1When a non-standard variety of language is fictionalised and included in a work of literature, whether in source texts or target texts, we can see this process of creative transcription as involving several types or levels of translation, both within and between languages. Studying the way in which varieties are used in source texts as well as in target texts, and how they are received in the source and target culture, may enable us to consider the relative gap between the real-life individuals and groups of individuals being portrayed in these works of fiction and the individuals reading the fictionalised forms of these voices. Additionally, it allows for a consideration of the role played by the various intermediaries ensuring the passage of these voices from private spaces to public pages, and the way in which this role multiplies and complexifies when a text undergoes interlingual translation.

2According to Jakobson, we can see the “[interpretation] of verbal signs” in three ways: intralingual, or rewording, using verbal signs from the same language; interlingual, or translation proper, using verbal signs from another language; and intersemiotic, or transmutation, using nonverbal signs from a nonverbal sign system (2012 [1959]: 127). The intermodal transformation of speech from the verbal form used by marginalised youth in urban spaces to the written form visible on the page involves a type of intralingual translation, since, as many scholars have noted, the language is necessarily adjusted to be made available to a broader audience and to suit the written, fictional medium. Gillian Lane-Mercier labels this fictional recreation of non-standard language “literary sociolect” and notes that the accuracy is not of great relevance, since “concerns of mimesis, fidelity and authenticity are subordinated to stylistic, thematic and diegetic concerns, for traditionally novelists have employed non-standard linguistic patterns to achieve comic relief, picturesqueness, or the illusion of sociolinguistic and cultural realism” (1997: 46). The priority seems therefore to lie more in proposing an impression of authenticity rather than authenticity itself.

3When texts featuring non-standard varieties are translated into another language, we are faced with a more classic form of interlingual translation. As such, when undertaking a research project seeking to examine the ways in which minority voices may be interpreted and instrumentalised when included in fictional texts, it seems both justified and valuable to take into consideration how these texts are presented and received in their original context of publication as well as in their translated versions. The investigation housed within the pages of this article thus focuses primarily on the paratext of source and target texts as a means of shedding light on how writers of texts featuring the fictional forms of real-life minority groups publicly discuss their work, how their publishers pitch the work to the public, and how the public receives the books. Before embarking this investigation, it is useful to consider what is meant by the term paratext.

4Initially advanced by Gérard Genette in his 1982 book Palimpsestes and developed in his 1987 book Seuils, paratext refers to the way in which texts are presented, to what exists between the text and the world. Just like the 1987 title Seuils suggests, the paratext represents a sort of threshold which separates or connects the inside and the outside of a text. Genette insists on the importance of these elements surrounding a text when he states that it is possible to argue that no text exists, or has ever existed, without paratext (1987: 9-10). To distinguish the author’s contribution from that of the publisher, Genette specifies that, in general, we can speak of the editorial paratext, whose elements are defined “under the direct and primary (but not exclusive) responsibility of the publisher,” including the title page, the cover and the back cover, from the auctorial paratext assumed by the author (dedication, epigraph, preface, etc.) (ibid.: 14; 21).

5Genette also makes a distinction between the peritext and the epitext, two individual aspects of the paratext, in order to differentiate the physical presentation of the text from the discourse surrounding it. The peritext thus includes everything pertaining to the material presentation of the book (title, cover, glossary, dedication, etc.), while the epitext designates everything that is found around or outside the text, extending and accompanying it on its journey into the world: interviews, conversations, presentation texts, public readings (includes “all messages that are located, at least originally, outside the book”) (ibid. : 11).

6These observations feed into the tension between how the text is presented by the authors themselves and by their publishers, providing hints at how the authors seem to want to be perceived and how their publishers seem to believe their work will encounter the most attention. When it comes to texts presenting the voices of minorities, it is interesting to consider the ways in which various aspects of the background and profile of the authors can be stressed so that readers are invited to view the fictional voices presented in the works as the voices of the authors themselves, and, by extension, of the real-life groups to which the authors or their characters belong or are assumed to belong.

7In recent years, paratextual studies of translation have expanded in light of the creation of a school of paratranslation housed at the Universidad de Vigo. According to José Yuste Frías, the “prime objective of the creation of the concept of paratranslation is to [...] stress the essential role performed by paratextual elements in translation, that is, their participation, together with text, in the construction of meaning of the published work” (2012: 118). Despite criticisms that draw attention to the lack of originality in the concept of paratranslation, since scholars in translation studies have long paid attention to non-linguistic aspects of the translation process and product, and to the translation “environment” (Nord, 2012: 406), the focus on the role played in marketing texts by people other than the translator and the author seen in this (and other) subfield(s) of translation studies (not least of all systems theories) demonstrates the need for more studies considering the extent to which choices made to present texts to audiences attempt to skew the dynamics between fact and fiction.

