Teaching African Literatures and Translation
Maya G. Vinuesa,
Universidad de Alcalá ([email protected])
“Having spoken plainly so far, Oyoke said the next half a dozen sentences in proverbs. Among the Ibo the art of conversation is
regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten [my italics]. Oyoke was a great talker and he spoke for
a long time, skirting around the subject and then hitting it finally. In short, he was asking Unoka to return the two hundred cowries he
had borrowed from him two years before”.
Chinua Achebe and his inaugural appropriation the colonial language (“Igoboized English”)
1.In “Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature”:
No serious writer can possibly be indifferent to the fate of any language, let alone his own mother tongue. For most writers in the
world, there is never any conflict –the mother tongue and the writing language are one and the same. But from time to time, and as a
result of grave historical reasons, a writer may be trapped unhappily and invidiously between two imperatives (Achebe 2011: 97).
2. Achebe’s stand:
I write in English. English is a world language. But I do not write in English because it is a world language. My romance with the
world is subsidiary to my involvement with Nigeria and Africa. Nigeria is a reality which I could not ignore. One characteristic of this
reality, Nigeria, is that it transacts a considerable portion of its daily business in the English language. As long as Nigeria wishes to
exist as a nation, it has no choice in the foreseeable future but to hold its more than two hundred component nationalities together
through an alien language, English. I lived through a civil war in which probably two million people perished over the question of
Nigerian unity. To remind me, therefore, that Nigeria’s foundation was laid only a hundred years ago, at the Berlin conference of
European powers and in the total absence of Africans, it not really useful information to me. It is precisely because the nation is so new
and so fragile that we would soak the land in blood to maintain the frontiers mapped out by foreigners.
English is therefore not marginal to Nigerian affairs. It is quite central. I can only speak across two hundred linguistic
frontiers to fellow Nigerians in English. Of course I also have a mother tongue, which luckily for me is one of the three major
languages of the country. “Luckily,” I say, because this language, Igbo, is not really in danger of extinction. I can gauge my good luck
against the resentment of fellow Nigerians who oppose most vehemently the token respect accorded to the three major tongues by
newscasters saying good night in them after reading a half-hour bulletin in English! (Achebe 2011: 100).
3. Achebe’s aim: “to produce something new and valuable to the English language as well as to the material his is trying to put over. But it can
also get out of hand. It can lead to simply bad English being accepted and defended as African or Nigerian. I submit that those who can do the
work of extending the frontiers of English so as to accommodate African thought patterns must do it through their mastery of English and not out
of innocence” (Achebe 1973: 12)
4. Achebe (‘English and the African Writer,’ Transition, IV, 18, 1965: 29), quoted in Braj Kachru (The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures.
Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992: 142) and in Herbert Igboanusi (Igbo English in the Nigerian Novel. Ibadan: Enicrownfit Publishers,
2002: 12-13):
(a) I want one of my sons to join these people and be my eyes there. If there is something here you will bring back my share. The world
is like a mask, dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place. My spirit tells me that those who do not befriend the
white man today will be saying, ‘had we known’ tomorrow (Arrow of God [1965] 2010: 47)
(b) I am sending you as my representative among these people –just to be on the safe in case the new religion develops. One has to
move with the times or else one is left behind. I have a huntch that those who come to terms with the white man may well regret their
lack of foresight.
(c) Implications for translation
Quiero que uno de mis hijos se una a esta gente y sea mis ojos entre ellos. Si no hay nada, te vuelves. Pero si hay algo que merezca la
pena, te traerás mi parte a casa. El mundo es como una Máscara en danza. Si quieres verla bien no puedes quedarte parado en un solo
sitio. Mi espíritu me dice que quienes hoy no se hagan amigos de los blancos mañana dirán: “¡Si lo hubiéramos sabido…!”. (La flecha
del dios 2010: 76).
