Globalectical Swahili literature

Abstract

The article argues that Swahili literature is one of the streams that would flow into the metaphoric sea which is world literature. Ngũgĩ's concept of ‘globalectics' is used as the framework to address the global and local agenda of two Swahili works of narrative fiction. Babu Alipofufuka [When Grandfather Came to Life Again, 2001] by the Tanzanian Said A. Mohamed and Bina-Adamu! [God's Wretched Sons, 2002] by the Kenyan Kyallo Wamitila are analysed in order to achieve two aims: presenting these works as cultural bridges and maintaining that nowadays discourses on the nation cannot be detached from global contexts. The article concludes that globalectical works of narrative fiction in Swahili present an invitation to literary critics to start considering Swahili literature in discussions of world literature that are ignorant of such texts and traditions. Damrosch considers circulation, translation, and publication as the three signposts of world literature. This implies that works not translated into languages endowed with more prestige cannot qualify as world literature. The article suggests a further criterion for world literature.

Keywords:

• globalectics
• Swahili literature
• world literature
• intercultural translation
• translocal biographies

Notes

1. The significance of texts in relation to the Swahili literary field is well explored by Kresse (2005) who shows how the interpretation of a poem by the Kenyan poet Nabhany cannot rely on Western criteria and episteme only. The contexts of production and reception are a better key to the analysis of such a poem because they at best reflect how creative works reflect a certain ‘rationality’ of which the critic should be aware.

2. Occasionally, Said A. Mohamed also uses some words from German or Swahilized versions of German words in some scenes. Examples are Hausschuhe [Slipper] and faflukta [Damn].

3. In Bina-Adamu! (2002, 38) readers are told that ‘not too long ago a great cleansing had taken place on a mountain called Nurnberg' [Majuzi tu kulifanywa utakaso mkuu katika mlima mmoja, Nurenibaga]. This is an allusion to Germany under Hitler's regime.

4. ‘Mimi nitakuwa pRoteus wa pili' (Babu Alipofufuka 2001, 11).

5. Here one could also talk of the de-territorialization of characterization since characters' names transcend Swahili onomastics.

6. In Bina-Adamu! Asia is considered to live in hope, Europe contents itself with memories of its prestigious past, whereas Africa remains on the margins.

7. Twelve years after Bertoncini made this observation one has to say that the situation has considerably improved in Pemba.