Faïza Guène and Alex Wheatle: Voices from the margins

8In a modest attempt to contribute to such investigations of the reception of works of translated fiction, especially those containing the intra- and interlingually translated voices of minorities, this article will weave together the narratives of Faïza Guène and Alex Wheatle. Guène and Wheatle are contemporary novelists working in France and the United Kingdom, respectively, and are both children of first-generation immigrants who have written fiction for adults and young adults. Guène and Wheatle have a number of books under their belt set in areas similar to their own place of residence or childhood, featuring characters who share some traits or experience with them, and these links have led both to be confused with their characters. It is systematically assumed that they write autobiographical novels, which has led them to express frustration with the attention paid to their background, often to the detriment of considerations of the literary or stylistic value of the works.

9Born in 1985 to Algerian parents in Bobigny, Faïza Guène grew up in Pantin. Both these towns are located at the very edge of Paris, within the so-called petite couronne. She rose to fame following the publication of her debut novel Kiffe kiffe demain in 2004, and has since written five more novels. Though the first two novels encountered significantly more attention and success than her more recent works, the fact that she was propelled into the spotlight at such an early stage in her career has seen her become one of the most prominent figures of the banlieue, the multi-ethnic urban areas surrounding Paris. Her first five novels were published in France by Fayard/Hachette, with only her latest novel, La Discrétion, published in 2020 by a competing publishing house, Plon.

10For the moment, four of Guène’s novels have been published in an English-language translation. Only the first two novels, Kiffe kiffe demain and Du rêve pour les oufs (2006), were published in both the United Kingdom and the United States: Sarah Ardizzone (formerly Adams) translated both for UK publisher Chatto & Windus, under the titles Just Like Tomorrow and Dreams from the Endz, with a revised version of her translation of Kiffe kiffe demain published by Houghton Mifflin, Harcourt, in the US. Du rêve pour les oufs was also published by Harcourt in the US, but in a separate translation by Jenna Johnson entitled Some Dream for Fools. Guène’s third novel, Les Gens du Balto (2012), was translated by Ardizzone and published solely in the UK, by Chatto & Windus. The fourth novel, Un homme, ça ne pleure pas (2014), was also translated by Ardizzone, but not published in the UK: it appears instead in Nigerian publisher Cassava Republic’s catalogue. Interestingly, Cassava Republic publishes primarily African fiction, suggesting that Guène’s and her character’s Algerian background was deemed to hold sufficient weight to appeal to an African publisher despite the fact that the story unfolds in France.

11Across the Channel, British writer Alex Wheatle has found himself faced with similar partextual treatment. 22 years older than Guène, Wheatle was born in 1963 to Jamaican parents and grew up in social housing in England and started publishing novels in the late 1990s. His place of residence and involvement in the 1981 Brixton Riots saw him nicknamed the Brixton Bard, a name that he has since reclaimed on his social media profiles. He has published over 15 dialogue-driven novels for adults and young adults through a range of publishing houses in the UK and US (Black Amber, Fourth Estate, X-Press, Spck, Arcadia, and Atom, among others), mostly set in real or fictional urban spaces, and these publishers tend to provide a considerable amount of biographical information in their presentations of the books.

12Six of Wheatle’s novels have been published in French translation in France by Au Diable Vauvert; the four novels in the Crongton series, as well as East of Acre Lane and Island Songs. Originally published in the UK in 2001, East of Acre Lane was translated into French by Nicolas Richard and first published by Au Diable Vauvert in 2003. The translation was republished in 2021 with a note on the back cover referencing the Small Axe series, and with a quote from Télérama magazine referring to the book as “one of the best novels on the Jamaican community at the time of the riots”.

13As it will become apparent, Guène has been indirectly attributed the role of spokesperson for the banlieue parisienne, while Wheatle is expected to answer for working-class Black people in the UK, and specifically those of Caribbean background living in the multiethnic urban neighbourhoods in or around London. Though the non-linguistic realities suggested by the terms “banlieue” and “multiethnic urban London” are distinct, both are characterised by the literal or figurative marginality of their inhabitants, relegated to the sidelines of society.

