«The translation of dialect [...] still remains one of the biggest lacunae in translation studies» (Herrera 2014: 290). In what follows, I hope to contribute to discussions begun by Brodsky (1993, 1996), Lavoie (1994, 2002) and others on the difficulty of translating Black English (BE) through a study of two autobiographic novels by Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) and The Heart of a Woman (1981), and the bestseller The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill (2007). The role of BE in these novels is not merely one of «local colour». How have translators of those novels, Besse (2008), Saint-Martin and Gagné (2008), and Noël (2011/2014), faced the challenge of honouring the underlying purpose of the source text as well as the needs of the target audience? This study suggests that by accepting to deviate more frequently from the norms and forms of the French language, translators could more faithfully render Black idiom, thus preserving its cultural and ideological significance.