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sub_dividedI've been going to one or two talks a month, then writing two page reports for extra credit. It's something I wish I'd done more often at Michigan (gone to talks, I mean, not written reports). I was going to post this one private-locked like all the others but then I figured, at least a couple people on my flist will probably have an interest in the topic.
Alamin Mazrui: George Orwell, post-colonial East Africa and the politics of translation
I came late, so it's possible I missed it but: the only Orwell in Mazrui's politics of translation talk was Animal Farm, specifically the 1967 translation of Animal Farm into KiSwahili by Kawegere Fortunatus, a Tagynikan. The impetus for the translation was Tangynika's union with Zanzibar in 1964 to form the Republic of Tanzania -- Fortunas worried that the popularity of socialism in Zanzibar might spread to the new united government and from there to Tagynika, and so he decided to translate Animal Farm as a kind of warning about the pitfalls of a communist state. Fortunas was funded by -- surprise surprise! -- the United States' anti-communism bureau. At the time, there was a fear that Tanzania might become the Cuba of Africa.
The opening point of Mazrui's talk, which was about the various ways translation (and, more generally, language) is politicized in post-colonial societies, was that there is often an agenda behind the choice of texts for translation. In many cases, the translator chooses books that he feels express his political views.
An example: a feminist writer in Zanzibar chooses to translate foreign works on gender relations as a way of getting around the social limitations imposed on her own discourse. Because her chosen book is set elsewhere and is ostensibly about other people, she can address what would otherwise be a forbidden topics. In the process, she makes a place for the translated work in the body of Swahili literature, and Swahili literature as a whole extends beyond the boundaries of works originally written in Swahili. [1]
Traditionally, Swahili literature appropriated Arabic texts. More recently the majority of East African appropriations are Western texts.[2] There is also a peculiarly post-colonial category, texts written in English by native Swahili speakers which are then translated "back" into Swahili ("back" because in many cases the English versions of texts use Swahili idioms, as if they are themselves translations of an imaginary Swahili original).
A phrase I've been hearing a lot this semester is "let's unpack that statement." So let's unpack that statement: educated African writers are producing literature in a colonial European language rather than a local language. I'm most familiar with this phenomenon in the context of Francophonie, the North African literary movement of the sixties and seventies. Francophone writers promoted the French language as a kind of unifying force. In the former French colonies, which have educational systems left over from the colonial government, a writer in an academic setting deliberately chooses to write in a language other than French. In most cases, the choice is an expression of ethnic identity.
Every African state is a multi-ethnic state: although there are some writers writing in local languages, they are generally not supported by the government. Local languages promote tribalism! There's a recent movement toward making Arabic the preferred language of literature, Islam being a shared non-European, non-ethnic identity. The fact that it's a religious identity means there are obvious problems with this approach.
But to return to Mazrui's talk: the works of native Swahili speakers, written in English, are translated back into Swahili. Unlike most other languages, Swahili has a written tradition that predates European colonial settlement. Re-translation could secure these writers a larger audience, since the majority of the population doesn't read English. The thing I found most interesting about this section of the talk, though, is that this is not what happens. The works of African writers are taught in school. Meanwhile, popular literature is almost entirely translated Western literature.
Another detail I thought was fascinating was the way in which university culture "leaks" into the wider culture. The two don't read the same things at all. But university graduates who find themselves unemployed after college form informal theater troupes, and put on plays based on what they've read.
As long as the plays are low-profile, for instance in the slums, the government can't stop them.
Technically, Kenya banned all theater adaptations of George Orwell's Animal Farm in 1995, one year after Fortunatus' translation was made required reading for the Swahili literature section of its high school exams (high school is taught in English). The reason given for the ban was that the play was being used to nurture a sense of ethnic victimhood.
Generally, Animal Farm is a good choice for translation because its concepts are easily understood in translation. Additionally, it's an animal fable, a popular form of storytelling in Africa. The book never really took off in Tanzania, but it is huge in Kenya. Marzi explained what he thought was the reason why:
When Kenya fought for independence from the British, it named its army the Land and Freedom Army -- land because the British settlers got the best land, freedom because many Kenyans were forced to work for the British without compensation. When the British government was overthrown, it was through a violent conspiratorial uprising; but the revolutionary leadership turned power-hungry after independence, leading to a situation similar to the pig government in Animal Farm. Other similarities include the rewriting of history and police control. Kenya is a capitalist state, and yet the parallels are more obvious than they were in 1960s Tanzania.