14Broadly speaking, the French word banlieue is used as an umbrella term to designate areas outside of the city and administrative department of major cities in France. The banlieue parisienne is separated from the city by the périphérique, the ring road which marks a geographical and symbolic division between the two areas and their inhabitants (Ronai, 2004: 29). Literature for the past few decades has been seen by many as a means of bridging this gap between the two zones, providing an alternative image of the banlieue than that provided by the media, and harboured by non-banlieue residents who tend to see the areas as being characterised by exclusion, unemployment, a lack of safety, illicit work, terrorism, and ghettos (Vieillard-Baron, 1996: 4).

15Beyond the confusion surrounding the way the banlieue is perceived and portrayed, Vieillard-Baron argues that it cannot be reduced to a monolithic mass, since it is characterised by extremely varied landscapes (ibid.: 31). For him, it is impossible to define the banlieue unequivocally: there is not one sole banlieue, but many banlieues, wealthy and poor, and a host of socio-economic profiles in between (ibid.: 33). Vieillard-Baron’s opinion is reiterated by Roger Célestin, Éliane DalMolin, and Alec Hargreaves, who, in their introduction to a special edition of the journal Contemporary French and Francophone Studies dedicated to the banlieue, state:

Anyone who has bought a train ticket and looked at the route maps in the Gare St Lazare or the Gare du Nord in Paris knows that the lignes de banlieue (suburban lines) serve a great range of localities from the leafy suburbs of Versailles and Marly-le-Roi to chronically poor concrete agglomerations such as those of La Courneuve, St Denis, and Gennevilliers (2004: 107).

These statements point to the danger of obscuring the individuality of individuals in favour of assigning them an assumed, often sensationalised or stereotyped identity.

16Just over two hours from Paris by train, London presents its own intricate web of districts and suburbs, with their own distinct multiethnic makeup. Sophie Watson and Anamik Saha draw on research by a number of scholars to argue that, although the outer suburbs of British cities have been traditionally pictured as filled with leafy green streets lined with the homes of wealthy, white families, the characteristics of these spaces have evolved since at least the beginning of the new millennium (2012: 2016-2017). They point out that the ethnicity and socioeconomic status of the inhabitants of these suburbs are increasingly diverse, and their observation that many British people tend to associate the rise of multiculturalism in urban areas with social exclusion, terrorism, and riots, echoes the assumptions often made about the banlieue (ibid.: 2017).

17The 50-day March for Equality and Against Racism from Marseille to Paris in late 1983 is often cited as the catalyst for the banlieue literature movement (see Reeck, 2012: 122; Vitali, 2009: 173). 22 years later, the 2005 riots sparked a renewed interest in stories from the banlieue, as evidenced by the almost immediate publication of books in the catalogues of renowned publishing houses such as Gallimard, Hachette, Lattès, and Stock (Cello, 2017: 1). In the UK, the beginning of a new genre of “multicultural fiction” is said to have occurred with the publication of Hanif Kureishi’s 1990 novel The Buddha of Suburbia, with works “revolving around suburban characters who navigate a contingent and uneasy path through a Britain of fast-changing politics and demographics” (Trimm, 2015: 52).

18The extensive media coverage of the violence and turbulence in the banlieue or the multicultural urban areas and suburbs of London and other British cities seems to ignite curiosity in readers not familiar with these spaces, who turn to books in an attempt to understand the qualms of the youth seen in the news. In this way, we might see literature as a means of offering ordinary stories of the everyday life of individuals in these areas, allowing readers to see beyond the immediacy of headlines written in the wake of events and disruptions, and develop empathy while delving into the more banal aspects of the day-to-day existence of people living in these sensationalised spaces. As we will see, however, it is difficult to determine the extent to which the reader is able to dissociate fact from fiction, in light of the details on which publishers and reviewers tend to concentrate in the editorial paratext.

Editorial paratext

19By far her most successful work, Guène’s first novel Kiffe kiffe demain seeks to present the qualms and concerns of a teenage girl, Doria, born to Moroccan parents and living in a housing estate in the town of Livry-Gargan, around fifteen kilometres north-east of Paris. It sold over 400 000 copies both in France and abroad, being translated into over twenty languages. In both France and abroad, Guène was immediately hailed by the press as the “voice of the banlieue”, labelled variously “Sagan of the banlieue” or “plume du bitume”. Though originally published in France by Hachette in 2004 and reprinted many times since, the front cover of edition of the novel currently in print and most widely available features Guène’s face on the cover, which results in the hypervisibility of the author and hints at a distinct link between her and the story of Doria. Countless reader reviews, both in English and French, on sites including Amazon, Goodreads, and Babelio refer to Guène simply as Faïza, suggesting a proximity with the author in that they feel like they know her, and well enough to be on a first-name basis. Several reviews also confuse the author and the teenage character, no doubt due also to the informal and oral style of the book written in the first person.

