PhD student publishes Italian translation of Yorta Yorta landclaim play
- Posted:
- June 12th, 2009
- Guest
Floriana Badalotti’s translation of the play Yanagai! Yanagai! (Currency Press, 2003), by Aboriginal playwright Andrea James, has recently been published in Italy.
Yanagai is the Yorta Yorta word that confronted the uninvited intrusion of the first white people seeking passage through Yorta Yorta territory in the early nineteenth century. It empathically means ‘go away’, but its underlying meaning, in accordance with traditional law, is that before you enter you first need to seek permission under the appropriate cultural protocols.” (Dr. Wayne Atkinson, Yorta Yorta elder, from Elder’s Introduction). James wrote the play in response to a 1998 Australian court decision that denied recognition of the native Yorta Yorta people and their claim to their ancestral land.
Floriana, who is currently studying towards a PhD in Translation Studies at Monash, translated Yanagai! Yanagai! as final project in the Master of Translation Studies which she completed in 2007. She submitted the translation to the 2008 Paths of Culture Translation Prize, it was judged the winning entry and has now been published by IPOC Press (Milan).
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