Trans(-lating) Identities: A Translation Proposal of Akwaeke Emezi’s Dear Senthuran

In their 2021 memoir Dear Senthuran, Akwaeke Emezi (they/them) explores complex themes of identity, gender, (Igbo) spirituality, and the overall experience of living as a marginalized individual simultaneously navigating both Western and African cultural paradigms. The translation of Dear Senthuran into arguably any language would present unique challenges due to the intricacy of the author’s intersectional identities—Emezi being a queer, non-binary trans artist of Nigerian and Tamil heritage. However, an Italian translation poses several additional issues, primarily concerning the accurate representation of non-binary and trans identities, which may be arduous to express in a Romance language with such rigid grammatical gender structures (and lacking widely accepted nonbinary pronouns). The main objective of this thesis is to attempt to provide an Italian translation of the memoir through an approach that is both linguistically innovative and culturally sensitive, so as to convey the intersection of race, gender, and spirituality within a postcolonial context without oversimplifying or diluting the intrinsic liminality of these identities. To achieve this, the analysis attached to the translation itself centres first on translation studies, the challenges and limitations of the act of translating, and ultimately leads to a brief comparison with the official Italian translation of Freshwater (Benedetta Dazzi, 2019).