Our Beautiful Darkness by Ondjaki has been translated into English from the original Portuguese by Lyn Miller-Lachmann. The process of translating a graphic novel differs somewhat from that of a more traditional prose novel. This is due to the importance of the interaction between the text and images, with each component needing to work in harmony with and enhance the other to establish a fully-formed narrative.

Hannah Chute, who has translated several graphic novels from French into English, has discussed the challenges and trade-offs of working with a visual form. On the one hand, she explains, "having the graphic on the page can give you a clue of what to use if the meaning is ambiguous" in the original language. A word in French might have eight different meanings in English, but it's easy to figure out the correct meaning, because it's drawn on the page. On the other hand, the formal constraint of the text boxes—having to fit the translated words into the same size space,...