20The novel was first published in English translation as Just Like Tomorrow in the United Kingdom by Chatto & Windus (Random House) in 2006, the year following the riots. It was translated into English by Sarah Ardizzone, using a broad form of “equivalent” slang seemingly seen as being typical of young British people in similar situations. The translation style was evidently deemed “too British” for American audiences and a revised English-language version was published in the United States later that year. The UK version of the novel features clear visual references to the setting on the front cover, notably with an illustration of the Eiffel Tower, though the quote taken from Elle magazine includes anglophone intertextual reference: “Doria is an adolescent Bridget Jones. Her fantastic voice speaks for all those stuck in Paris’ high-rise estates”. Three other quotes from reviews are printed on the back cover, taken from Cosmopolitan, Newsweek, and The Guardian, with two making reference to “high-rise estates” of the “Parisian suburbs”.

21By way of recognition of the translator, the UK version includes the italicised mention “Translated from French by Sarah Adams” on the title page, as well as the acknowledgement “The translator would like to thank Cleo Soazandry and all the slangstas at Live Magazine”, and a translator’s note entitled “A Note on the Slang” at the end of the novel. The US edition, on the other hand, does not specify that the novel is translated except for in the note “This is an edited version of Sarah Adams’ translation, published by Chatto & Windus in the United Kingdom” on the copyright page. The image on the pink and orange cover displays the head and torso of a teenage girl dancing in between two high-rise buildings, drawing attention to the girl’s loose hair in the wind in what is no doubt an allusion to her relative freedom. No other reference to the original French context is provided in the peritext, with the exception of some of the eleven press excerpts included before the title pages under the title “Praise for Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow”.

22Additionally, both the US and the UK version present a sort of glossary. The US version proposes dictionary-like definitions of a number of terms, mostly dialectal Arabic words which highlight the significance of the narrator’s Moroccan background: bled, Maghreb, mektou, inchallah, hchouma, kif-kif and the verb kiffer. Although the UK translation also provides explicit references to the narrator’s North-African heritage, the glossary that appears at the end of the novel contains fourteen words of various origins with more detailed explanations. As such, the focus on the North-African identity of the narrator obscures the more complex status of her identity as a child of immigrants within French culture, which means that the nature of the Other shifts in the US version of the translation since the idea of exclusion is presented as a more universal condition.

23Rather than embracing the specificity of the setting of the translated story, the American publishers opted to draw attention to an aspect of the text that might resonate more strongly with American audiences. Although their choices might be characterised as reductive, they are also arguably a logical continuation of the largely domesticating strategies used in the two translated versions. Indeed, both the UK and the US editions of the translation present a voice typical of British or American teenagers, as demonstrated in the extract below, taken from the final pages of the book, which presents a reflection on the novel’s title:

C’est ce que je disais tout le temps quand j’allais pas bien et que Maman et moi on se retrouvait toutes seules : kif-kif demain.
Maintenant, kif-kif demain je l’écrirais différemment. Ça serait kiffe kiffe demain, du verbe kiffer. (2004: 192)

Translated in the initial UK version as

It’s what I used to say when I was down and Mum and me were all on our own: ‘kif-kif tomorrow’. Nothing changes, today’s just like tomorrow.
But now I’d say it differently. I’d say I just like tomorrow. (2006a: 177-178)

And in the US version as:

It’s what I used to say all the time when I was down, and Mom and me were suddenly all on our own: ‘kif-kif tomorrow,’ same shit, different day.
But now I’d write it differently. Spell it “kiffe kiffe tomorrow,” borrow from that verb kiffer, for when you really like someone or something. (2006b: 178)

We see here a clear desire to conform with the broader habits of writing orality in the two anglophone contexts, with characteristics such as the use of contracted forms (It’s, today’s, I’d), the removal of subject pronouns (Spell it, borrow from), and the use of oral conjunctions at the beginning of sentences (But). It is also interesting to note that, in line with the paratextual decisions, the US version places more emphasis on the North-African heritage of the novel’s narrator, since the metalinguistic comment on dialectal Arabic term “kiffer” is maintained (and made more explicit) in the translation.