5. Arrow of God: the crier’s message
GOME GOME GOME GOME. ‘Ora Obodo, listen! Ezeulu has asked me to announce that the Festival of the Pumpkin Leaves will
take place on the coming Nkwo.’ GOME GOME GOME GOME. ‘Ora Obodo! Ezeulu has asked me…’ (p. 66)
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Gong, gong, gong, gong. “¡Escucha, Ora Obodo! Ezeulu me ha pedido que anuncie que el Festival de las Hojas de Calabaza se
celebrará en el próximo nkwo.” Gong, gong, gong, gong. “¡Ora Obodo! Ezeulu me ha pedido…” (99)
Achebe, astutely translates ‘Nkwo’ via repetition and paraphrasing in another paragraph.
GOME GOME GOME GOME. ‘Folks of the village. The Chief Priest of Ulu has asked me to tell every man and every woman that the
Festival of the First Pumpkin Leaves will be held on the coming Nkwo market day.’ [my bold] GOME GOME GOME GOME (p.
66).
Gong, gong, gong, gong. “Gentes de la aldea. El sumo sacerdote de Ulu me ha ordenado que diga a todos los hombres y mujeres que el
Festival de las Primeras Hojas de Calabaza se celebrará el próximo día de mercado Nkwo.” Gong, gong, gong, gong. (p.100)
6. Publishers’ interventions: the translation of titles
La flecha de Dios (which you may still find this in the webpage of La Casa del Libro), vs. the final La flecha del dios:
6.1.If the festival meant no more than this it would still be the most important ceremony in Umuaro. But it was also the day for all the
minor deities in the six villages who did not have their own special feasts. On that day each of the gods was brought by its custodian
and stood in a line outside the shrine of Ulu so that any man or woman who had received a favour from it could make a small present in
return. This was the one public appearance these smaller gods were allowed in the year. (Achebe [1965] 2010: 204).
6.2. Things were so bad for the six villages that their leaders came together to save themselves. They hired a strong team of medicinemen to install a common deity for them. This deity which the fathers of the six villages made was called Ulu. Half of the medicine was
buried at a place which became Nkwo market and the other half thrown into the stream which became Mili Ulu. The six villages took
the name of Umuaro, and the priest of Ulu became their Chief Priest (Achebe [1965] 2010: 15).
6.3. Ulu is not, however representative of the nature gods, the permanent gods of Igboland. […] Achebe created Ulu for the purposes of
his artistic vision much as the traditional oral performers created spirits and human characters from their narrative visions. However,
both Achebe and the traditional artist build their characters from aspects of well-known and accepted Igbo thought and belief systems.
In creating an Ulu who is known and yet unknown, Achebe works within the traditional oral narrative technique of creating stories
whose nameless characters his audience can only partly identify in the sense that their behavioral characteristics are familiar but their
physical features are not. This technique allows the audience to identify with the character, which in turn facilitates the major didactic
function of oral narrative performance. Ulu has enough characteristics to identify him as one of the gods. Using this narrative technique
frees Achebe from theological or mythical perspectives on religion (A. C. Kalu ,“Achebe and Duality in Igbo Thought”, in Harold
Bloom (ed.) Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, New York: Chelsea House, 2002: 65-66).
Agnès Agboton: Self-translation and cultural mediation
7.1. In “Dadá Segbo y sus cuarenta y una mujeres” [Dadá Segbo and his forty one wives] (Na Miton: La mujer en los cuentos y leyendas
africanos Barcelona, RBA, 2004: 45-49)
Mè hé hô gnin enin
Ko dja nin.
Sè hé dô enin
Ko dja nin.
Yigmbe tché wè un wa hue (repeat)
Adonon yogbó ka koundo (repeat)
Zin flin goyo ma soun gbada
Ema djahi hà
Sè mè mon gbèmè nou wan gnan
Wa sé létè nou ma dó gbèmè nou wan gnan
Wa sé létè nou ma dó gbèmè hó yè dé noué.
“He aquí a quien se casó conmigo,
Que está llegando.
He aquí al principio vital a quien me debo,
Que está llegando.
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Estaba yo haciendo mi camino
Pero el glotón de Yó cavó un foso.
