Postcolonial Polysystems

Book excerpt: "Postcolonial Polysystems: The Production and Reception of Translated Children s Literature in South Africa" is an original and provocative contribution to the field of children s literature research and translation studies. It draws on a variety of methodologies to provide a perspective, both product- and process-oriented, on the ways in which translation contributes to the production of children s literature in South Africa, with a special interest in language and power, as well as post- and neocolonial hybridity. The book explores the forces that affect the use of translation in producing children s literature in various languages in South Africa, and shows how some of these forces precipitate in the selection, production and reception of translated children s books in Afrikaans and English. It breaks new ground in its interrogation of aspects of translation theory within the multilingual and postcolonial context of South Africa, as well as in its innovative experimental investigation of the reception of domesticating and foreignising strategies in translated picture books. The book has won the 2013 EST Young Scholar Prize."