It is near impossible to talk of the African literary canon with no mention of Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous conditions. It has been hugely successful, garnering praise, international awards, astronomical sales and dozens of translations. Strangely, until 2024, 35 years after its initial publication, Nervous conditions was not available in Shona, the language some would argue is the true language of the text. Yes, it was written in English, but it is about the lives of simple Shona folk living simple, traditional lives where everything and the sky has a Shona name. To write a text like this is to translate even the scents in the air into English; perhaps this book wasn’t translated into the Shona language – it was repatriated.
In a bid to understand the process, nuances, motives and challenges of the process while also uncovering the politics of language, Philani A Nyoni converses with Ignatius Mabasa, the man who translated Nervous conditions into Shona. Mabasa is a fascinating man whose genuine love for primarily the Shona language and other African languages has brought him to the forefront of advocacy for their proliferation. It is not enough for the man to see indigenous languages survive; he wants to see them thrive and earn a place of honour in the modern world. He has lectured across the world, has published his own creative work and a PhD in the Shona language, and provides valuable insight into this project and beyond.
Ignatius Mabasa translated Nervous conditions into Shona.
Why did you choose this story in particular? It is old, and its newer versions in the form of its sequels (The book of not and This mournable body) are available; besides sentimental value, why is this story still so important that you had to take on the painstaking labour of availing it to another demographic?
Choosing to translate Nervous conditions was a decision I made after realising that one of the key target audiences of this brilliant advocacy literature – uneducated and marginalised women, or women who are trying to emancipate themselves from all sorts of oppression, including cultural oppression – would never be able to access this story because it was in English. You see, languages can also conceal information and knowledge. Nervous conditions gives a voice to the subaltern, and the subaltern within the subaltern – showing us that within the bigger, obvious struggles are other urgent struggles, which are overshadowed by bigger struggles whose casualties are pushed to the peripheries, if not into oblivion. Nervous conditions, as the first instalment of a trilogy, lays the foundation and gives us the context for the sequels, helping us better appreciate The book of not and This mournable body. Nervous conditions is indispensable in understanding the independent Zimbabwe in The book of not and the things that are falling apart in This mournable body. Nervous conditions is too big to be anybody’s object of sentimental value – it is a national narrative that transcends matters affecting Zimbabweans. It appeals to Africans in general in the same way Chinua Achebe’s Things fall apart does. Unless one understands the injustices, pain and confusion in the lives of Africans in Nervous conditions as a window to the life of Africans in general, one misses how pivotal this book is in the education of “the native” in order to decolonise the mind.
When one considers the stature both this book and its author have attained, one pauses to wonder why the appearance of this interpretation has taken so long. I have read that over 20 years ago, you stopped three chapters into the project because of some copyright issues the author was experiencing. From your experience and in your opinion, what is the biggest hurdle to the translation of some of Zimbabwe’s finest literature into more accessible languages, in order to – I will borrow some of your phrasing – take them away from academics and their air-conditioned offices and put them back under the tree?
You are getting political in many ways. The state of literature, creative writing and translation – their vibrancy and development or lack thereof – can be an indicator of how much a country is progressing. It is book publishing and translation that enable people to communicate and share ideas, connecting various facets of society, fostering learning and increasing knowledge. Unless there are deliberate efforts to create an enabling environment, supported by the government rather than leaving the sector’s growth and development in the hands of individuals and capitalists, all the progress the country has made through the Rhodesian Literature Bureau and the Zimbabwe International Book Fair will be reversed. If we had a culturally alert government, we would have seen the translation of not only Nervous conditions, but also of Charles Mungoshi’s Waiting for the rain, Chenjerai Hove’s Bones and Dambudzo Marechera’s The house of hunger, among many outstanding literary works written in English by Zimbabweans. Also, the education sector would be encouraging the writing of books and their translation into different indigenous languages. The lack of policies that encourage and promote a thriving book industry is the biggest hurdle to the translation of some of Zimbabwe’s finest literature into more accessible languages.
You speak of decolonisation as one reason why you took up this epic work. Some have argued that the book was written in English and published in postcolonial Zimbabwe and therefore you cannot speak of the translation as an act of decolonisation. Could they be missing some nuances of the definition?
It’s true that Nervous conditions was written in English – it is a cultural product of a society and a people trying to find themselves, a story about lost people and how they got lost. The story is trying to help them understand their loss, but when it uses English, it speaks more to the architects of the disorientation emanating from being lost affecting indigenous people. English is the language of people who don’t understand the nausea and dizziness that come with being lost. Today, the architects of indigenous people’s disorientation may be ashamed of what they did, but it is the majority of the victims of colonisation who must have a better understanding in order to redeem themselves. The use of English by indigenous people is actually an acknowledgement of the extent of the cultural effects of colonisation whereby Nyasha and Chido are strangers in their country and among their people – mainly because they cannot speak with their folk, and neither do they understand them or want to associate with them. Nervous conditions was written in postcolonial Zimbabwe, but is set in colonial Zimbabwe – and decolonising the text is not just about how the original was written in English, but about the devastating effects of colonisation it exposes. Even today, after 44 years of being independent, indigenous people’s choices and decisions in postcolonial Zimbabwe are a reflection of the impact of colonialism – consciously and unconsciously. Our “parents ate sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”.
English has been described as a “bastard language” – I prefer “pirate language” – in the sense that it appropriates from others (like all languages should) and is therefore more versatile than many of our indigenous languages. I imagine that translating a writer with diction as wide and precise as Dangarembga’s brought its own set of challenges. How did you cope – did you invent new words?
What you need to appreciate is that English grew by suppressing and destroying other languages, especially in the former British colonies, so its so-called versatility is a form of aggrandisement. Translating Nervous conditions was not just translating text for meaning; it was a translation of politics, of cultures – and in the process, I had to colonise certain English idioms in order to domesticate them. I didn’t invent new words, but I joined the author in the liberation struggle to have the nervous conditions of “the native” be understood and dealt with by those brutalised by colonialism and other forces.
What does the author think about what you have done (both bringing it home and the quality of the work)?
I had a few chats with Tsitsi during the translation, and at one time when I shared a difficult portion of the story that I had translated, she said, “I don’t know how you captured the voice of the novel the way you did. I am grateful.” I am still looking forward to hearing more from her about the finished translation.
At the recently held National Arts Merit Awards, we saw UKhethiwe by Zibusiso Mabonisa honoured in the Outstanding Fiction Book category, while Memory Chirere’s Shamhu Yezera Renyu was judged the most Outstanding Poetry Book. George Orwell’s Animal farm has been translated into Shona, so one would say we are living in interesting times as far as indigenous literature goes. Could we be experiencing a renaissance of indigenous languages, and how important would this be for the country and the continent?
To say we are experiencing a renaissance of indigenous languages is fantastical, because the progress of writing and reading Shona and Ndebele literature that was made in the seventies and eighties is now fast disappearing. I know Shona and Ndebele writers who have told me that they cannot write or sustain a story in their own indigenous languages. It is a huge achievement for Zibusiso Mabonisa and Memory Chirere to have published works in their mother languages in these times when indigenous writers have become an endangered species. I mentor young writers, and about 96% of them do not write in indigenous languages. They have grown up in a Zimbabwe where there are more opportunities for those who use English than those who use indigenous languages. More and more of these young writers are writing and publishing outside Zimbabwe, hoping to be the next Tsitsi Dangarembga, Petina Gappah, NoViolet Bulawayo or Blessing Musariri.