24Like Guène, Wheatle’s background has been emphasised by the media and by his various publishers. Arcadia books, who first published a book by Wheatle in 2011, Brenton Brown, the sequel to his 1999 debut novel Brixton Rock, and republished Brixton Rock in 2020, dedicates a large portion of their long biography to the author’s background:

Born in 1963 to Jamaican parents living in Brixton, Alex Wheatle spent most of his childhood in a Surrey children’s home. He returned to Brixton in 1977 where he founded the Crucial Rocker sound system and performed his own songs and lyrics under the name of Yardman Irie. He spent a short stint in prison following the Brixton uprising in 1981. Following his release from prison he continued to write poems and lyrics and became known as the Brixton Bard. Alex’s first novel, Brixton Rock, was published to critical acclaim in 1999. Five more novels, East of Acre Lane, The Seven Sisters, Island Songs, Checkers and The Dirty South followed, all highly praised. His books are on school reading lists and Alex takes part in Black History Month every year, working with Booktrust and the Children’s Discovery Centre to promote reading. He is representing English PEN, and tours the country with his one-man show, Uprising. He teaches in various places, including Lambeth College, holds workshops in prisons and is frequently invited to schools to speak to students, inspiring a passion for literature with his own story. He was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for services to literature in 2008. A favourite of reading groups and libraries, he is the UK’s most read Black British author. He is working on a non-fiction book about Black Britain and on Young Adult novels.

The biographical note also highlights Wheatle’s value as a role model, placing him on a pedestal, seemingly above all other “Black British authors”.

25The media, meanwhile, tend to highlight his work as being representative of various groups or subgroups, providing a snapshot of “black English in the early eighties” (Daily Telegraph) featuring characters with the potential to start a debate on “how it feels to be mixed race in Britain” (New Statesman) speaking in the voice “of the black urban experience” (Time). A common thread running through the reader reviews on sites such as Goodreads is the assumption of the authenticity of the novels, with the setting and experiences thought to be “genuinely [...] inhabited rather than just described” (Matthew Kayanja’s review of Brixton Rock via Goodreads, 2015).

Though several reader-reviewers concede that they have little direct exposure to the context depicted (“as far as I can tell”, “even though I grew up in another country”, “though I wasn’t alive in 80s Britain”), they nevertheless highlight the relatability of the characters and the story, consistently claiming that the books provide an “insight into British-Jamaican life in early 1980s Brixton” (Goodreads, Carlos Martinez’s review of Brixton Rock via Goodreads, 2018), or give “a pretty convincing voice to the youth of Brixton” (Goodreads, Phobos’ review of The Dirty South via Goodreads, 2010), providing a “slice of young Black Brixton life” (Goodreads, Martinxo’s review of The Dirty South via Goodreads, 2010). It would seem that the fictional voice Wheatle fashions for his characters is therefore not only conflated with his own, but also, variously, with that of all black or mixed-race residents of the UK, just like Guène is assumed to be writing autobiographical fiction that speaks to the experience of every young resident of the banlieue whose parents immigrated to France from a North-African country.

Auctorial paratext

26In her book Identités françaises, Mame-Fatou Niang discusses the challenges of self-representation felt by residents of the banlieue, stating that these spaces are better known through the discourse proposed by media and politicians than through that of their inhabitants (2019: 31). There does not seem to be any straightforward answer to the question of how to balance the desire to provide authentic stories with the will to be seen as independent authors capable of producing works of literary value in their own right, beyond their anthropological utility, and the issue seems to be a real point of consideration for Guène and Wheatle. Both authors seem torn between the desire, on the one hand, to take ownership over a narrative so-often skewed by “outsiders”, whose presentation of residents of the marginal urban spaces like those depicted in their work are often negative or sensationalised, and the refusal, on the other hand, to accept the responsibility to speak on behalf of these residents.

Because we believe that France is a modern country where the possibility for different cultures to live in harmony is achieved when mentalities are stripped of the tendency to pigeonhole, when specific forms of suffering are acknowledged, and when stories bearing the mark of diversity and imagination are told. Because the literature we believe in, as an essential contribution to the war of meaning, is the antithesis of contemporary literature, which is at once self-centered and narrow-minded, and an outlet for bourgeois impulses. Because, catalogued as banlieue writers, etymologically a place of “ban”, we want to occupy cultural spheres, transcend borders and thus reclaim the confiscated space that is rightfully ours, as part of a legitimate quest for universalism. Because this generation, our generation, has the fire required to succeed, the punch to break down doors, the rage to reach our destination, the charisma to shatter the screen, the intelligence to earn degrees, the strength to climb the barricades, the determination of athletes, the beauty of literature, the character of Africa, the smell of the Maghreb, the love of the tricolor flag and of the poetry of France… The ten short stories all relate the flesh of France [...] Reflecting this invisible minority which is actually the majority in France, shying away from the clichés that distort and damage it, these “ordinary and extraordinary” short stories also aim to bring it a little meaning and poetry.

