JAEMIERAEDTIEB LEAB VAEDTSEHTEMINIE

Abstract

This essay, which serves as a response to the author’s translation of a set of South Saami short stories dealing with different aspects of death into Swedish, seeks to define translation between a colonial and an Indigenous endangered language as a three-fold activity, moving from translation as an act of violence, towards a discussion on the de/colonial therapeutical aspects of translation which culminates in on one hand an attempt to move towards a foundational definition of a South Saami Poetics of Translation and Death, which looks upon the cultural and linguistic aspects of Death amongst the South Saami, and, on the other, a poetic discussion on the cathartic qualities of translation in an endangered language community