Dialogic Reading of African Literature in
Bengali: An Interpenetrative Image of Africa in Bengali Translation
Dr. Elham Hossain
Professor
Department of English
Dhaka City College
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Abstract:
Borrowing Bakhtinian conception of dialogism it can be said that
translation is a dialogic process as it goes through dialogues between two
different cultures, languages, texts and authors. Africa with its more than two
thousand indigenous languages can be comprehensible to the monolingual,
bi-lingual and multilingual readers of the world only through translation. In
Bangladesh a vast majority of readers are mostly monolingual. So, to be
comprehensible to this Bangladeshi readership African literature requires to be
translated into Bengali. A considerable number of African literary texts have
been translated into Bengali though in comparison with the bulk of European and
American literary texts it is not a very remarkable quantity. Due to the
interpenetrative and conglomerate nature of translation, Africa that appears in
Bengali translation is very often tinged with Bangladeshi perspective. It
happens due to the pitfalls in the communication emanating from the limitations
to negotiate with the anthropological, political and historical realitiesin
which the source texts are produced. Besides, translation is never apolitical
because it re-creates the source text for the target readers through
intertextuality and negotiations between two diverse cultures and languages.
Interaction today in the world of multiculturalism and transnationalism is
possible to a remarkable extent through internet and cyber technology. But in
postcolonial situation in context of neo-colonization, crony capitalism,
economic realities and psychic boundaries deeply impact dialogues between two
diverse cultures, inevitable for creative translatability of the phenomenon
related to the source text and the target text. How a translator responds to
the synchronic and diachronic locations of the source texts remarkably impacts
the re-creation and authentication of the target texts. This paper seeks to
explore the image of Africa in Bengali translation.
Keywords: Intertextuality; bilingualism;
dialogic; heteroglossia; dialogues; translatability
Translation is to be a critical activity, a dialogue that challenges the
impulse of narcissism by which every society and culture wants to be pure and
unadulterated. It rather opens up the chance of cross-breeding and decentering.
Silvia Kadiu in her book Reflexive
Translation Studies: Translation as a Critical Reflection refers to the
French translator Antoine Berman and asserts:
… translating is a process through which a
literary work is analysed and judged. Reflexivity in this view refers to the
translator’s reflection and judgment on the original work, to the role of
translation as a met text, to its function as a text commenting another
text. Through this act of criticism, the
translated text makes visible hidden or latent aspects of the original, according
to Berman, and as such it fulfills the ethical aim of translation, which, he
argues, is to be ‘an opening, a dialogue’. (95)
Thus, translation is not only a linguistic paradigm shift but also a
process of intertextuality between diverse thought process and psychological
aspects. It also aptly reveals the translator’s ideological and political
stance about the source text. In this connection the condition of translation
of African literary texts in Bengali, especially in Bangladesh, interprets our
stance about African literature invariably. A preamble, in this respect, is
needed for the exploration of this issue extensively.
Translation possesses the power of knitting geography as a nation
because of its being an intercultural phenomenon. It invariably expands the
scope of language and reframes the boundaries of signifiers and signifieds.
Dialogism in translation ensures dialogues between two different languages,
cultures, author and translator, translator and readers and thus in voice and
tone it becomes polyphonic and heteroglossic. In a dialogic approach readers
must listen to the characters who have different viewpoints and perspectives.
They differ from one another and stand face to face with their individual power
of ideation and conceptualization of the situations and circumstances in which
they reside. The voices of the characters never subjugate to the voice of the
author or authorial finality. So, while translating a competent translator
maintains his position only just of a catalyst in bringing the translated text
in close to the readers without manipulating the cultural, ethical, and
anthropological locations of the source text and its characters. Translation is
a very crucial task as it “could be both at the service of imperialism and a
site of resistance” (Malena 438).This contradictory nature invites the readers
of translation studies to approach dialogically for “a better understanding of
colonial power relations, of the limits of cultural transfer, and of the
problematic of difference and alterity” (Ibid 438). Difference and alterity may
have the chance to be emerged because translation works remarkably to
eternalize the source text through the renewal of language.
Translation is the gateway to ethnographical and intercultural
understanding. It immensely contributes to the transculturation process through
which a community leads towards transformation. Here lies the power of
translation. Actually, translation, according to Tullio Maranhao, “…can refer
to not only linguistic but also cultural and inter- and intrasemiotic systems”
(xi). It is because a translator writes not only what a creative writer writes,
but also what a creative writer means. To grasp the meaning of the creative
writer a translator must possess the capacity to bring about ethnographic
negotiation with the context in which the source text is produced. This
capability enables a translator to understand the translatability of the source
text and in such circumstances he may avoid being branded as in the word of
Italian critic Beneditto Croce ‘a traitor’ (Das 1). To obtain authenticity of a
translated text a translator must be a reader first and then a writer and he
should have the capacity to develop interpersonal communication. Hence,
translation is known as a ‘reader centred’ task (Das 101). The most important
task of a translator is to
“give his reader the same image and the same
delight which the reading of the work in the original language would afford any
reader educated in such a way that we call him, in better sense of word, the
lover and the expert” (Lefevere, qtd. in The
Translator’s Invisibility 101).