La jarra que se tambalea debe asegurarse.
Pero se ha quebrado, ¡ah!
Pero el se, principio vital, ve todas las cosas.
Ven, ponte aquí de pie para que yo te cuente algunas
historias sobre la vida.” (2004: 47)
“Here is the one who married me / arriving now./ Here is the vital principle I belong to/ he is arriving now./ I was walking my way/ but greedy
Yó dug a ditch./ The trembling jar must be grabbed safely. But it is broken now, oh! / But se, the vital principle, sees everything. / Come! Stand
beside me and let me tell you some stories about life.” [My translation].
7.2. Si tu marido quiere tomar una co-esposa y eso no te gusta, debes llamarle, hacer que se siente y comunicárselo, hacérselo saber
sinceramente. Pues sentir celos por ello, hasta desear su muerte, no es en absoluto algo bueno” (2004: pp. 47-48)/ “if your husband wishes to take
on a co-wife and you don’t like this, you must call him, ask him to sit down and be frank with him. Because feeling jealous about her, to the
extent of wishing her death, is not good at all” [my translation].
8. Agnès Agboton on her own practice of self-translation (Maya Vinuesa, “Agnès Agboton: Self-translation and Intercultural Mediation” in S.
Brancato 2011).
1. Where does this awesome will to write in three languages, i.e., Gun, Catalan and Spanish come from?
Initially it was not a deliberate decision –I believe it has only been due to my own personal journey. I was born into a Gun family and, because of
that very family circumstance, I found myself immersed in sounds of other languages and dialects such as Yoruba, Fon or Mina, which still
accompany me in the shape of a placid purr.
I was first educated in French, afterwards I married a Catalonian man and, living with him in his country, I discovered this language that seduces
me, that I feel very comfortable with it. Then, I am constantly in contact with (Castilian) Spanish, a language I embraced when I arrived in Spain
which was also the language of my degree in Language and Literature. It is astonishing how this may become a source of some problems,
because Romance languages have an annoying way of overlapping with each other and I can never feel sure that what I have written is “correct”
as an academic might do.
2. ‘Language constructs one’, you have often said. In what sense does each one of these languages construct you?
Of course, language constructs us… Have you ever noticed the way Germans or Italians argue? I believe this has to do, partly, with the fact that
verbs in German are placed at the end of the sentence, and this is an impediment for the opposite party to understand it until the first speaker has
finished –and that implies an apparently much less heated argument and demands a particular way of receiving the other’s word… So it
gradually constructs us, it certainly does.
It is true, I have said this before and I still think so. Not just at the written level, but also at the oral one. This is an endless construction and also a
fascinating one from my point of view and also in the geographical spot where I live. In Barcelona I continue to speak Gun with friends and
relatives, even from a distance, and it is the same with French. Then, regarding Spanish and Catalan, the fact of being in permanent physical
contact with them, the influence of these two languages (which I think I have mastered but I will, unfortunately, never ‘feel’ them) is always
constructing me inwardly, though not at random. And fortunately this is a bottomless pit…
The first time I listened to Catalan (not understanding a word of it, of course) was in Ivory Coast, on the veranda at Bingerville, listening to
Manuel’s [her husband] conversation with his mother (his parents came to spend a few days with him when I was already there). Catalan felt
then a very sweet and tender language… And it still feels so now, being my everyday language and knowing about its dry outbursts…
However, we also learned Spanish at school (as a second foreign language) and my relation towards it from the beginning had a nice “cultural”
nuance. We enjoyed studying it.
I once listened to a psychologist saying that pure bilingualism is impossible, that there will always be a prevalent language… I don’t know… I
feel ‘four-lingual’ and I switch –easily, even within the same conversation- from one language to another. This is a “requirement of the script”,
as a particular expression in the middle of a dialogue may require code-switching. In Catalonia this is a constant phenomenon –Catalan and
Spanish mix without the least effort in everyday conversation (and it goes almost unnoticed). At home this phenomenon is even more intense as
French comes in and, when Manuel and I talk, we tend to look for the right word in whatever language to express what we think or what we feel,
not bothered at all by switching from one language to another.
