Professional Documents
Culture Documents
94]
On: 06 October 2014, At: 18:42
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer
House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
The Translator
Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rtrn20
To cite this article: Moradewun Adejunmobi (1998) Translation and Postcolonial Identity, The Translator, 4:2, 163-181,
DOI: 10.1080/13556509.1998.10799018
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained
in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no
representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of
the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied
upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall
not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other
liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or
arising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic
reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any
form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://
www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
The Translator. Volume 4, Number 2 (1998), 163-181 ISBN 1-900650-01-0
MORADEWUN ADEJUNMOBI
University of California, Davis, USA
1. Varieties of translation
In those instances where the writers themselves have not defined their
writing by reference to the practice of translation, a number of critics have
unearthed convincing evidence or traces of this activity in their creative texts.
Thus, Bandia (1993) has revealed instances of translation from African to
European languages in Chinua Achebe’s works, while Adejare (1987) has
identified similar processes in the texts of Wole Soyinka, Kofi Awonoor,
Christopher Okigbo, Ola Rotimi, and others.
My intention here is not to determine the accuracy of the claims made
about African writing in European languages according to the strict
parameters suggested by Zabus. Rather, I will direct attention to the motiva-
tions supporting this reference to translation on the part of some writers and
critics of African literature in European languages, notwithstanding the
absence of ‘original’ versions in indigenous African languages. For the pur-
poses of the present discussion, I will identify as compositional translations
texts which are published in European languages and which contain
occasional or sustained modification of the conventions of the European
language in use, where ‘versions’ or ‘originals’ in indigenous African lang-
uages are non-existent. Many texts commonly perceived as belonging to the
rubric of ‘African literature’ fall into this category. The works of Gabriel
Okara, Ahmadou Kourouma and Amos Tutuola will provide illustration for
such compositional translations. It should be noted, furthermore, that the
modification of European languages in these texts generally results from a
deliberate intent to indigenize the European language. The actual method-
ology of such projects of indigenization is in turn often grounded in references
to translation.
In referring to certain works of African literature as compositional trans-
lations, I am seeking to distinguish these works from another sub-grouping
that I will describe here as authorized translations. This term will be used
for instances where more than one version of the full text exists, even when
166 Translation and Postcolonial Identity
the indigenous language version has not been published, or has been pub-
lished prior or subsequent to a European-language version. In these instances,
the fact of translation hardly impacts on language use within the European-
language version and functions rather as a strategy for ethnic identification
of the European-language text. The writing of Mazisi Kunene, Okot p’Bitek,
and Ngugi wa Thiong’o will provide examples of authorized translations to
be considered here.
A final category of African texts relating to translation will be repre-
sented by the writing of Abdelkebir Khatibi and Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo.
This final category belongs to a trend that I will tentatively label complex
translations. For complex translators, translation does not represent a means
to an end, a method for ‘Africanizing’ European languages. Movement be-
Downloaded by [110.164.156.94] at 18:42 06 October 2014
tween languages becomes in these kinds of texts an end in itself, the focal
point and central concern of the text.
The different types of translation identified thus far should together help
reveal the power relations at work in the emergence of a literature described
as distinctively African.
2. Compositional translation
Critics have used different terms to characterize the defining features and
impact of translating techniques involved in African compositional transla-
tions. Besides identifying the use of calques, semantic shifts, collocational
shifts and irregular syntax, among other strategies, Bandia, to quote only
one example, summarizes the overall effect of these techniques as follows:
“It is a translation process which ... is overt and not covert; it is a primary
and not a secondary exercise ... semantic and not communicative .... In short,
it is a source-text oriented translation” (1993: 58). Borrowing Friedrich
Schleiermacher’s often quoted formulation, it could be said that African
writers of this tradition, acting in their capacity of purported translators, seek
to move the European-language reader towards the African author and his
or her mother tongue. In Lawrence Venuti’s terms, it might be observed that
these texts, far from seeking to eliminate language difference, seek to make
it visible and prominent. They avoid fluency and transparency and, to a cer-
tain degree, illustrate the kind of translation that Venuti has designated
‘foreignizing’ (1995:20), where the intent is to preserve the foreignness of
the foreign text.
