanapé Fontaine's poetry survives and challenges the translation process from French to English and the dominant position of these two languages. My argument focuses on the literal presence and manifestations of Innu in Natasha Kanapé Fontaine's N'entre pas dans mon âme avec tes chaussures, Manifeste Assi, and Bleuets et abricots and their respective translations Do Not Enter My Soul in Your Shoes, Assi Manifesto, and Blueberries and Apricots.2 I argue that the use and the non-translation of Innu can be [End Page 53] considered strategies of "rhetorical sovereignty" (Lyons). Essentially, I seek to address the question of the effect of translating or not translating Indigenous languages in a settler colonial and settler language context. As a settler scholar of Dutch origin now living in Canada, I recognize that the present reflection on Indigenous literatures in French and their translation into English is influenced by the privileged position from which I have learned English and French. Neither is my native language and I learned English and French, both colonizer languages,3 in the formal settings of high school and university. As a settler scholar, I wish to participate in the debate and reflection on Indigenous literatures with respect and humility, from "an unfamiliar space of not knowing," thereby "learning from rather than about the Other" (Regan 27). To that effect, I draw on Indigenous authors and scholars as well as settler–allies to contribute in a respectful and, hopefully, valuable way to the dialogue taking place across languages. After discussing translation in a settler colonial context, and introducing the concept of rhetorical sovereignty, I will examine the language politics—the relation between French and English, and the place of Indigenous languages—at play in Indigenous literatures. Then, I will analyze the italicization and use of glossaries in Kanapé Fontaine's poetry and its translation to demonstrate how the Innu employed by Kanapé Fontaine both survives and challenges the colonized scene of translation and the dominance of English and French. translating indigenous literatures and language politics Translations from English to French of Indigenous authors writing primarily in English, and translations from French to English of Indigenous writers writing primarily in French, are equally and rapidly growing in number. Publishing houses like Mémoire d'encrier and Hannenorak are actively publishing French translations of Indigenous writers working in English such as Lee Maracle and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, while publishers like Mawenzi House, Arsenal Pulp Press, Freehand Books, and Talonbooks are offering English translations of Indigenous writers working in French including Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau, and Naomi Fontaine.4 Moreover, in "Littératures autochtones et traduction," settler scholar Sarah Henzi notes the publication of bilingual anthologies (French–English) [End Page 54] with Possibles Editions (Terres de Trickster/Lands of Trickster) and Banff Press (Languages of...

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