AustLit

'This article examines the German translations of Jeannie Gunn's The Little Black Princess (1905) (Die kleine schwarze Prinzessin, 2010) and William Peasley's The Last of the Nomads (1982) (Die letzten Nomaden, 2007). The focus rests on the translation of Australian historical and political contexts into the foreign context of German target culture. It argues that the specifics of inter-racial Australian history evident in the two books have been rendered invisible, without the very contexts having completely disappeared. Rather, the translations have reproduced Australian racisms and German ideas of Aboriginal authenticity and traditionalism, as reflected in the notions of the harmonious Naturvolk (natural people). Both translations, the article ultimately contends, testify to the persistency of German ideas of Aboriginal Australia, construing Aboriginal people as timeless, unchanging and pre-modern.' (Publication summary)