Although several African authors have resorted to this form of translation
on a limited scale as a means of reproducing speech patterns of indigenous
languages in their works, or for the purposes of characterization, few authors
have attempted this exercise at the level of entire works. The works of Okara,
Kourouma, and Tutuola, however, are exemplary of a more sustained
recourse to this strategy in creative writing. Zabus (1991) affirms that Okara’s
writing shows evidence of “morpho-syntactic distortions” (ibid:123), that of
Moradewun Adejunmobi 167
the European-language text does not legitimately have the status of an origi-
nal version. Indeed, and by implication, the text is read as if it were really
written in an indigenous language. Being neither entirely European nor fully
African, the language of the text might perhaps be an “interlanguage” (Zabus
1991:102). Furthermore, we have here authors who, prompted by the desire
for authenticity, seek to evacuate their real authorial presence by appro-
priating the posture of translators, mere mediators between a supposed
indigenous-language original and a European-language version. The trend
towards denying real authorship of the literary text in order to promote a
semblance of authenticity became a kind of convention in some early Afri-
can texts in European languages. Several narratives were presented as texts
originally recounted by an indigenous-language narrator, rather than as nar-
Downloaded by [110.164.156.94] at 18:42 06 October 2014
originals.
Even making allowance for differences in terminology, a critic as per-
ceptive as Zabus can come to the conclusion that the technique she has termed
relexification (and which others have called translation) succeeds in Okara’s
The Voice in letting the “Ijo tongue speak” (1991:123). In other words, this
text is read as if it were written in the Ijo language of South-eastern Nigeria.
But this is precisely the problem with the claim of translation or relexification,
as the case may be. Okara’s text, as it stands, surely differs from a text
written entirely in Ijo. The strategies used and their link to translation may
propel the impression of reading a text in Ijo to the European-language reader,
but the fact remains that the text is essentially and substantially written in a
language other than Ijo. Furthermore, the illusion created probably diverts
attention from the real impediments to publishing literature in languages
like Ijo or Malinké.
Venuti’s comments about foreignizing translations are pertinent here:
“Foreignizing translation signifies the difference of the foreign text, yet only
by disrupting the cultural codes that prevail in the target language” (1995:20).
If Africanness in literature is assumed (erroneously in my opinion) to inhere
only indigenous-language writing, then the works of writers like Okara and
Kourouma embody such Africanness more in relation to European-language
literature than vis-à-vis any literary texts actually written in Ijo or Malinké.
In the absence of an original version or a published text in an indigenous
language, foreignizing translation here involves manoeuvres in the target
European language without significant ramification for indigenous-language
writing. To my mind, the danger for literatures in indigenous African
languages lies in the failure to acknowledge that this kind of foreignizing
translation does not substantially challenge the hegemony of European
languages over published literature in Africa. In the end, African authors
who write in the foreignizing translation mode should not, on the basis of
their language use, be considered any more exemplary of authentic African-
language writing than those Africans who make no attempts to modify
170 Translation and Postcolonial Identity
3. Authorized translation
The Izibongo version seeks to keep close to the Zulu parts of speech
Downloaded by [110.164.156.94] at 18:42 06 October 2014
and word order .... Kunene, while preserving these qualities as far
as possible, is prepared to sacrifice them at times in the interests of
making sense or achieving a more rolling oratorical rhythm. Where
the Izibongo versions sometimes read like word-for-word cribs in
which the meaning has to be elucidated by a footnote, Kunene’s
versions show the selective freedom and judgement exercised by
someone thoroughly familiar with both languages. (1982:186-87)
... writers who write in a foreign language are already part of for-
eign institutions; to one extent or another, they have adopted foreign
values and philosophical attitudes, and they variously seek to be a
member of that culture. They cannot be said to be African cultural
representatives who write in another language because, in spirit, at
least, they speak from the perspective provided for them by the ef-
