Literature, language and communication: The case of the translation of culinary practices in ligny’s Le monde s’effondre (the french translation of chinua achebe’s things fall apart)

In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, like most African writers, communicates the African experience, culture and tradition to the Western world through their works. However, most of these texts are translated by Europeans. This paper is interested in the translation of the culinary practices given to us in the novel. The African traditional culinary practices are sharp contrasts to the practices of the European culture where the translator, Michel Ligny originates from. This paper attempts to evaluate how well the translator has surmounted the lexical, semantic, linguistic and meta-linguistic problems encountered in the work. The paper found out that in literary translation, one does not just translate the ideas but also the culture of the source text. The paper concludes that though the translator has been able to transfer meanings, his translation is characterised by inconsistencies, which has resulted in failure to communicate to the target readers, in most instances, the original information of the author.