Abstract

This thesis sets out from a partial translation of Willy Apollon’s 1976 book, Le vaudou: un espace pour les “voix.” Apollon is a psychoanalyst from Haiti who has been developing the psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis in Quebec since 1981. In addition to the translation, it offers a theoretical reflection on translating that derives from concepts of voice and writing developed in Apollon’s book, which are then brought into relation with Henri Meschonnic’s notion of hearing and Pier-Pascale Boulanger’s notion of an “érotique du traduire.” The theoretical section threads a concept of the drive through the work of these three theorists to arrive at a perspective on translation that situates it in alignment with Apollon’s theory of the voice by way of Boulanger’s notion of the erotic. Meschonnic’s demand that the translator hear “the poem”—an inherent quality in a text that indicates the presence of the subject—is considered alongside Apollon’s demand that the “voice” be heard in a text. Finally, with the intention of incorporating Apollon’s concept of voice into a form of writing that reflects key ideas in the book, a research creation section takes the form of associative, intratextual writing that responds to the experience of translating Le vaudou: un espace pour les “voix,” while also working from the concept of voice theorized by Apollon, as well as concepts and methods taken from psychoanalysis that reflect Apollon’s later work in the field.