Animal Farm was put into the high school curriculum by a group of left-leaning intellectuals; this group purposefully targets the school crowd for their translations because this is the most effective way to spread their message. There's an extraordinary emphasis on which books should be translated and put on the curriculum; the character of the nation is at stake. This reminded me a lot of the situation in post-colonial India, or for that matter post-colonial America.[3] No precedents, everything has to be developed -- but not necessarily from scratch. Then comes the uneasy feeling that you are perhaps borrowing too much, which is probably what leads East African schools to put African authors on the curriculum when the general public doesn't read them.
Originally the end of this talk had more to do with bridging the gap between academic and popular literature in East Africa, but this seemed to me to be mostly an obligatory sort of thing, as there hadn't been much in his previous talk leading up to it.[4]
Notes:
[1] An interesting aside: the novel God Dies By the Nile was originally written in Arabic by an Egyptian author. God Dies by the Nile is the author's preferred title, but because it violates Muslim sensibilities the publisher had it changed to Death of the Only Man (in Arabic). God Dies by the Nile is the title of the English translation: strangely, it more closely resembles what the author intended than the original.
[2] Although I say "East Africa," many of Mazrui's points in this section refer specifically to Kenya, with the implication that there are implications for the wider region. Similarly, by "Swahili" I mean "KiSwahili".
[3] When I say "post-colonial India" I'm thinking of the novel A Suitable Boy, which is set in 1950s Brahmpur, Calcutta, etc., and when I say "post-colonial America" I'm thinking of The Dante Club, which is set in 1868 Boston. WHY YES I DO LEARN MOST OF MY HISTORY FROM HISTORICAL FICTION, WHY DO YOU ASK?
[4] I got a lot of what I said earlier in the post on this topic from the Question-and-answer section afterwards. I think, to Mazrui, the connection was obvious: he'd just given an hour and a half talk on the politics of translation, but most of what he said only applied to academic translation. There is very little overlap between academic and popular translation. Therefore, the logical way to end his talk is with a warning that something must be done to create overlap, to bridge the gap. Speaking as someone unfamiliar with the area or the subject, however, I can say that this connection was not obvious. The specifics of Mazri's talk were fascinating, but a little more grounding wouldn't have hurt.[5]
[5] On the other hand I'm far from the ideal audience. David Harvey and I were the only undergrads, the rest of the audience was professors or related.
Alamin Mazrui: George Orwell, post-colonial East Africa and the politics of translation
I came late, so it's possible I missed it but: the only Orwell in Mazrui's politics of translation talk was Animal Farm, specifically the 1967 translation of Animal Farm into KiSwahili by Kawegere Fortunatus, a Tagynikan. The impetus for the translation was Tangynika's union with Zanzibar in 1964 to form the Republic of Tanzania -- Fortunas worried that the popularity of socialism in Zanzibar might spread to the new united government and from there to Tagynika, and so he decided to translate Animal Farm as a kind of warning about the pitfalls of a communist state. Fortunas was funded by -- surprise surprise! -- the United States' anti-communism bureau. At the time, there was a fear that Tanzania might become the Cuba of Africa.
The opening point of Mazrui's talk, which was about the various ways translation (and, more generally, language) is politicized in post-colonial societies, was that there is often an agenda behind the choice of texts for translation. In many cases, the translator chooses books that he feels express his political views.
An example: a feminist writer in Zanzibar chooses to translate foreign works on gender relations as a way of getting around the social limitations imposed on her own discourse. Because her chosen book is set elsewhere and is ostensibly about other people, she can address what would otherwise be a forbidden topics. In the process, she makes a place for the translated work in the body of Swahili literature, and Swahili literature as a whole extends beyond the boundaries of works originally written in Swahili. [1]
Traditionally, Swahili literature appropriated Arabic texts. More recently the majority of East African appropriations are Western texts.[2] There is also a peculiarly post-colonial category, texts written in English by native Swahili speakers which are then translated "back" into Swahili ("back" because in many cases the English versions of texts use Swahili idioms, as if they are themselves translations of an imaginary Swahili original).
A phrase I've been hearing a lot this semester is "let's unpack that statement." So let's unpack that statement: educated African writers are producing literature in a colonial European language rather than a local language. I'm most familiar with this phenomenon in the context of Francophonie, the North African literary movement of the sixties and seventies. Francophone writers promoted the French language as a kind of unifying force. In the former French colonies, which have educational systems left over from the colonial government, a writer in an academic setting deliberately chooses to write in a language other than French. In most cases, the choice is an expression of ethnic identity.
