Translation in African Contexts

Maina Mwangi Evan

Description

Author Evan Maina Mwangi explores the intersection of translation, sexuality, and cosmopolitan ethics in African literature. Usually seen as the preserve of literature published by Euro-American metropolitan outlets for Western consumption, cultural translation is also a recurrent theme in postcolonial African texts produced primarily for local circulation and sometimes in African languages. Mwangi illustrates how such texts allude to various forms of translation to depict the ethical relations to foreigners and the powerless, including sexual minorities. He also explains the popularity of fluent models of translation in African literature, regardless of the energetic critique of such models by Western-based postcolonial theorists.While bringing to the foreground texts that have received little critical attention in African literary studies, Translation in African Contexts engages a wide range of foundational and postcolonial translation theorists. It considers a rich variety of works, including East African translations of Shakespeare, writings by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Gakaara wa Wanjau, a popular novel by Charles Mangua, and a stage adaptation by the Tanzanian playwright Amandina Lihamba, among others.

Sujets

• África
• Languages of Africa
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 10 octobre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781631012945
• Langue: English

Extrait

TRANSLATION IN AFRICAN CONTEXTS
TRANSLATION STUDIES
B RIAN J. B AER , E DITOR
Albrecht Neubert, Gert Jäger, and Gregory M. Shreve, Founding Editors
1 Translation as Text
Albrecht Neubert and Gregory M. Shreve
2 Pathways to Translation: Pedagogy and Process
Donald C. Kiraly
3 What Is Translation?: Centrifugal Theories, Critical Interventions
Douglas Robinson
4 Repairing Texts: Empirical Investigations of Machine Translation Post-Editing Processes
Hans P. Krings, Edited by Geoffrey S. Koby
5 Translating Slavery, Volume I: Gender and Race in French Abolitionist Writing, 1780–1830
Edited by Doris Y. Kadish and Françoise Massardier-Kenney
6 Toward a Translation Criticism: John Donne
Antoine Berman, Translated and edited by Françoise Massardier-Kenney
7 Translating Slavery, Volume II:
Ourika and Its Progeny Edited by Doris Y. Kadish and Françoise Massardier-Kenney
8 Literature in Translation: Teaching Issues and Reading Preactices
Edited by Carol Maier and Françoise Massardier-Kenney
9 Translators Writing, Writing Translators
Edited by Françoise Massardier-Kenney, Brian James Baer, and Maria Tymoczko
10 Translation in African Contexts: Postcolonial Texts, Queer Sexuality, and Cosmopolitan Fluency
Evan Maina Mwangi
TRANSLATION IN AFRICAN CONTEXTS
Postcolonial Texts, Queer Sexuality, and Cosmopolitan Fluency
■ Evan Maina Mwangi
THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
KENT, OHIO
© 2017 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2016055036
ISBN 978-1-60635-321-9
Manufactured in the United States of America
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Mwangi, Evan, author.
Title: Translation in African contexts : postcolonial texts, queer sexuality, and cosmopolitan fluency / Evan Maina Mwangi.
Other titles: Translation studies ; v. 10.
Description: Kent, Ohio : The Kent State University Press, 2017. | Series: Translation studies ; v. 10 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016055036 (print) | LCCN 2016055555 (ebook) | ISBN 9781606353219 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781631012945 (ePub) | ISBN 9781631012952 (ePDF)
Subjects: LCSH: African literature—Translations into English—History and criticsim. | African literature--20th century—History and criticism. | Translating and interpreting.
Classification: LCC PL8010 .M89 2017 (print) | LCC PL8010 (ebook) | DDC 809.896-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016055036
21 20 19 18 17     5 4 3 2 1
In memory of
ATIENO-ODHIAMBO
(1945–2009)
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 ■ (M)othered Tongues, Post-Afrocentric Translations
2 ■ Against Monolingualism
3 ■ Mother Tongue and the Abject Mother
4 ■ Illusions of Cultural Purity
5 ■ A Gendered Adaptation
6 ■ Transmodern Poetics
7 ■ Domesticating the Queer in Shakespeare
8 ■ Language of Languages: An Attempt to Conclude
Notes
References
Index
PREFACE
■ This book seeks to examine translations in the context of representations of cosmopolitanism in postcolonial African literature, demonstrating that translators seem to privilege fluent translations as opposed to the “foreignizing” ones postcolonial theorists seem to prefer. Preliminarily defined, an assimilative translation is one that smooths out the linguistic idiosyncrasies of the original, making the foreign text read like a local one in the recipient culture. That is, it tends to domesticate the foreign text, a move largely seen as reducing the text’s agency in resisting colonial domination. Regarding the resistance/assimilative binary as untenable in the texts under analysis, I account for the prevalence of the assimilative or domesticating translations in postcolonial texts, despite the view by most postcolonial theorists that such a strategy serves as an apparatus of colonial despotism. Throughout, I consider translation both literally (the interlingual transfer of meaning from one language to another) and metaphorically (the process of adapting to a new cultural environment as a minority).