Their statement demonstrates a desire to propose a counter discourse, moving away from the violent coverage provided by the media in favour of presenting their everyday life. They appear in particular to argue for an approach to telling stories that is anchored in lived experience, while at the same time expressing a certain frustration with the idea of being “catalogued” as banlieue writers.

28The relatively immediate and immense success of Kiffe kiffe demain threw Guène into the spotlight, and in both France and abroad she was seen as providing a voice for banlieue residents, telling stories similar to theirs on their behalf. In a 2018 interview on France Inter, she expressed frustration with the treatment she received from the press in the early stages of her career, stating that she was not “considered as a writer” and that, despite receiving a lot of media attention, she was only featured in “society” sections of publications and absent from sections devoted to books or culture. In an episode of the podcast Dia-logues released in 2021, Guène states that she felt like the press treated her like a circus freak (une bête de foire) or a trained monkey (un singe savant) in the early days, with critics interviewing her constantly remarked on how articulate she was, seeming surprised that a young woman of her background spoke French so well.

29The fact that, as she highlights, reviews of her work focussed on the setting and appeared in the lifestyle sections of publications or in sections dedicated to the banlieue meant that journalists sought out her opinion on headscarves, immigration, and urban violence. Her value as a writer was therefore not taken seriously, with journalists preferring to ask her questions about the social and political issues affecting the real-life version of her fictional characters. In another 2018 interview, this time with the magazine Les Inrocks, Guène stated that she would like to be identified by her style, not her background. According to an article published in Le Monde in September 2006, whenever Guène is invited by one of the twenty-four publishers who bought the rights to her first novel, in countries like Brazil, Sweden, and Scotland, she is asked questions about her method, her characters, her writing process, whereas in France, she remains a prisoner of her origins.

30Without performing an extensive contrastive analysis of the questions Guène has been asked in interviews in France and abroad, it remains evident that many aspects of her novels’ paratext in the anglosphere, in particular the reviews of Kiffe kiffe demain, played on her background to assert the authenticity of her books. In an article for the Independent written in 2006, Nicholas Tucker, for instance, asserted in a review that Guène’s novel “[described] a world more often written up by journalists after the latest riots rather than by authors who have lived there all their lives”. The way Guène is portrayed and called on to comment on the banlieue is therefore similar in both contexts. It should be acknowledged, however, that in the anglosphere the distance between the banlieue and the audience is necessarily greater, complicating any efforts or ability to verify the accuracy and relevance of the comments made, meaning also that the audience is perhaps more likely to merge the fictional and factual aspects of the work. Indeed, the diversity of voices speaking about the banlieue is reduced in the English-speaking context, and the comments are presented without the additional layers of filtering inevitably added to the mix through the process of interlingual translation.

31Like Guène, the peritextual elements of Wheatle’s work stand in clear contrast to the way in which he chooses to present himself to society and to readers. The biography provided on his website which lists his artistic influences offers very little in the way of personal information:

Born on the 3rd of January, 1963, I spent most of my childhood in the notorious Shirley Oaks children’s home a few miles east of Croydon. I spent many lonely hours reading comics like The Beano, Whizzer and Chips and Shoot! On the odd chance I’d pick up a discarded football annual.
Growing up, my heroes were Pele, Muhammad Ali, Viv Richards and Bruce Lee.
I am a massive fan of reggae. In my mid teens I was a founder member of the Crucial Rocker sound system where I wrote lyrics for performances in community halls, youth clubs, house parties and blues dances.
My favourite reggae artists are Dennis Brown, Sugar Minott, Gregory Isaacs, Johnny Osbourne, Barrington Levy, The Mighty Diamonds, The Chantells, Wailing Souls, Dennis Bovell, Brown Sugar and so many more.
My first novel, Brixton Rock, was published to critical acclaim by BlackAmber Books in 1999.
Writers who have inspired me include CLR James, James Baldwin, Chester Himes, Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, Charles Dickens, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Iceberg Slim, Linton Kwesi Johnson, John Steinbeck, Raymond Chandler, Courttia Newland, Yvvette Edwards, Nadifa Mohammad and Irenosen Okojie.

This evidently self-written biography does not mention his involvement in the Brixton riots, preferring to focus on his artistic inspiration and background, suggesting that he is interested especially in emphasising his craft. Similarly, the presumably self-written biographical notice appearing in Common People: An Anthology of Working-Class Writers, edited by Kit de Waal in 2019, only mentions his major works and prizes:

Alex Wheatle’s first novel, Brixton Rock, was published to critical acclaim by BlackAmber Books in 1999. He won the London Arts Board Writers Prize in 2000 and was awarded an MBE for services to literature in 2008. His first young adult novel, Liccle Bit, was published in 2015 and was longlisted for the Carnegie medal 2015. His novel Crongton Knights, published in 2016, won the Guardian’s Children’s Fiction Award in 2016 and the Renaissance Quiz Writers’ Choice Award and was shortlisted for the 2017 Bookseller Young Adult prize (296-297).

