Selina Thompson's salt. A wreath, a hammer, and salt on stage: Theatre translation and post-colonial theory

“To be a descendant of slaves visiting Ghana as a site of ancestry is to try to go somewhere that doesn't exist to look for somebody no one has heard of” (Thompson 2018: 35). In 2016, two artists embark on a journey to retrace history and memory - a history of slavery across the Triangle of Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. Looking for relief and understanding, Selina Thompson sails the same Atlantic route that her forefathers had to cross. As an outcome, her monologue - both a testimony and a performance - reflects the excavation, the internal (and not so internal) struggles of a Black British woman and of an entire generation. The burden of memory she carries it's too heavy for her, and such a burden is represented on stage by a deeply evocative, highly resonating element: salt. A rock of salt that, like imperialism, colonialism and racism, needs to be grounded. My dissertation revolves around the challenge of rendering such a play in Italian, addressing questions raised by Translation Studies scholars and theorists, exploring recommendations of practitioners dealing with drama/theatre translation, and providing an analysis on the methodology adopted while translating. Since the play highlights compelling matters of undeniable social value, the aim of this work includes an examination of post-colonial theory and of its ties with the wide field of Translation Studies.