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Translation and the professional selves of Mercer Cook

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2018

Aedín Ní Loingsigh
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Abstract

This article explores the ways in which African American Mercer Cook's translation practice reflects complex overlaps between his professional/personal selves and an ideological backdrop that encompasses black internationalism, US race struggles and mid-twentieth-century diplomatic relations with Africa. A first section explores how Cook, a university professor of French, uses what he terms the “close-to-home” value of translation in order to expose his African American students to what has been written about them in French. At the same time, translation is seen by him as essential to building a “shared elsewhere” where his students can reflect on their place within a black world that is neither nation-bound nor monolingual. A second section examines the way in which Cook's translation practice is inflected by his role as US ambassador in francophone West Africa during the 1960s. In this context, the convergence of US civil rights with official US Cold War policy on postcolonial African states is key to understanding Cook's stance as a translator and the way in which he seeks diplomatically to propel his translations of L.S Senghor's texts towards a racially riven US readership.

Keywords

Diplomatic translationBlack internationalismFrench studiesMercer CookTranslator stance
Type
Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 81 , Special Issue 3: Translating African Thought and Literature , October 2018 , pp. 459 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS, University of London 2018 

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Footnotes

A significant amount of research for this article was conducted at the Moorland Springarn Archive, Howard University, Washington DC, which holds Mercer Cook's personal papers. I am grateful to Stirling University's Division of Literature and Languages for financial assistance to support this visit. I also wish to express my appreciation for the invaluable assistance provided there by archivist Sonja J. Woods. Unless otherwise stated, all parenthetical references to Cook's personal papers in the main body of the text begin with his initials (MC) followed by the relevant box and file number.