fective apparatus of mental control exercised by the former colonial
power. (1992:32)
However, statements made in this vein usually overlook the fact that the
said texts, by and large, function as literature – texts that are read and critiqued
within the original linguistic community of the author – only in their nor-
malized European-language translations. Speaking about Kunene, Goodwin
therefore concedes that “by a paradox of contemporary publishing opportu-
nities, Mazisi Kunene, who writes in Zulu and then translates some of his
poetry into English, has had much more of his work appear in translation
than in the original” (1982:173). In other words, not only is Kunene widely
read in translation, Kunene is read essentially only in translation. Another
East African publisher makes reference to p’Bitek’s magnum opus, the Song
of Lawino, in his comments on the difficulties of publishing literary texts in
indigenous African languages: “titles published in the indigenous languages
were all a ‘financial disaster’, even though one of them was a prize winning
novel in Luo and the other a translation back into the original of Okot
p’Bitek’s Song of Lawino”(Zell 1980:1071). This observation suggests that
Moradewun Adejunmobi 173
exception to this trend, to the extent that they have achieved popularity within
the author’s Gikuyu-speaking community. But even in the case of Ngugi, as
Gikandi has pointed out, the act of translating a text like Matigari Ma
Njiruungi into English further exposes the disjunction in status between the
original text and its translated versions. Gikandi writes:
If Ngugi’s intention was to make the Gikuyu text the great original
to which all translations would be subordinated, this intention is
defeated not only by the political repression of Matigari Ma
Njiruungi, but by the act of translation itself ... The act of transla-
tion is hence a double-edged weapon: it allows Ngugi’s text to survive
and be read, but it is read and discussed as if it were a novel in
English. (1991:166)
4. Complex translations
I have attempted thus far to reveal the invalidity of some assumptions re-
garding the role of translation in African literature. A final group of African
translations does represent, to my mind, a more realistic engagement with
the African postcolonial ‘language problem’. The authors involved deploy
the concept of translation in order to reconstruct the interplay between domi-
nant and dominated languages in a world transformed by the experience of
colonialism. The Malagasy writer Rabearivelo and the Moroccan Khatibi
problematize language contact and conflict in texts where the ability to trans-
late as languages intersect becomes a prerequisite for comprehension. The
multilingual world of their texts imposes translation as a mode of reading,
since both indigenous and European languages actually figure in the text. In
the writing of Rabearivelo and Khatibi, expressions and terms in indigenous
languages do not function as blank signals of cultural authenticity to be ex-
plicated in peripheral glossaries, but rather as components that are integral
to the construction of meaning at every point in the text. The reader, like
Moradewun Adejunmobi 175
It is worth noting that Solofo, the name of Rabearivelo’s son, is the Mala-
gasy equivalent for ‘shoot’ or ‘sprout’. The poem is constructed around the
selective translation of Solofo in the French version, where it is left untrans-
lated in the first line and then glossed in succeeding lines. Using these kinds
of strategies in his bilingual works, Rabearivelo is able to demonstrate the
complex linguistic identities and loyalties of the postcolonial writer, encom-
passing both the French and Malagasy in his creative work.
Rabearivelo’s growing intuition concerning the significance of transla-
tion for the postcolonial writer led him to make it the theme of his final
collection of poetry, entitled Traduit de la nuit (Translations from the Night).
In addition to the bilingual format of the work, the French-Malagasy poems
provide images of the many possible ways in which the phenomenon of
night can be ‘translated’. In Adejunmobi (1996:278-79), I attempted to ex-
plain the significance of Rabearivelo’s translations of the night as follows:
multi-lingual” voice (1994:58). Since he does not choose one language over
another, Khatibi is therefore freed from the obligation of attempting to cre-
ate an original version in any one chosen African tongue: his allegiance is to
all rather than to the one. Furthermore, for him, the very complexity of the
language situation imposes the exigency of translation as a fundamental form
of communication. Translation is therefore implicated in every form of com-
munication within the postcolonial context rather than in the exclusive and
elusive quest for origins alone.
