Africa in Translation: What’s Love Got to Do with It?
Friday 3 July
10:00 – 13.00
A three-panel symposium on translation bringing together writers, artists, publishers, translators, readers and scholars curated by Wangui wa Goro and Mbuguah Bekisizwe Goro of SIDENSI with support from Afrikult. (Marcelle Akita, Henry Brefo & Zaahida Mariam Nalumoso). Panelists include Nwando Achebe, Tomi Adeaga, Phoebe Boswell, Audrey Brown, Chege Githiora, Henriette Gunkel, Jessica Horn, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Kara Keeling, Mpalive Msiska, Peggy Piesche and Emma Shercliff. With Louisa Uchum Egbunike as MC, and additional readings from Billy Kahora, Yvonne Chioma Mbanefo and Yovanka Paquete Perdigao.
This third edition of our Africa in Translation symposium focuses on love, aiming to dispel myths about Africans and romance, and explore the impact of translation and its cross-cultural constructs of love on contemporary African literature. An introductory panel led by Wangui wa Goro and Afrikult will situate this work. The second panel takes Ankara Press’s ground-breaking Valentine’s Day Anthology, published digitally on 14 February 2015 with short stories in eight different languages, as a starting point for readings and conversation on translation in practice. The third panel moves further to explore the limits and possibilities of translating creative narratives and cultures across time and space, including virtual space, orature, music, film and multimedia, reading and writing. Should one aim to find the mot juste or reach for poetic licence? Do narratives and narrative modes, means and cargoes call for nuanced and sensitive ways of expression across cultures especially in a digital age? The symposium will conclude with a responsive keynote on future by Kara Keeling.
Click here for the RAS Mixcloud recording.
Image credit: Sidensi