The translator of slave memoirs shaped how European readers understood the Sudan

Evidence

These lines were translated from the German by Sir Reginald Wingate, a persistent advocate of Britain’s formal colonization of the Sudan who became governor-general of the Sudan after 1900. With the translator’s political persuasion in mind, one sees how the words master and sire, uttered by a European to a Sudanese, hang in the air, always ironic apostrophes, particularly in the last paragraph of the passage. Slatin, with Wingate’s support, represents himself as if he were a character in a play. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 613

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to broader theme of how colonial-era translations and editorial frames shaped African historiography, akin to the translator-as-gatekeeper discussions common in postcolonial studies.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: which other Sudanese/Ottoman memoirs of the Mahdïya came into English through Wingate’s politically motivated translation?