Abstract
Drawing on professional experiences as a literary translator seeking to promote transversal, island‑to‑island translation flows, together with a comparative analysis of the contemporary literary ecosystems of the insular Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, this article pits recent debates on the issue of in/visibility in Translation Studies against concrete examples of translations marketed for English‑ and French‑speaking readers. In particular, it focuses on the recent co‑translation, for the Irish/UK market, of Reunionese writer Gaëlle Bélem’s debut novel,
Un monstre est là, derrière la porte
, and on the translation, for the French/Antillean market, of Trinidadian writer Elizabeth Nunez’s memoir,
Not For Everyday Use
. It highlights patterns present behind the concept of “book discoverability” to examine issues of asymmetry and invisibilization at work in the contemporary “literary Capitalocene,” and concludes with a call for a new book order in which translation can be (re)envisaged beyond the (neo)colonial doctrines of visibility and discovery.