The organizing principle of Khatibi’s language use and linguistic identity
finds expression in the notion of the ‘bi-langue’ and in his real sense of
belonging to more than one language. In practical terms, Khatibi’s demon-
stration of the ‘bi-langue’ does not lead him to resort to the strategies used
by the compositional translators. As Bensmaïa has pointed out (1987:141),
Khatibi writes classical French in his many works, and does not attempt to
modify the structures of the French language. It might even be argued that
Khatibi does not translate as such. Rather his writing proceeds by a system
of ‘doubling’, allowing an unending play on the multiple meanings of a word
within individual languages, and between the different languages in use:
French, classical, and dialectal Arabic. In Amour bilingue in particular, while
exploring the possibility of loving in two languages, the text maintains what
Samia Mehrez has described as a “perpetual migration of signs” (1992:134).
Simple translations no longer suffice, while meaning becomes infinitely
variable.
This particular text addresses the translating activity explicitly. Words
like ‘translation’, ‘equivalence’, ‘language’, ‘mother tongue’ in their multi-
ple meanings play a prominent part in the unfolding of the text, as do words
in classical and dialectal Arabic in the same manner. That is to say, the
theme of the text itself is the unequal and unending dialogue between several
languages in the postcolonial context. Furthermore, that theme is elaborated
not only in the form of a discontinuous narrative but also through consciously
orchestrated references to the numerous possibilities of meaning and
178 Translation and Postcolonial Identity
In this excerpt, the word calma (meaning ‘calmed down’) in French prompts
recollection on a phonological level of both kalma and kalima in Arabic,
and ultimately leads back to ‘word’, for kalima means ‘word’ in Arabic,
and prefaces calma in the text. Thomas Beebee (1994:75) perceptively ob-
serves that the narrator does not, however, indicate that kalima is the Arabic
equivalent for ‘word’. It is left to the reader to undertake this act of transla-
tion and decoding. Thus, Khatibi explores and constructs a network of unusual
associations between French and Arabic that can be fully deciphered only
by multilingual readers acquainted with both French and Arabic. Transla-
tion in this work is not therefore an invisible activity resulting in the
emergence of an ‘original text’ in Arabic; it is the primary focus and ‘method’,
as it were, of narrative progression. Indeed, as Mehrez has argued, it is in
addition the only form of reading authorized by the kind of “postcolonial
plurilingual texts” that “resist and ultimately exclude the monolingual and
demand of their readers to be like themselves: ‘in between’, at once capable
of reading and translating, where translation becomes an integral part of the
reading experience” (1992:122).
Both Khatibi and Rabearivelo published their works in European lan-
guages. So also do compositional and authorized translators notwithstanding
appearances to the contrary. Unlike authorized translators, however, Khatibi
and Rabearivelo locate the postcolonial language conflict within the pub-
lished text (instead of in the unpublished text) as theme and central focus.
While the strategies exploited by compositional translators are suggestive of
the same conflict, they too, in the end, refer the reader to an unpublished and
in many instances non-existent ‘original’ in an indigenous language. This
brings us to the most fundamental difference between Khatibi and Rabeari-
velo on the one hand, and the other kinds of African translators on the other:
Khatibi and Rabearivelo imply the futility of pursuing original versions in
indigenous languages as a means for resolving the postcolonial crisis of iden-
tity. For them, translation does not connote derivation, source text, fixed
Moradewun Adejunmobi 179
MORADEWUN ADEJUNMOBI
African-American and African Studies, University of California, Davis,
CA 95616, USA. madejunmobi@ucdavis.edu
References