Convenors: Carmen McCain cm74@soas.ac.uk , Ida Hadjivayanis and Wangui wa Goro
In the past decade and a half there have been several efforts to promote literary translation into and out of African languages, from the Jalada special issues seeking translations of a short story by Ngugi wa Thiong’o into over 100 languages and over 50 translations of a poem by Wole Soyinka, to the Cassava Republic Valentine’s Day issue where love stories from English were translated back into the author’s language of origin, to more recent initiatives such as Zukiswa Wanner’s African Translation Project focusing on translations of southern African languages into English and the University of Georgia Press African Language Literatures in Translation series. In Tanzania, Mkuki na Nyota publishers has invested in translations of African literature, such as the works of Nobel-prize winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah into Swahili. At SOAS, as part of a project funded by the ISPF ODA fund, we are working on conversations between Swahili and Hausa as two of the largest literary languages in Africa. Although both languages have large archives of literary activity, of the tens of thousands of Hausa novels, there are fewer than ten translations of novels into English, and while translation out of Swahili is slightly healthier, it is still surprisingly low considering the number of literary productions. This paucity of translation is indicative of larger problems in African literary translation training, funding, publishing opportunities, and an international reading culture that does not value African language literary production.
Our goal for this stream is to bring together scholars, writers, translators, publishers, and cultural institutions to brainstorm ideas on how to promote literary translation and discuss how to build networks of African literary translators and connections to publishers willing to invest in translations, and access funding for translation and publication.
We invite papers that focus on the theory and practice of translations into and out of African languages, as well as those that focus on language policy, publishing, infrastructure, and advocacy as it relates to literary translation. We also welcome working translations from translators willing to read excerpts and speak to their current literary translation projects. We envision two or more panels on African literary translation practice and infrastructure and at least one panel that focuses on readings from literary translations in progress.