In my case I believe it is the theme of whatever I wish to write that actually chooses its language… although sometimes this decision may be
made by the publisher. I have published in Gun, in Catalan and in Castilian Spanish, but never in French. Regarding Beyond the Sea of Sand
(2005), I translated it from Castilian Spanish into Catalan (as I speak Catalan with my children and this book, as you know, is addressed to
them). But both versions are, for me, the ‘original’.
Writing literature is quite different altogether, of course –I must choose and write just one language… but that is a ‘process of manufacture’. In
fact, even speaking a single language, the very fact of doing that is already a ‘translation’. We translate into words various impulses, emotions
and thoughts which originally are not ‘verbal’… Ultimately, it is all about translating!
3. Your poetry seems to flow in Gun, your writing on African cooking originates in Gun and is published in Catalan, your book on your
personal journey moves from Catalan into Spanish… Tell us more about the language you write in and the genre of each text.
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Yes, my poetry flows in Gun… perhaps (I am not sure) because it comes from an intimate drive rooted in my childhood. Words in Gun have, for
me, a smell and a taste (and this is not a metaphor, it is actually physical, real); the Gun tongue also, as all tonal languages, allows for a very
poetic approach to the ‘music’ in words. I ‘feel’ my poetry in Gun, that is true…
Regarding my cookery books Columna Publishers asked me for a first (and ancient) booklet on African recipes and, because Columna publish in
Catalan, that was the only option.
But I remember when this publishing house wanted to print that old book again, later on,I suggested a new one (in Catalan): Àfrica des del
fogons [Africa from the Stove]. By the time this book was published, Columna had already launched Ediciones del Bronce in Spanish and the
Catalan book just came out at the same time –I think there was a year’s difference between the publications in both languages (it had
already‘grown’ in both languages!)
But I must say that, for me, you know, perhaps if it hadn’t been a demand by the publisher, I would also have written it in Gun. As I have always
felt that cooking, be it from my continent or any other, is nearly another form of poetry –although there are many other issues attached to it apart
from the simple fact of satisfying hunger.
4. Self-translation has been seen recently as mediation between cultures… have you ever felt pressed to play this role as a writer? I am
thinking of the subheading of your autobiography in the Spanish version, Una mujer Africana en España [An African Woman in Spain].
Well, I would say that can be the case quite often… Regarding the subheading Una mujer Africana en España [An African Woman in
Spain], it was certainly a commercial strategy on the part of Lumen Publishers. As an anecdote, the version in Catalan by Rosa dels vents
Publishers says Una dona africana a la nostra terra [An African Woman in our land].
5. In the long way journey that moves from the recording of a story to its transcription and translation, what is gained and what is lost
for the reader in Catalan and Spanish?
The gain is about being able to fix in written language some aspects of that knowledge with all that is implied in a given culture and not losing it.
What is lost, in my experience of translating some stories, is the freshness of the oral language, the long and rich innuendoes, that evoke the
meanings of words which, once moved into more normative corsets, constrain one a lot more.
Let me give you an example: n’ñi wuan nan wué means literally ‘I like your smell’, and I eventually have to translate it as ‘I love
you’. This also means omitting other implied emotions, which are untranslatable.
That is why I believe that my task collecting these stories in Spanish or in Catalan is a very evocative challenge that I happily impose
on myself, to see if I can pour them into ‘another’ Spanish or Catalan of my own. But once I am done, I let my readers judge that.
French is a wholly different thing. I have never published in French, although I have done it alongside my work process to see what it
would yield, or how I feel it. However, this is not a kind of game that allows me to use the language of the metropolis, but the very special
French we speak over there.
6. Your stories may not be too politically correct –in fact they may be quite cruel, even towards women. Is there anything you would
wish to convey to your European women readers?
Oh, no! There is nothing I wish to teach in that sense… I am just trying to take care of an oral heritage which is disappearing and to write down
on paper these certain moments or shivering instances that keep me alive… mainly out of selfishness, because this makes me feel well.