Visibly, Wheatle is eager to draw attention to his work and away from his own life. Much like Guène, he has expressed frustration with the lack of critical attention paid to his books beyond their value as snapshots of the life of underrepresented groups. In an interview with The Guardian, Wheatle discusses how the “distinctive narrative voices” in his books are assumed to “come naturally”, with readers failing to recognise the craft and stylistic quality of his work (2016). His words are seen as being a mere transcription of his own voice or the voices he hears around him, requiring little effort to transfer from the street to page.

32This frustration seemed to lead him away from adult fiction set in Brixton or featuring characters of Jamaican heritage and towards more obviously fictional works. In 2015, he began writing young adult fiction anchored in an invented setting using a partially invented narrative and dialogue style. Also in The Guardian, he states that he wanted to stop being seen as a “token ghetto writer” so tackled more universal themes of family tensions, of adolescence and childhood, of trying to fit in, though admittedly with his own spin. He gives life to working class characters living in institutionalised care facilities or housing estates, with hints of drug deals and involvement in riots, in line with his own experience as a child but also as a social worker, all in a relatively “safe”, sanitised fashion, much in the same way as Guène’s approach to depicting the struggles of her teenage characters.

33The young adult series was launched in 2015 with the publication of Liccle Bit, followed by three further novels: Crongton Knights (2016), Straight Outta Crongton (2017), and Home Girl (2019). Each book features different but related young characters living in the Crongton area, a fictionalised urban suburb whose name is a portmanteau of Brixton and Croydon. Though the focus of this article is primarily paratextual, it is interesting to note the shift in his writing style, away from more “authentic” forms to the use of softer more accessible forms in the Crongton series. Indeed, his early novels featured fictionalised forms of the sometimes quite opaque vernacular used by West Indian communities in south London, whereas the books targeted at a younger readership are written in a more immediately understandable style. The language is intended to sound young and urban but it remains largely transparent, as evidenced in the extracts below:

Carol and me were enjoying ourselves at the club, dancing and t’ing, then I buck up on Floyd. He asked me that if I don’t want to dance with him and we would go home and think about being a monk. I mean, what a load of nonsense! Anyway, he looked like he had nuff refusal from a whole ‘eap of gal, so I danced with him ‘cos I felt sorry for the poor bwai. […] That party we’re supposed to go to was cancelled. I think my source’s mother didn’t like the fact that the party was being arranged in her yard, and she didn’t know a damn. (Wheatle, 2020 [1999]: 22)

The next Saturday, Jonah and I had been playing God of War on McKay’s PlayStation 3. As usual I lost but I had a good vibe cos McKay’s dad bought us a bucket of Tennessee Fried Chicken and fries for our lunch. We chased that down with two bottles of chilled Coke so we all had a trailer-load of energy to get rid of. We headed to the park between North and South Crognton just to chill out and watch the older brothers play football. Sometimes a few chicks would hang out there, so I got my strut on and walked like I owned half of New York. McKay and Jonah were laughing at me but I didn’t care. (Wheatle, 2015a: 22)

This shift from often obscure lexis (buck up, bwai, source), non-standard use of relative pronouns (asked me that if don’t want), and spelling to reflect accent and pronunciation (t’ing, nuff), to name but a few of the features of his writing style, to a more syntactically fluid and accessible narrative form, reveals a form of indirect, intralingual and self-translation, no doubt in an effort to appeal to a broader, and younger, audience.

34When it comes to the translations of his young adult novels, as for Guène’s novels, the approach adopted ensures the readability of the text, no doubt in line with the perceived needs of the adolescent target readership. The extract above from Liccle Bit is provided below in its translated version:

Le samedi suivant, Jonah et moi, on jouait à God of War sur la PlayStation 3 de McKay. J’ai perdu, comme d’habitude, mais j’ai passé un bon moment, parce que le père de McKay nous avait acheté un bucket de Tennessee Fried Chicken et des frites pour le déjeuner. On a descendu tout ça avec deux bouteilles de Coca frais, alors on avait tous plein d’énergie à dépenser. On s’est dirigés vers le parc situé entre Crongton-Nord et Crongton-Sud, dans la seule intention de décompresser et de regarder les mecs plus âgés joués au foot. Parfois, quelques nanas traînaient aussi là-bas. Je me suis donc mis à rouler des mécaniques et j’ai adopté la démarche d’un type qui possède la moitié de la ville de New York. McKay et Jonah se moquaient de moi, mais je m’en fichais. (Wheatle, 2015b: 30)

Although the French version maintains the foreign cultural references and proper nouns (God of War, Tennessee Fried Chicken, Crongton), the general strategy seems to consist in providing an overall relaxed tone and register through choices related both to syntax and lexis (e.g. run-on sentences with the use of informal conjunctions such as alors, colloquial (even slangy) vocabulary such as nana, type, mec, the informal first-person plural form on, and contracted forms such as ça for “cela”).

