Translating Malagasy Literature: Book Launch and Conversation with author Raharimanana and translator Allison Charette
Translating Malagasy Literature: Book Launch and Conversation with author Raharimanana and translator Allison Charette
Date & Time: April 15, 2026, 11:30-12:50
Location: Hillman Hall 300
Description
This event will feature Malagasy author Raharimanana and translator Allison Charette in conversation with Nathan H. Dize (RLL – French & African and African American Studies) for a discussion about literature from Madagascar and translation. The event will also serve as a launch for Raharimanana’s English language début, Return (Seagull Books, 2025) in Allison Charette’s translation, as the author-translator pair tour the United States. This conversation will be of broad interest to students in African and African American Studies, Romance Languages and Literatures, Comparative Literature and Thought, English, and Creative Writing. This event will be held in French.
Biographies
Raharimanana, born in Antananarivo, Madagascar, is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. His work has garnered many prizes, from the 1990 Prix du Théâtre Inter-africain for one of his earliest plays (translated into English as The Prophet and the President), to the 2023 Prix International Benjamin Fondane for his body of work, awarded annually to a non-French Francophone writer. He also co-founded the publishing house Éditions Project'îles and has co-directed the Plumes d'Afrique festival of literary and artistic creation since 2004. His first novel to appear in English translation is Return (Seagull Books, 2025), which was awarded the Prix Littéraire Jacques Lacarrière upon its original publication in 2018.
Allison M. Charette is a literary translator who specializes in bringing French-language fiction from Madagascar into English. Before Raharimanana's Return, she translated Naivo's Beyond the Rice Fields (Restless Books, 2017) and Johary Ravaloson's Return to the Enchanted Island (AmazonCrossing, 2019), both to critical acclaim. She also founded the Emerging Literary Translators' Network in America (ELTNA.org) and the ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship Program. In 2018, she was awarded an NEA Fellowship in Literary Translation to work on Michèle Rakotoson's novel, Lalana.
Nathan H. Dize is Assistant Professor of French and African and African American Studies at Washington University in Saint Louis. He is a translator of Haitian literature and has published translations of novels, poetry, and prose by numerous Haitian writers.
Event Sponsors: Department of African and African American Studies, the English Department, the Department of Comparative Literature and Thought, the Center for Race, Ethnicity, and Equity (CRE2), the Center for the Humanities, French Connexions, and the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