Every African state is a multi-ethnic state: although there are some writers writing in local languages, they are generally not supported by the government. Local languages promote tribalism! There's a recent movement toward making Arabic the preferred language of literature, Islam being a shared non-European, non-ethnic identity. The fact that it's a religious identity means there are obvious problems with this approach.
But to return to Mazrui's talk: the works of native Swahili speakers, written in English, are translated back into Swahili. Unlike most other languages, Swahili has a written tradition that predates European colonial settlement. Re-translation could secure these writers a larger audience, since the majority of the population doesn't read English. The thing I found most interesting about this section of the talk, though, is that this is not what happens. The works of African writers are taught in school. Meanwhile, popular literature is almost entirely translated Western literature.
Another detail I thought was fascinating was the way in which university culture "leaks" into the wider culture. The two don't read the same things at all. But university graduates who find themselves unemployed after college form informal theater troupes, and put on plays based on what they've read.
As long as the plays are low-profile, for instance in the slums, the government can't stop them.
Technically, Kenya banned all theater adaptations of George Orwell's Animal Farm in 1995, one year after Fortunatus' translation was made required reading for the Swahili literature section of its high school exams (high school is taught in English). The reason given for the ban was that the play was being used to nurture a sense of ethnic victimhood.
Generally, Animal Farm is a good choice for translation because its concepts are easily understood in translation. Additionally, it's an animal fable, a popular form of storytelling in Africa. The book never really took off in Tanzania, but it is huge in Kenya. Marzi explained what he thought was the reason why:
When Kenya fought for independence from the British, it named its army the Land and Freedom Army -- land because the British settlers got the best land, freedom because many Kenyans were forced to work for the British without compensation. When the British government was overthrown, it was through a violent conspiratorial uprising; but the revolutionary leadership turned power-hungry after independence, leading to a situation similar to the pig government in Animal Farm. Other similarities include the rewriting of history and police control. Kenya is a capitalist state, and yet the parallels are more obvious than they were in 1960s Tanzania.
Animal Farm was put into the high school curriculum by a group of left-leaning intellectuals; this group purposefully targets the school crowd for their translations because this is the most effective way to spread their message. There's an extraordinary emphasis on which books should be translated and put on the curriculum; the character of the nation is at stake. This reminded me a lot of the situation in post-colonial India, or for that matter post-colonial America.[3] No precedents, everything has to be developed -- but not necessarily from scratch. Then comes the uneasy feeling that you are perhaps borrowing too much, which is probably what leads East African schools to put African authors on the curriculum when the general public doesn't read them.
Originally the end of this talk had more to do with bridging the gap between academic and popular literature in East Africa, but this seemed to me to be mostly an obligatory sort of thing, as there hadn't been much in his previous talk leading up to it.[4]
Notes:
[1] An interesting aside: the novel God Dies By the Nile was originally written in Arabic by an Egyptian author. God Dies by the Nile is the author's preferred title, but because it violates Muslim sensibilities the publisher had it changed to Death of the Only Man (in Arabic). God Dies by the Nile is the title of the English translation: strangely, it more closely resembles what the author intended than the original.
[2] Although I say "East Africa," many of Mazrui's points in this section refer specifically to Kenya, with the implication that there are implications for the wider region. Similarly, by "Swahili" I mean "KiSwahili".
[3] When I say "post-colonial India" I'm thinking of the novel A Suitable Boy, which is set in 1950s Brahmpur, Calcutta, etc., and when I say "post-colonial America" I'm thinking of The Dante Club, which is set in 1868 Boston. WHY YES I DO LEARN MOST OF MY HISTORY FROM HISTORICAL FICTION, WHY DO YOU ASK?
[4] I got a lot of what I said earlier in the post on this topic from the Question-and-answer section afterwards. I think, to Mazrui, the connection was obvious: he'd just given an hour and a half talk on the politics of translation, but most of what he said only applied to academic translation. There is very little overlap between academic and popular translation. Therefore, the logical way to end his talk is with a warning that something must be done to create overlap, to bridge the gap. Speaking as someone unfamiliar with the area or the subject, however, I can say that this connection was not obvious. The specifics of Mazri's talk were fascinating, but a little more grounding wouldn't have hurt.[5]
[5] On the other hand I'm far from the ideal audience. David Harvey and I were the only undergrads, the rest of the audience was professors or related.