On Translating Tintin au Congo in the Twenty-First Century

Controversy has plagued Hergé’s Tintin au Congo for the last few decades, and numerous academics have discussed the phenomenon, particularly in the contexts of law and ethics. This article seeks to examine and compare three English-language translations of Tintin au Congo. As a particularly problematic text that continues to be pilloried, praised, and parodied, its different versions provide a fruitful corpus when considering various questions regarding translation strategy and the responsibilities of translators and publishers. Hergé’s representation of Black people is unacceptable, by modern standards, in a multi-cultural society. Indeed, given the current political climate, this article argues that the re-translation of texts such as Tintin au Congo is highly problematic. The paradox is that any attempt to erase the original racism is as fraught, ethically, as is the strategy of reproducing it. With no clear function or audience in the twenty-first century, how can Tintin au Congo survive in translation?