If a translator can overcome the barrier between the original language
and target language he is received widely by the readers. But the difficulty
that a translator of African literary texts in Bangladesh encounters is his
inability to have a comprehensibility of a huge number of pidgins and creoles
pose a barrier to the translators. But many of African literary texts have been
produced in African languages, for example, Sotho, Kiswahili, Bantu and other
indigenous languages except English, at best French. Hitherto, almost all
translated texts of African literatures are written in English. Texts of
African literatures in indigenous languages are not usually translated into
Bengali. But it is undeniable that too many African writers of the second
generation who were born after 1960 English is the first language and hence
today a huge bulk of African literature is produced in English, a lingua franca
of the globalized world.
But Africa is still unable to draw a considerable attention of the First
World countries and the Third World countries as well. In 1963 British
historian Trevor Roper boastfully enunciated that Africa, before the advent of
the European colonizers, did not have any history. According to him, it may be
only a ground suitable for the archeological discovery, not of any interest for
the historians. It is a bog, in his views, of stagnant water. The fact is that
even in the twenty first century Africa’s diverse culture, indigenous
languages, wisdom and knowledge still have failed to draw considerable
attention in our country. In this vacuum some translators are working very
appreciably with a view to developing a dialogic relationship with Africa. But
the image of Africa that they are producing in their works is interpenetrative
because translation is a reconstruction of “a world out of elements that are
not only of another language but also of another time, another place, an
entirely other system of thought” (Augst 1).So, the translator’s negotiation
with difference constitutes a renewed identity and hermeneutic urgency.
As translation re-creates the identity it is never apolitical. It is
entangled with the power-structure and it dialectically negotiates with the
hegemonic apparatuses of the society. It is utterly political. If viewed the
history of the subcontinent it is found that “[T]ranslation became political
during the colonial period” (Das 103). The first de facto Governor General of Bengal Warren Hastings took initiative
to translate Dharma Shastra from
Sanskrit to Persian by the local pundits and from Persian to English by some
English scholars with a view to fortifying their hegemony upon the natives
after knowing their epistemology. Bhagavad
Gita was translated by Charles Wilkins in 1774 and many seminal books of
this subcontinent were translated into English to enslave the natives
epistemologically. Kalidasa’s Sakuntala
was translated into English by the Asiatic Society established by William Jones
with a deliberate intention to grasp Oriental epistemology into their grip and
ensure their hegemony upon the local people because it is true that
epistemology of any community constructs and controls it as a powerful
apparatus. Hence, inevitably the subjugation of a community’s epistemology
ensures the compliance and obedience of it. As translation possesses the
potential to transform the source text into ‘Other’ by altering its tone and
voice the colonizers with the inception of their colonial enterprises in any
part of the world put much emphasis in translating the local texts of
epistemology and aesthetics into their languages. Thus, they used translation
as a tool of fortifying their hegemony upon the natives. In this connection,
the study of translation conspicuously has a subtle relevance in the study of
postcolonial theories.
In the postcolonial situation the task of translation of a foreign text
goes on at a considerable speed. Now the West has become the nucleus of the
power-structure and economic enterprises. Due to the germ of colonial legacy
still dormant in the psyche of many of the Third World academics, a latent
desire behind the act of translation works among the translators to be aided by
the favor of the West. Again,
translation is related to various objectives. It cannot evade the practice that
more sales beget more prestige and more recognition. Thus, translation creates
a dialogic condition by establishing connectivity among many. Owing to the
impact of colonial experience, and even because of inherent colonial legacy
European and American literary texts are capable of occupying a very
considerable space in translation studies in Bangladesh. But at the same time
it is true that Bangladeshi readers do not have as much connectivity with
African literature as they have with English or American or even Latin American
literature. It is because of the marginalized status of African literature in
the curricula of the universities of Bangladesh. Besides, racial attitude which
is mostly borrowed from the white skinned people retards our interest in
African literature to a significant extent. Chinua Achebe, Amos Tutuola, Wole
Soyinka, Ngugi, Ben Okri, Camara Laye, Ama Ata Aidoo, Bessie Head, Farah
Nuruddin, Tayeb Salih have some entrance into our curricula of the
universities. Prize winning readers usually can draw more attention of the
readers. With the corporatization of the global economy, readers have started
to be considered as market and this market consumes the product which has more
publicity and wide celebration. So, basically the prize winning authors,
especially Nobel, Booker Prize or Pulitzer winning authors can occupy the focus
of concentration of the readers. Wole Soyinka and Abdulrazak Gurnah won Nobel
Prize in 1986 and 2021 respectively. And the events of winning the Nobel Prize
are contributing to the development of connectivity of the international
readership with African literature. But a huge quantity of Francophone and
Lusophone African literature is almost unable to draw our attention. As a
result, the study of African literature, especially produced by these prize
winning authors in translation usually offers a fragmented picture of Africa to
the readers beyond the boundaries of Africa. Again, because of being too much
politically conscious African literature is not always able to draw
considerable attention of the readers of Bangladesh because due to the
ecological, social and cultural background people here are more interested in
aesthetics than politics and it gets reflected in their study of literature,
too. On the other hand, predominantly African literature, in broad sense,
exhibits a conspicuous stance against hegemony or the existing power-structure.