References

References

Cook, Mercer. 1934. Le Noir. Morceaux choisis de 29 Français célèbres. New York: American Book Company.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer and Parris, Guichard. 1936. Ourika. Atlanta, GA: The Atlanta University French Series.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer. 1943. Five Negro Authors. Washington, DC: Associated Publishers.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer and Bellegarde, Dantès. 1944. The Haitian-American Anthology: Haitian Readings from American Authors. Porte-au-Prince: Imprimerie de l’État.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer. 1948. Education in Haiti. Washington, DC: US Office of Education.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer. 1951. An Introduction to Haiti. Washington, DC: Pan American Union.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer. 1954. “The Negro spiritual goes to France”, Music Educators Journal 40/5, 42–8.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer and Henderson, Stephen. 1969. The Militant Black Writer in Africa and the United States. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Dia, Mamadou. 1962. The African Nations and World Solidarity, trans. Cook, Mercer. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Diop, Cheikh Anta. 1974. The African Origin of Civilization. Myth or Reality, ed. and trans. Cook, Mercer. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill.Google Scholar
Roumain, Jacques. 1947. Masters of the Dew, translated by Mercer Cook and Langston Hughes. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock.Google Scholar
Senghor, Léopold Sédar. 1964. On African Socialism, translated and with an introduction by Mercer Cook. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Thiam, Djibi. 1981. My Sister, the Panther. New York: Dodd, Mead.Google Scholar
Adejunmobi, Moradewun. 2014. “Vernacular monolingualism and translation in West African popular film”, in Bandia, Paul F. (ed.), Writing and Translating Francophone Discourse: Africa, the Caribbean, Diaspora. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 167–87.Google Scholar
Dash, Michael J. 1978. “Introduction” to second edition of Jacques Roumain's Masters of the Dew, trans. Hughes, Langston and Cook, Mercer. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 5–21.Google Scholar
Douglass, Frederick. 1845. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Written by Himself. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office. Available at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23/23-h/23-h.htm - link2HCH0007 (last accessed 7.07.17).Google Scholar
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Edwards, Brent Hayes. 2003. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Krenn, Michael L. 1999. Black Diplomacy: African Americans and the State Department. New York: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Miller, Christopher. 2007. The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Milton, John and Bandia, Paul F.. 2009. “Introduction: Agents of translation and translation studies”, in Milton, John and Bandia, Paul F. (eds), Agents of Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1–18.Google Scholar
Murphy, David (ed.). 2017. The First World Festival of Negro Arts, Dakar 1966: Contexts and Legacies. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.Google Scholar
Njiiri, Ruth Stutts. 1981. “Interview with Ambassador Mercer Cook. Phelps-Stokes Fund's Oral History Project on Former Black Chiefs of Mission”. Available at http://www.adst.org/OHTOCs/Cook,Mercer.toc.pdf (last accessed 26.02.17).Google Scholar
Porter, Dennis. 1994. “Orientalism and its problems”, in Williams, Patrick and Chrisman, Laura (eds), Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 150–61.Google Scholar
Prasad, Pratima. 2009. Colonialism, Race, and the French Romantic Imagination. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Purcell, Richard. 2013. Race, Ralph Ellison and American Cold War Intellectual Culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Rideout, W.B. 1969. “Foreword”, in Cook, Mercer and Henderson, Stephen E., The Militant Black Writer in Africa and the United States. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. v–x.Google Scholar
Roberts, Brian Russell. 2013. Artistic Ambassadors: Literary and International Representation of the New Negro Era. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Sánchez-Eppler, Karen. 2005. Dependent States: The Child's Part in Nineteenth-Century American Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Simon, Sherry. 1990. “Translating the will to knowledge: prefaces and Canadian literary politics”, in Bassnett, Susan and Lefevere, André (eds), Translation, History & Culture. London: Pinter, 110–17.Google Scholar
Teal, Christopher. 2008. Hero of Hispaniola: America's First Black Diplomat, Ebenezer D. Bassett. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Tymoczko, Maria. 2010. “Ideology and the position of the translator: in what sense is a translator ‘in between’’’, in Baker, Mona (ed.), Critical Readings in Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 213–28.Google Scholar
Stovall, Tyler. 1996. Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer. 1934. Le Noir. Morceaux choisis de 29 Français célèbres. New York: American Book Company.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer and Parris, Guichard. 1936. Ourika. Atlanta, GA: The Atlanta University French Series.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer. 1943. Five Negro Authors. Washington, DC: Associated Publishers.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer and Bellegarde, Dantès. 1944. The Haitian-American Anthology: Haitian Readings from American Authors. Porte-au-Prince: Imprimerie de l’État.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer. 1948. Education in Haiti. Washington, DC: US Office of Education.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer. 1951. An Introduction to Haiti. Washington, DC: Pan American Union.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer. 1954. “The Negro spiritual goes to France”, Music Educators Journal 40/5, 42–8.Google Scholar
Cook, Mercer and Henderson, Stephen. 1969. The Militant Black Writer in Africa and the United States. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Dia, Mamadou. 1962. The African Nations and World Solidarity, trans. Cook, Mercer. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Diop, Cheikh Anta. 1974. The African Origin of Civilization. Myth or Reality, ed. and trans. Cook, Mercer. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill.Google Scholar
Roumain, Jacques. 1947. Masters of the Dew, translated by Mercer Cook and Langston Hughes. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock.Google Scholar
Senghor, Léopold Sédar. 1964. On African Socialism, translated and with an introduction by Mercer Cook. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Thiam, Djibi. 1981. My Sister, the Panther. New York: Dodd, Mead.Google Scholar
Adejunmobi, Moradewun. 2014. “Vernacular monolingualism and translation in West African popular film”, in Bandia, Paul F. (ed.), Writing and Translating Francophone Discourse: Africa, the Caribbean, Diaspora. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 167–87.Google Scholar
Dash, Michael J. 1978. “Introduction” to second edition of Jacques Roumain's Masters of the Dew, trans. Hughes, Langston and Cook, Mercer. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 5–21.Google Scholar
Douglass, Frederick. 1845. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Written by Himself. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office. Available at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23/23-h/23-h.htm - link2HCH0007 (last accessed 7.07.17).Google Scholar
Duignan, Peter and Gann, L.H.. 1984. The United States and Africa: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, Brent Hayes. 2003. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Krenn, Michael L. 1999. Black Diplomacy: African Americans and the State Department. New York: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Miller, Christopher. 2007. The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Milton, John and Bandia, Paul F.. 2009. “Introduction: Agents of translation and translation studies”, in Milton, John and Bandia, Paul F. (eds), Agents of Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1–18.Google Scholar
Murphy, David (ed.). 2017. The First World Festival of Negro Arts, Dakar 1966: Contexts and Legacies. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.Google Scholar
Njiiri, Ruth Stutts. 1981. “Interview with Ambassador Mercer Cook. Phelps-Stokes Fund's Oral History Project on Former Black Chiefs of Mission”. Available at http://www.adst.org/OHTOCs/Cook,Mercer.toc.pdf (last accessed 26.02.17).Google Scholar
Porter, Dennis. 1994. “Orientalism and its problems”, in Williams, Patrick and Chrisman, Laura (eds), Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 150–61.Google Scholar
Prasad, Pratima. 2009. Colonialism, Race, and the French Romantic Imagination. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Purcell, Richard. 2013. Race, Ralph Ellison and American Cold War Intellectual Culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Rideout, W.B. 1969. “Foreword”, in Cook, Mercer and Henderson, Stephen E., The Militant Black Writer in Africa and the United States. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. v–x.Google Scholar
Roberts, Brian Russell. 2013. Artistic Ambassadors: Literary and International Representation of the New Negro Era. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Sánchez-Eppler, Karen. 2005. Dependent States: The Child's Part in Nineteenth-Century American Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Simon, Sherry. 1990. “Translating the will to knowledge: prefaces and Canadian literary politics”, in Bassnett, Susan and Lefevere, André (eds), Translation, History & Culture. London: Pinter, 110–17.Google Scholar
Teal, Christopher. 2008. Hero of Hispaniola: America's First Black Diplomat, Ebenezer D. Bassett. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Tymoczko, Maria. 2010. “Ideology and the position of the translator: in what sense is a translator ‘in between’’’, in Baker, Mona (ed.), Critical Readings in Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 213–28.Google Scholar
Stovall, Tyler. 1996. Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar