In November 2021, a group of seventeen aspiring literary translators came together in Naivasha, Kenya to begin work on a project the first of its kind. Over the course of four intense days, these individuals worked together under the tutelage of Professors Kimani wa Njogu and Jane Bosibori to learn both the art of the short story and what it means to engage in the creative practice of translation. Literary translation, of course, has become an increasingly valued and visible subdiscipline of translation science, recognised, through the development of training courses, University degree programmes and a large body of research, as an art and a discipline unto itself. In locations as diverse as the United Kingdom, India and Cameroon, associations, networks and societies specifically geared towards literary translators have developed, and globally-spanning organisations such as the Young Translators’ Network emphasise the extent of growth and interest in the field.
Yet, as the book in your hands (or on your e-reader) aptly demonstrates, there was one key difference at the Ituĩka workshop: the existence – and indeed, the centrality – of African languages as literary languages worthy of visibility and status as both target and source. Here, that is, for the first time, a Kenyan literary workshop was foregrounding Kenyan languages. Not merely Kiswahili, as has often been the case, but the broader diversity of tongues, spanning fourteen different languages and linguistic contexts and highlighting the multiplicity of creative expression in Kenya.
Varied in their aesthetics, genre and themes, moreover, the stories presented to you here offer a powerful repudiation to the anthropological exoticisation (or what is sometimes lazily referred to as the ‘single story) of African existence. Concertedly Kenyan in their focus, these stories give voice to the plurality of narratives of life in the nation, whilst also expanding towards the universal without diluting their own particularity. In some cases, stories began their lives in English or Kiswahili, only to be transformed through the practice of translation into a Kenyan language. In other cases, stories in Kenyan languages morphed into new forms in Kiswahili and English. In all instances, the tripled lifeworlds of these pieces demonstrates the mutability of creative writing, as it refuses the polarities of a single market and extends instead to multiple, if not exactly cognate, audiences and publics.
The labour of conducting a project in fourteen languages, counting English and Kiswahili, cannot be downplayed. Workshop participants, working in teams and as individuals, were pushed to recognise the communal and collective nature of language – all languages, irrespective of so-called ‘linguistic capital’ – spending months and years honing their practice through an intensive period of mentorship and iterative editorial feedback. The work of the two workshop facilitators, in particular, was extraordinary. This project would not have been possible without the tireless work of Munyao Kilolo, who conceptualized, curated, and coordinated our workshop in Naivasha and led on the editing and production of the two volumes of this book.
The result, I believe, are these two volumes which, in their own small way, contribute to the projects of decolonisation and reparative justice, decentering the centre and forcefully showing us the urgency of linguistic freedom. They, too, highlight the ways in which multilingualism, translation and polyvocality permeate our lived experiences. It is my hope that this project can serve as a model for a more equal and, by extension, more fulfilling, creative world.
Madhu Krishnan,
Professor of African, World and Comparative Literatures at the University of Bristol