Also, ideological location of the translator manipulates significantly
the act of translation. The role of the translator as a mediator or
communicator gets impacted by his location in the target culture. Translators
of the Global South or Third World countries like Bangladesh cannot deny the
global hegemony of English. It occurs due to their growth out of the unequal
power-relation between the First World and the Third World. To deconstruct or
challenge this power-structure and hegemony translators need to fortify their positionality
as a mediator between the texts of the Third World countries and those of the
First World countries. It is difficult but not impossible to challenge the
insidious discursive practice of the hegemony of English as one of the major
lingua franca of the First World texts. It cannot be overcome by a culture
oriented approach because it enables the translators to evade ‘negative
stereotyping’. In this connection, Bandia “…discusses African writing in
European languages and argues that translation of their works requires a source
culture oriented approach which takes particular care to avoid ‘negative
stereotyping’ in the transfer into the colonizer’s language…” (Baker 140). As
English is an overriding language, to understand the viability of other languages
and, above all, owing to its close relation with the power-structure, it
occupies the focus of the attention of the translators. So, inevitably in
Bangladesh mostly the texts written in English are usually chosen for
translating into Bengali. Besides, European and American texts get priority for
translation because of their hegemonic status in the world literature which is
now mostly patronized by the corporate economy. In competition with European
and American literatures, African literature in English lags far behind. In
addition, African literature in indigenous languages does not get considerable
attention for translation. Only the writings produced by a few of African
authors, such as, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Ngugiwa Thiong’o, Ben Okri,
Sembene Ousmane, Ama Ata Aidoo and a few other writers who use English language
as their medium of writing are able to draw some attention of the translators
of Bangladesh.
Cultural location of both the source texts and the translated texts
contribute to the task of creating stereotypes for the context of the source
texts and they significantly control the attitudes and approach of the target
readers and consequently, they may derogate the source texts. These stereotypes
and translation patterns tend to domesticate and dehistoricize as well as
foreignize the source text because,
[T]ranslation wields enormous power in
constructing representations of foreign cultures. The selection of foreign
texts and the development of translation strategies can establish peculiarly
domestic canons for foreign literatures, canons that conform to domestic
aesthetic values and therefore reveal exclusions and admissions, centers and
peripheries that deviate from those current in the foreign language. (Venuti
67)
In Bangladesh many of the texts of African literatures that have already
been translated and are being still translated are found manipulated by the
limitations of the translators about the context and the situations related to
the realities such as cultural atmosphere, aesthetics and moral values.
Actually, readers spontaneously respond to a literary work whether it is an
authentic text or a translated text when they recognize themselves in it.
Hence, to impress the readers, translators very often impose their own
linguistic patterns, local dialectical elements, linguistic and aesthetic
issues upon the foreign texts. It has a conspicuous chance to derogate the
source text. For example, it is found that while translating Chinua Achebe’s Girls at War a Bangladeshi translator has
put the vernacular of the local people of an area of Bangladesh. It tells upon
the synchronic and diachronic location of the source text. At the same time,
this domestication process tends to dislocate the source text both
topographically and linguistically. The translator may have done it to exhibit
the similarities between the marginalized people of two different cultures and
bring the target texts closer to the target readers. But falling into the
cleavage of such domestication process, source texts confront the risk of
losing its genuine color and flavor emanated from the indigenous aesthetics and
values. Actually, the fact is that the realities in which Achebe’s characters
live are not same as those of Bangladesh in respect of their location in the existing
power-structure.
