Exclusive Interviews with the NEA Translation Fellows: Richard Prins

On the opening page of Katama Mkangi’s Walenisi, the protagonist is sentenced to death for no discernible reason and shot into outer space inside a rocket; he then battles some allegorical asteroids before miraculously piloting himself to safety on a distant planet that happens to be a socialist utopia. I first read this novel in an undergraduate Swahili class, and to call it a mind-blowing experience would be an understatement.

While I was naturally drawn to Mkangi’s radical political vision, what made the novel most indelible in my mind was the insistent radicalism of the writing itself. This was part subversiveness, and part necessity, since Mkangi was tasked with creating a sci-fi lexicon in a language which did not previously have one. Aside from renovating the Swahili language with labyrinthine syntax and imports from other Kenyan languages, he also blends folklore with futurism, and wields a narrative tone rapidly careening between farce and prophecy. I laugh when I remember trying to make sense of all of this before I was fluent in the language – yet it was absolutely clear to me that I was encountering a vision as brave as it was idiosyncratic.

Early in the pandemic, the chorus of the old Zanzibari song “Muhogo wa Jang’ombe” got stuck in my head. So I had to sit down and spend the day translating it. I thought this would be a momentary distraction while I was in between other writing projects, but I found it so gratifying, so rejuvenating, that I went on to translate several other taarab songs before moving on to Swahili hip-hop lyrics, and eventually the 19^th century poet Muyaka bin Haji al-Ghassaniy. I certainly did not expect that I would soon find myself translating a novel; I have Two Lines Press and No Edges: Swahili Stories to thank for that.

When I started learning Swahili as a teenager, I had already been studying Latin and Ancient Greek. While I can no longer read them with any degree of skill, they definitely impacted my early experiences of translation. Some works that stand out are Anne Carson’s If Not, Winter, Robert Fitzgerald’s Odyssey, and a translation of Catullus’ two-line poem “Odi et Amo” that I heard Angelo Verga read at the Cornelia Street Cafe cerca 2002. It took me twenty years to search up his email address and ask him to send me a copy (which, graciously, he did!) My abiding passion for African literature – from all over the continent – came later. But the most decisive spark was probably spending my junior year of college abroad at the University of Dar es Salaam.

My drive to translate started with a song. That’s important for me to remember. No language crosses or transcends linguistic barriers more powerfully than music. What delights me most about translation is gaining a deeper understanding of language as a musical form. It also keeps me connected with my love for Swahili language and culture, when life and parenthood otherwise prevent me from spending as much time in East Africa as I would like.

I am not a natural builder or joiner of communities. Too anxious, too eccentric. When it comes to the literary community, I exist most comfortably at its margins. Sometimes I tell myself that’s just because I prefer the company of musicians to other writers – but, sadly, I suspect it’s because my ego and insecurities have always been too tightly wound up in my writing. I think translation calls for an unwinding of ego (however partial). You have to lower your own voice so another, new voice can harmonize over it. For me at least, this has made a much better basis for enjoying meaningful interactions and relationships with other translators and authors.

Recently, on my birthday, I received my pre-ordered copy of The Imaginative Vision of Abdilatif Abdalla’s Voice of Agony, translated by Ken Walibora and edited by Annmarie Drury. It felt like a present from the universe. This volume of Swahili poetry was composed in prison by Abdilatif Abdalla, the first political prisoner of independent Kenya. It also includes a bounty of paratextual materials, making it a wonderful example of how translating a book may have possibilities and responsibilities far greater than merely herding words from one language into another.

Last week at jury duty, I finished reading Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey, and now I hear and understand so differently a text I thought I knew so well. Amazing how a translation can do that. I also recently read Songs of Mihyar the Damascene by the Syrian poet Adonis. I’ve loved his work for many years across multiple translations – but Kareem James Abu-Zeid and Ivan S. Eubanks’s treatment is ecstatically gorgeous. (As an emerging, overeager literary translator prone to magnifying every setback, I also found myself extraordinarily encouraged by Abu-Zeid’s description of the 16-year-long saga preceding its publication: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/criticism/adonis-songs-of-mihyar-the-damascene/(opens in a new tab))