I do not care much about being politically correct (and I have stated this in Beyond the Sea of Sand) and I mistrust those messiahs who
claim to possess the truth (catholics and muslims, marxists, feminists…). There is no way I want to place myself in the role of a wise lady
teaching poor ignorant people…
But of course, if they wish to learn something, then why not? It is about approaching another way of looking at things and then
deciding whether they like it or not –I believe I am only trying to offer people something I have drunk from. In fact, there are other writers who
would not agree with what I do and who have chosen other paths which are just as perfectly valid.
Brian Chikwava: playing with the mother tongue(s)
9. Brian Chikwava’s stand on the use of a fictional pidginised Zimbabwean English (Vinuesa 2012, in press)
1. What is (are) your mother tongue(s)?
I was born into a family that spoke Ndebele, from my mother's side, and Shona, from my father's side and English from both parents.
2. As a writer from Zimbabwe, where English is one more language with Shona, Ndebele, and others, what is your stand on the use of
English as your literary language?
Because of the way personal or national identity is constructed around languages, I like to think that having multiple languages opens up a lot of
possibilities, which for a writer is a real asset. There are a handful of reasons for not choosing to write in either Ndebele or Shona, though they
form the scaffolding over which I hang the English language. I choose to write in English because it gives me an instant platform in transnational
conversations; that way I do not have to be confined to the 15 million Zimbabweans. Indigenous languages tend to isolate experiences, colonial
languages tend to aggregate experiences but that is a historical accident and, from a writerly perspective, if one intends to engage in conversation
with other corners of the world that do not speak Shona or Ndebele, it may even be interesting to see that historical outcome as offering
possibilities for self re-imagination, reconstruction and renewal.
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3. What kind of English do you want to represent in your hero's speech? Different readers perceive it differently, and some of them seem
to miss the point that this is fiction, and thus the hero's language may also be a fiction rather than a reflection of what a real Green
Bomber might speak like. An angry reviewer states that this boy should speak in Shona, rather than in English (see the file with the
Amazon reviewers' texts), while a happy reader feels that this is a unique voice...
I'm not so much seeking to put forward a certain kind of English in Harare North but finding an idiom that, from a purely artistic perspective,
best captures the Green Bomber narrator. The Green Bomber may not speak that kind of English because he would mostly express himself in
Shona or Ndebele but to translate that straight into standard English means that one loses a lot of the colour of the narrator's internal psychology,
logic and other traits that are drawn from Shona or Ndebele. Yet to have written the book in Shona/Ndebele would have meant confining myself
to a Zimbabwean readership only which, given the size of the nation, would translate into a couple of hundred readers if I'm lucky. That would
have been a crazy choice to make, especially in today's rapidly converging world.
10. Brian Chikwava (2009) Harare North. London: Vintage
Prologue
Never mind that he manage to keep me well fed for some time, but like many immigrant on whose face fate had driven one large peg and hang
tall stories, Shingi had not only become poor bread-winner but he had now turn into big headache for me. When it become clear that our
friendship is now big danger to my plan, me I find no reason to continue it, so I finish it off straight and square.
When I climb out of Brixton Tube station that morning, there is white, ice-cold sun hanging in the sky like frozen pizza base. Beyond
the station entrance, some chilly wind is blowing piece of Mars bar wrapper diagonal over pedestrian crossing. And the traffic lights –they is red
like ketchup.
To the right of station entrance one newspaper vendor stand beside pile of copies of Evening Standard. On front page of every one of
them papers President Mugabe’s face is folded in two. I can still identify His Excellency. The paper say that Zimbabwe has run out toilet paper.
That make me imagine how after many times of bum wiping with the ruthless and patriotic Herald newspaper, everyone’s troubled buttock holes
get vex and now turn into likkle red knots. But except for this small complaint from them dark and hairy buttocks, me I don’t see what the whole
noise is about.
