TRANSLATION AS A DUTY OF MEMORY: ANTIGONA NEGRA CROSSES THE ATLANTIC

Abstract

This article presents and discusses the collective translation process of the play Antígona Negra (Black Antigone), by Mexican performer and anthropologist Gloria Godínez. This translation was carried out within the scope of the Poetics of Translation course in the Postgraduate Program in Literature and Languages at the Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro. The decision to translate the play arose from an encounter with its stage performance during the I Encuentro Internacional Cuarterías, held in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in January 2025. In this play, we see Godínez's decolonial proposal in the composition of a black Antigone, scarred by the horrors of slavery in the sugar mills that write the history of colonization of the Canary Islands, as well as in the recovery of the traumatic memory of the African diaspora. Through a narrative that displaces time by bringing it up to date, we see on stage a time that, although present, needs to be remembered, as do the names of her African brothers and sisters who disappeared and died on the Atlantic crossing.