The first translations of Harlem renaissance poetry in Slovenia

Abstract

From the present-day perspective Harlem Renaissance poetry represents an epoch-making contribution by America's black authors to the mainstream literature. However, in the post World War 1 era black authors struggled for recognition in their homeland. The publication of a German anthology Afrika singt in the late 1920s agitated Europe as well as the German-speaking authors in Slovenia. Mile Klopčič, a representative of the poetry of Social Realism, translated a handful of Har­ lem Renaissance poems into Slovene using, except in two cases, the German anthology as a source text. His translations are formally accomplished but fail to reproduce the cultural significance of the Harlem Renaissance poetry.