(a) Translation into unmarked standard Spanish (Spain)
De acuerdo que se las arregló para alimentarme bien una temporada, pero como muchos inmigrantes en cuyo rostro el destino había puesto una
pinza grande y le había colgado grandes historias, Shingi no sólo había dejado de ganarse su pan de cada día, sino que también se había
convertido en un gran dolor de cabeza para mí. Cuando me quedó claro que nuestra amistad resultaba un peligro para mi plan, decidí que no
valía la pena mantenerla, así que terminé con ella directamente.
Al salir de la estación de metro aquella mañana, había un sol pálido y gélido colgando en el cielo, como una base de pizza congelada. A
lo lejos de la entrada de la estación, se veía un viento helado que zarandeaba un envoltorio de barras de chocolate Mars en diagonal sobre el
cruce de los peatones. Y los semáforos… rojos como el kétchup.
A la derecha de la estación había un vendedor de periódicos junto a un
montón de copias del Evening Standard. En la portada de todos ellos se veía la cara del Presidente Mugabe doblada por la mitad. El periódico
decía que a Zimbabue se le habían acabado las reservas de papel higiénico. Aquello me hizo imaginar cómo después de mucho limpiarse el
trasero con el implacable y patriótico periódico Herald, todo el mundo tendría sus pobres anos irritados, hinchados y rojos. Aparte de aquella
nimiedad de las nalgas oscuras y peludas, no veía a santo de qué se armaba tanto escándalo.
(b) Translation into a Spanish slang (Spain)
Está claro que al principio el tío se ocupó de echarme un cable con la comida, y se lo curró, pero después, como muchos inmigrantes a quienes el
destino clava una pinza con grandes planes colgando, Shingi no sólo dejó de ganarse las habichuelas, sino que empezó a joderme. Cuando ví que
su amistad me metía en un lío detrás de otro, decidí cortarla por lo sano.
Al salir del metro aquella mañana ví un sol blanco y gélido colgao del cielo, como un pan de pizza salido del congelador. Afuera de la
estación un viento frío de cojones levantó un papelajo de Mars por encima del cruce de peatones… y eso que los semáforos estaban más coloraos
que un bote de kétchup.
A la derecha de la estación había un vendedor de periódicos con un montón de copias del Evening Standard. El careto del Presidente
Mugabe aparecía en primera página, doblado por la mitad. Según el periódico, Zimbabue se había quedado sin papel higiénico. Menudos anos
tendría el personal, pensé, irritados y hechos unos burruños coloraos, de limpiarse el culo con el firme y patriótico Herald. De todas formas, ¿a
qué venía tanto follón por aquella chorrada de culos negros y peludos?
(c) Translation into pichi (Equatorial Guinea)
Na tru se e helpme wet de chop for som ten bot lek bocu pipul we de no get pepa an de laif put den som big tory pan den fess. Shingi e no ben lef
for fend wetin we go chop enide bot e ben be big jat-jet for me. Nain a can sabi se de compin we wi be e ben don de hamboc mi plan. A can
member se e beta mek we no be compin, na so we can chakra compin.
We a comot na de estacion for metro dat moni de san we a ben jeng op e no ben so stron and a ben fiba wait an stron col pizza we e no
ba don. Fron fawei yu ben fi si jao de col briss ben de hes som chocolatinasden for Mars we den ben de bifo de sai we yu de enta insae de
estacion and fron de say we pipul den de pass an de red lit den ben fiva lek red ketchup.
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Fron de rit sai for de estacion son man ben de sel periodicoden we den ben de wet som den for the Evening Standard. Na den bifo sai den
ben put de fes for presidente Mugabe we a ben bend na de midul for the pepa. De periodico ben de tak se Simbabue in paper for clin wos we den
ben kip a don finis. Dantin mek me a member se aftar we den go don clin ol den waseden bocu ten wet de wandaful contri periodico Herald,
eniwan po wes go de bon, afta a go suel an a go red. A pat for dan simol tin for de blak wesden wet jia, a no ben de si wetin den ben mek ol dat
nueis.
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