When it comes to African literature, translation has mostly meant translating work from European languages into African ones. Translation from African languages into English has been long overdue.
Now it appears that a shift in the movement of stories across languages is underway. Works first written and published in African languages are increasingly being translated into English for a broader readership.
As a scholar of African literature and publishing, I am optimistic about the launch of a new book series called African Language Literatures in Translation by the University of Georgia Press. The series is edited by US-based literary scholars Christopher Ouma and Alexander Fyfe.
The Mad is one of the inaugural titles in the series. It’s a translation of Zimbabwean author Ignatius Mabasa’s much loved novel Mapenzi. The Mad is being jointly released in the UK and Zimbabwe by Carnelian Heart Publishing and amaBooks.
Mapenzi is written in Shona, but the ambitious series aims to translate a range of significant African works from other languages too, including Kiswahili and Sesotho.
This helps shift the terrain of African literature. It allows English readers to encounter African novels as they were first imagined, in the rhythms, idioms, and sensibilities of African languages. It helps counter the erasure of African languages in world literature.
Mapenzi
When Mabasa’s debut novel Mapenzi appeared in 1999, it was recognised as a landmark text in Shona literature. Shona is a Bantu language widely spoken in Zimbabwe.
Mapenzi tells the story of a disillusioned young war veteran who becomes the uncensored witness to the false promises of independence in Zimbabwe. He witnesses the collapse of social values, and the madness of a society trapped between hope and despair.
The novel’s daring style and unruly humour drew comparisons with Dambudzo Marechera, Zimbabwe’s literary provocateur. And with the stylistic innovations of Charles Mungoshi, the great craftsman of both Shona and English prose.
Mapenzi was quick to win accolades and was adopted as a school text for a generation that came of age at the turn of the millennium. Since then, Mabasa has become a central figure in the promotion of indigenous African writing.
His commitment and investment was shown when he became the first scholar to write and submit a PhD in Shona at Rhodes University in South Africa. Mabasa is also a translator in his own right. He most recently helped translate Zimbabwean novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions into Shona.
His career has been a reminder that languages such as Shona are not minor, but vibrant mediums for complex thought and artistic innovation.
Now, more than two decades later, Mapenzi can be read in English for the first time.
The Mad
The Mad has been translated by J. Tsitsi Mutiti. Unfortunately, there is no information about the translating author in the book. Even a cursory internet search yields little to nothing.
In works like this, that cross language, culture and geography, the translator plays a crucial role, not just in the text’s language but in shaping its tone, context and accessibility. A translator’s note would have provided insight into the challenges and decisions involved in the process. Instead, the translator and the process of translation remain invisible.
Read more:
Ngũgi wa Thiong’o and the African literary revolution
This lack of acknowledgement overlooks the labour and interpretive skill required to bring such a work to life in another language. The hope is that future editions will correct this omission. Leaving it unaddressed risks diminishing the very cross-cultural understanding that translation seeks to foster.
Translating Mapenzi is no small task: Mabasa’s prose brims with poetry, satire and linguistic play. Its cadences are deeply rooted in Shona idiom. The novel’s innovative structure includes chapters titled after characters, abstract concepts, places and song lyrics, pushing the boundaries of form and style in Shona literature.
In her translation Mutiti meets this challenge with remarkable skill, sustaining Mabasa’s lyricism and rhythm without smoothing out its texture. The result is a translation that feels alive, attentive both to the sense and the spirit of the original.
That said, there are occasional lapses into flatly literal translation, particularly in the dialogue. These moments feel more like direct transpositions from the Shona than deliberate stylistic choices in English. As a result, the translation at times struggles to assert a voice of its own.
Translation as decolonisation
Nonetheless, the publication of The Mad highlights how translation in African literature is not just a tool for accessibility. It is also a critical, interpretive and archival practice that reshapes the canon, its circulations and readerships. The Mad contributes to African literature’s global visibility and intellectual vitality.
For decades, the global image of African literature has been shaped largely by writers who chose or were compelled to write in colonial languages.
Kenyan author and academic Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who recently passed away, has been one of the most famous advocates for writing in African languages. He insisted that the struggle for decolonisation could not be separated from the struggle over language. Yet, as he himself often admitted, African-language writing has remained marginal in the circuits of publishing and translation.
Read more:
New Kiswahili science fiction award charts a path for African languages
A series like this aims to help change that. Other forthcoming titles include Zanzibari writer Ali Hilal Ali’s Mmeza Fupa (translated as The Swallowers of Bones by Meg Arenbeg), Kenyan novelist and sociologist Katama Mkangi’s Walenisi (translated as They Are Us by Richard Prins), Lesotho writer and teacher Ntšeliseng ’Masechele Khaketla’s Left Behind (translated by Makafane Tšepang Ntlamelle), and Halfani Sudy’s Kirusi Kipya (translated as New Virus by Jay Boss Rubin).
In this context, The Mad is more than an English version of a Shona classic. It is part of an invitation to rethink what African literature is and where it comes from. Mabasa’s novel, in Mutiti’s supple translation, demonstrates how much vitality lies in the vernacular imagination, and how translation can open doors without erasing the local textures of language.
With The Mad, a new and vital moment begins.
Tinashe Mushakavanhu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Wrangler Jim
Roses are red
Violets are glorious
Never try to surprise
Oscar pistorious
Count Eagle
Jamaica: You have two cows. They win 25 gold medals at the Bovine Olympics.