South African Landscapes: Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country in Translation and on the Screen

The present survey is part of a project on Southern African literary landscapes and translation. In this context, Alan Paton’s novel Cry, the Beloved Country (1948) is emblematic of a new eco-critical consciousness juxtaposed with the devastation of space determined by the dynamics of colonialism and the enforcement of the apartheid regime from 1948 to 1991. Topophilia, common to other South African authors, is more than a simple literary theme for Paton, rather it lies at the core of his spirituality and his militancy against apartheid. Likewise, the biblical symbolism and linguistic features inspiring descriptions enhance textual cohesion and relevance, while also representing a challenge to translation in the presence of different African languages. Following a diachronic perspective, this paper examines intralingual, interlingual, and intersemiotic translations (Jakobson 1959) focusing on landscape, language, and identity. One intralingual abridgement, multiple interlingual translations into European languages (Italian, French, Spanish), and two intersemiotic translations are comparatively analysed. The present approach relies on studies of literary description (Hamon 1977, 1993), intersemiotic translation (Jakobson 1959; Eco 2000), and multimodality (van Leeuwen 1999; Kress and van Leeuwen 2001; Baldry and Thibault 2006).