The book results from my experiences teaching African literature in Kenya and in the United States. I am particularly uncomfortable with the tendency in the Western academy to romanticize African-language texts as liberatory and decolonizing, without doing close readings of those texts. I borrow from the scholarship of African-language texts within African cultures, which do not hesitate to highlight the strengths as well as the shortcomings of individual texts. Criticism of African literature in African institutions and especially in African languages is candid, even combative, in its response to local texts, including oral literature. I borrow a leaf from this lively scholarship to criticize, in particular, the gender-blindness and ethnocentrism in some of the theoretical and creative texts in English and indigenous languages but also point out some of the texts’ interest in the welfare of minorities and the foreigner. The book is, therefore, translational, as it seeks to introduce global theories of translation to students of African literature (especially in the African academy) as well as discuss in detail texts that might not be familiar to global readers of African literature.
One of the book’s aims is to demonstrate that cosmopolitanism is not a preserve of literature published by metropolitan outlets for Western readership. The theme is found in works in African languages, captured through translational strategies. In reading the cosmopolitan and ethnic subtexts of the works under discussion, I use an interdisciplinary approach that draws from various strands of critical theory. I assume cosmopolitanism requires not only tolerance toward others but fluency in other languages, including marginalized African languages. Referring to various theories of translation, this book focuses on particular moments in African texts when the translation runs at a tangent to its original, especially to localize the text or to intervene with a political stand against the discrimination of minorities and foreigners. Although the texts under analysis seem to reject the foreignizing theories of translation advocated by postcolonial theorists, neither the texts nor the theories can be dismissed without considering the context in which they develop or are used.
It is helpful to mention some limits to the scope of this book. Although fairly broad, my analysis aims not at conclusiveness but rather at being a starting point in close readings of texts in African languages in their original language and in translation. Of course, African literatures are too diverse to be discussed comprehensively in a single book; in fact, the book turned out double the length I initially planned. I thus focus on texts from East Africa, especially those written in English, Sheng, Kiswahili, and Gĩkũyũ. While I choose the region because its languages are the ones I am proficient in, East Africa, as Alamin M. Mazrui notes in Cultural Politics of Translation, “continues to show a certain barrenness in the study of translation” (2016, 9).
I have included discussions of the Gĩkũyũ works of Gakaara wa Wanjaũ (1921–2001), but not in as much detail as in my initial drafts. I was particularly interested in Wanjaũ’s transmedial translations of his stories into graphic illustrations, which are further translated back into words in captions at the bottom of the illustrations. These back-and-forth translations are full of contradictions and gendered resonances. However, I could not obtain permission to reproduce these images from his books, which are out of print. I also wanted to include a thorough discussion of all translations of Shakespeare into Kiswahili, but to be able to do a close reading of the texts, I have had to limit myself to discussions of Julius Nyerere’s translations of The Merchant of Venice and Julius Caesar, contrasting these with a twenty-first-century translation of The Merry Wives of Windsor by John Ogutu Muraya. For lack of space, I have not covered Enock Matundura’s interesting translations of Barbara Kimenye’s Moses books, which would help us engage with the construction of masculinity in works targeting adolescent boys. Working in translations in different languages and bridging the expectations of two audiences as a translator for the two groups has its benefits, but it can be expensive too, especially because the books tend to be bulky. I have therefore limited myself to a few representative texts while alluding to others in passing.
One thing undergraduate readers of the earlier drafts of this book were curious about was how queer theory fits with translation studies in African contexts. In the course of my research, I have come across very persuasive and illuminating work on queer translation by a wide range of scholars, including Keith Harvey, Christopher Larkosh, William J. Spurlin, Suzana Tratnik, Severino J. Albuquerque, Aarón Lacayo, Brian James Baer, and Aleksandra Berlina. I have used some ideas from these critics and theorists to elaborate interpretations of the primary texts under discussion. Throughout the discussions, I consider queer subtexts in the African translations.
If a critique of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s work seems to occupy a larger portion of the book than that of any other writer, it is because he is the most prominent advocate of writing in local languages and having the work translated into other languages. Another limit of this book’s scope is that male artists dominate East African translated texts, especially in the novel genre. This is probably because men have had more access to educational and publishing opportunities than women. Works by indigenous women have not been translated, especially those that thematize homoerotic desire between women. To avoid compounding the silencing of African women writers, I have discussed translations of works written by men in relation to texts