Zim writers placing local language in modern world by translating English novels

IN an effort to decolonise minds, Zimbabwean writers are translating popular English novels to Shona, one of the country’s main local languages. Two books by Zimbabwean novelist, playwright and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga are some of the latest novels to be translated to Shona.

Nervous Conditions, now titled Kusagadzikana, was translated by performing poet and novelist Ignatius Mabasa.

Dangarembga’s sequel, The Book of Not, now titled Hakuna Zvakadaro was translated by literary critic and academic Tanaka Chidora.

The two titles are part of the trilogy by Dangarembga which ended with This Mournable Body, a novel shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize in 2020, and their Shona iterations were published by The House of Books, a publisher and bookseller based in the capital Harare. Making Zimbabwean stories accessible

The Book of Not presents the story not only of Tambu, the main character, but for Zimbabwe, says Chidora.

“It was an interesting challenge because the book is a syntactically adventurous novel, but I loved it. It is a national story about what it means to be colonised and to be independent,” he tells The Africa Report.

“Unlike grand narratives, the Tambu trilogy focuses on the story of a young girl growing up in both Rhodesia and Zimbabwe and the psychological impact of such an immobile transition,” says Chidora, referring to Zimbabwe’s name before independence.

“It is a story that every Zimbabwean deserves to read to understand where we are and why we are there,” he adds. Historic

Nervous Conditions, the first book to be published in English in the United Kingdom by a Black woman in 1988, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize the following year.

Both Mabasa and Chidora felt that Nervous

Conditions and its sequel The Book of Not, which raises important themes like gender, colonialism, race and inequality, were inaccessible, particularly to some ordinary women in Zimbabwe who could not read the English version.

The purpose of a translation is to bridge audiences, Chidora says.

“In this case, we are trying to imagine Tambu’s story within the cultural setting of the Shona language. The purpose is to make the story accessible to as many readers as possible while enriching the Shona language,” he says.

It is very competent and evocative, says Dangarembga, who read the translations.

“Mabasa and I agreed that it was best to have the translation in what is known as ‘standard Shona’ rather than ChiManyika, which is the language that informed the dialogues in the English original to ensure a wider reach among readers of the Shona language,” she tells The Africa Report. Drive to translate

There is no culture of translating novels to local languages in Zimbabwe though, says Chidora.

But there has been a bigger drive to translate English novels in the country, particularly those that Zimbabweans can relate with.

Some of the books include Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat, first published in 1967, translated to Shona as

Tsanga Yembeu by Charles Mungoshi, and more recently, George Orwell’s satirical novel

Animal Farm first published in 1945, translated to Chimurenga Chemhuka by writers Petina Gappah and Tinashe Muchuri.

Analysts draw similarities between the situation in Animal Farm and Zimbabwe’s current economic and political crisis, where the elite who claim to have liberated the masses in 1980 are rich at the expense of the poor.

Chimurenga Chemhuka was published by The House of Books, one of the few publishers keen on translating more Zimbabwean English novels to Shona.

“That is commendable, especially given the absence of willing commissioning publishers,” says Chidora, adding that funding was a constraint.

“When The House of Books approached me to work on the translation of The Book of

Not, I was already carrying out translation work for Tinashe Muchuri’s Chibarabada. It was more of a labour of love,” he says, adding that he did not know what to do with the translation because it was not commissioned by a publisher.

Issues of funding explain why the translations are currently in Shona and not other languages like Ndebele, says Memory Chirere, a lecturer in the Department of Languages, Literature and Culture at the University of Zimbabwe.

“Translation costs money. Publishing costs money too. So, the publisher goes gradually from one language to the next, checking if the book is doing well in Shona before going to the next language,” he says. “The House of Books wanted to have

Nervous Conditions and The Book of Not translated to Shona. The initiative, in this case, belongs to the House of Books. That is how translations work,” says Chidora. Shona under threat

Zimbabwe is strange when it comes to languages, says Mabasa, who did his doctorate thesis in Shona at one of the universities in South Africa.

“If I insist that students make presentations in English, they struggle. They would rather make the presentation in Shona. But when they are making the presentation in Shona, it is a mixture of largely Shona and English,” says Mabasa, who is also a lecturer in the English Department at the University of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe is likely heading towards a society where there is a hybrid language, particularly among young people, he adds.

Most young people are comfortable in speaking Shona, but they cannot write or read it, Mabasa futher explains.

“They are developing their way of writing Shona. They are tampering with the written Shona as we know it. It is an interesting development,” he says.

Language is dynamic and it evolves, says Chidora.

“I do not think Shona is under threat. New meanings are attached to words. Words do not move around carrying bags of meaning — they pick meanings along the way as human beings find new uses for those words according to new needs,” he says.

Shona is alive, but there is no progress if there are people who can speak a language, but cannot write it and cannot read it confidently, says Mabasa.

“This is where other people will come and write our stories in a language that is not accessible to us. In this case, people will write and confine us to using English, which we are not confident in using,” he says.

“It is a serious problem. It is through writing that we document, and claim our space in different platforms and it is how we decolonise. If we cannot write in our indigenous languages, it means we now have to write in English. That leaves us poor.” Repatriation?

There is a school of thought that a book is “repatriated” if it is written by a person who does not use their first language, but has it translated.

A translated book becomes a new book because the translator comes in with their input, says Chirere.

“Movement from one language means that a book has been taken from the original culture to be read in another,” he says.

Dangarembga says she is not concerned with how a book appears in which language.