Afrikaans Modernism and the Anglophone Reader: Etienne van Heerden’s 30 nagte in Amsterdam

This chapter focuses on writing in Afrikaans, beginning with a description of the language and a survey of writers who have used it in inventive ways. Writers who use Afrikaans depend on translation to reach a global audience. The relation between translation and singularity is considered in the light of Jacques Derrida’s comments on translation. A passage from Etienne van Heerden’s novel 30 nagte in Amsterdam that employs a modernist style and its translation by Michiel Heyns is analysed to demonstrate some of the challenges faced by the translator. The novel’s untranslatability is not separate from its translatability and retranslatability.