35Wheatle’s own story was further thrust into the spotlight following the release of Steve McQueen’s vastly successful BBC One miniseries Small Axe in December 2020, with one of the films dedicated to Wheatle’s childhood and adolescence, documenting his involvement in the Brixton Riots. As well as no doubt accentuating the existing trend to see Wheatle’s work as autobiographical, it also resulted in the author receiving more considerable exposure to a wider audience. Combined with the success of his young adult fiction, and the anniversary of the Brixton Riots in 2021, countless new publications and projects arose, including rumoured film adaptations of several books, audiobooks for East of Acre Lane and the Crongton series, and the republication of his first novel Brixton Rock. Though it garnered attention upon its release, this attention was relatively short-lived, and the novel was “unearthed” before the 40th anniversary of the Brixton riots with a new preface from the author, entitled “My Not So Literary Education”, despite not containing any direct references to the uprising, also coinciding with the release of Small Axe.

Visibility, veracity, diversity

36To close this article, we can refer to a comment made during the question-and-answer session with Mathieu Kassovitz following the screening of the 1995 cult film La Haine, when a young man from Saint Denis commented on the media hype that praised the film’s realism: “Where do these journalists live to be able to say that La Haine is reality?” (Libération, online). His objections can be related to the important question of the difficulty that audiences face in assessing the accuracy of what is unknown to them. It could be seen as suggesting a form of passive armchair tourism, also hinted at by a character in the film who addresses journalists driving around the neighbourhood and tells them that they don’t live in a zoo.

37In his first novel, Wheatle seemed to pre-empt the issues around the idea of reading literature about minorities as a substitute for taking more tangible action. He has one of his characters say, “You can read all the books you want, but that won’t make a difference, ’cos you don’t actually know what it really feels like to live my shit of a life” (2000 [1999]: 13). This disconnect between living vicariously and actually living is further addressed by author Viet Thanh Nguyen who warns against the risk of complacency when reading fiction:

Readers and writers should not deceive themselves that literature changes the world. Literature changes the world of readers and writers, but literature does not change the world until people get out of their chairs, go out in the world, and do something to transform the conditions of which the literature speaks. Otherwise literature will just be a fetish for readers and writers, allowing them to think that they are hearing the voiceless when they are really only hearing the writer’s individual voice. (2018: 20)

The trends in the paratextual presentation of Wheatle’s and Guène’s novels in both their initial context of publication and abroad point to a desire to turn to “authentic” voices for insight into marginal communities’ lives when the groups depicted in fiction are featured in the news, at times and anniversaries of social upheaval. These events seem to lead to the republication or translation of authors’ works, especially when these works encounter success or recognition elsewhere or the author is accorded increased visibility. When the themes are seen as being relatable and the style accessible, it seems logical to suggest that the works will receive more attention. The editorial paratext, seen in author bios and marketing material, additionally appear to show that there is a desire to assert their writers’ authority to write about specific groups, perhaps to avoid giving the impression of appropriating marginalised voices in the wake of a growing trend to seek out more diverse stories and voices.

38Nevertheless, judging from the ways in which the authors seem to present themselves to the general public, it is apparent that there is a confusion between the idea of speaking from a specific place and viewpoint and that of speaking for a specific group of people. Furthermore, the language used in reader reviews demonstrates an unwillingness or inability to dissociate fact and fiction, with a lack of attention accorded to the artistic process of fabrication and the editorial process of mediation in the publication of texts in their original context, and even less to the translation process and the role of translators and editors in producing the texts in interlingual translation. As such, authors (and their work) are seen as representatives of or spokespeople for real-life groups in question, further engendering the risk of complex groups being considered as cohesive, monolithic wholes. This trend appears even more dangerous in the case of interlingual translation, when we take into account the availability of voices at home as compared with those provided abroad, meaning that readers of translated fiction are less capable of dissociating fact from fiction. As a result, readers of translated fiction in particular may read novels as works of anthropology, more likely to assume that the books really do speak on behalf of broader groups and offer an accurate portrayal of real-life issues.