Again, a very common tendency among the translators to translate the
best sellers or prize-winning books can obviously be held responsible for
presenting a fragmentary picture of the source culture. As soon as an author
wins Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize or Nobel Prize, his/her books are
translated almost overnight. Target readers also show a staunch interest to
read only those books in translation that belong to the culture of the majority
of the people. This disposition is mostly political because it desperately
promulgates the agenda of the writers belonging to the culture of the majority
and in the existing framework of corporate economy it is undeniable that the
readers are a construction. They are not free in the sense that they possess
the liberty of deciding what they will read and what they will not read. Hence,
the literary works of the writers with less familiarity become marginalized and
do not have any chance to enunciate the voice of the minority or peripheral
people to the power-structure of the society in which the target readers
reside. It is true, “there is always a difference between how people view
themselves and their group and how they see others” (Schippers 5). Therefore,
the whole body of a society’s normative disposition is constructed by these
binary opposites. A considerably honest translator, while translating a major
text of a major author, has the probable risk of presenting an incomplete
picture of the society to which the source text belongs. In addition, in doing
it, he may deliberately assume the cultural realities of a particular group as
the representative cultural realities of the whole community. Psychologically
interpreted, it may happen owing to the translator’s colonial bent of mind and
an interest in the corporatization of the market. Also, majority of the books
which are translated are originally in English language. But these books do not
usually get priority for translation into the language of the ethnic people and
again translation is marked specially for its gender and sexual orientation and
thus, a hegemonic disposition is exposed through its unusual relationship with
the readers of the ethnic groups. It happens because “[T]ranslation is a
central and inescapable fact of the economic, scientific and cultural life of a
minority language” (Baker 170).As translation promotes appropriation of the
foreign culture within the language and culture of the majority of the people,
the minority of the people remain outside. Thus, translation tends to go hand
in hand with hegemony and power. This hegemonic nature of translation tends to
keep the minority groups of people out of the chance of being globally updated
and thus they are marginalized. Again, corporatization of the publication
business significantly controls the enterprises of translation. As the
translators have to depend on the publishers, and the publishers as investors
are undeniably concerned about profit maximizing enterprises, they cannot evade
the hegemony of English language as the best sellers and prize winning books
are mostly Anglo phonic. Thus, the germination of interest in translating
African literary texts goes with their international recognition. In 2021
Tanzanian born African author, now living in Britain, Abdulrazak Gurnah has won
the Nobel Prize in literature. Hence, a craze is felt in Bangladesh now about
reading as well as translating Gurnah’s works in Bengali. It marks the
implication how the reading is regulated and controlled by some specific
organizations of the power-structure. Connectivity gets some impetus only with
the corporatization of the elements that determine the definition of the
readers. Hence, even in post-colonial situations colonial legacy, the rise of
neo-colonial temperament and crony capitalism still manipulate the nature and
character of reading, writing and the act of translating.
In Bangladesh most of the readers are monolingual. They can read and
write mostly in Bengali. So, African literary texts in translation have a
tenuous economic status here. As the market is the first priority to be
considered by the publishers, they are usually unwilling to take the risk of
losing their investment. As a result, they want the bestsellers to be
translated into Bengali with a view to having an access into a big market.
Bestsellers have already reached the mass readers and when they are translated
they cross the borders and reach more readers and thus serve the purpose of the
investors. On the other hand, less familiar books do not usually draw much
attention of the translators and their patrons, that is, the publishers as
there is the risk of their not being widely accepted by the readership. If
translated, even the translators know that they cannot occupy a permanent space
in the spectrum of existing literary canon; rather they enjoy “…the status of
domestic ephemera, passing with the changing interests of the broadest possible
audience, falling out of print when sales diminish” (Venuti 124). This stance
is common throughout the world of corporate economy and Bangladesh as a Third
World country is not an exception. Professional publishers are not much willing
to publish the books of less familiar authors and as such, usually the popular
and prize-winning African authors are translated in Bangladesh. Chinua Achebe,
Wole Soyinka, Ngugiwa Thiong’o, Ben Okri, Sembene Ousman, Amos Tutuola,
Christopher Okigbo, Leopold Sedar Senghor and a few others are translated into
Bengali, not wholly but partially. There are many African authors who write in
Portuguese, French and indigenous languages and they are powerful in using
well-knit content and style. Almost all of them remain out of the boundary of
knowledge of Bangladeshi readership. The negotiation of both the publishers and
the translators in the existing economic framework creates a linguistic and
cultural stereotype which unjustly gives a gesture that African literary canon
is limited and it is revolving only around political subject-matters. A huge
and variegated canvas of African literature covering aesthetics, folktales, myths
and romance remain out of the queries of the readers in Bangladesh.
For translating African literary texts it is essential to know that
correspondences between the source language and the target language produce
meanings which are always plural because both the source text and the target
text or translated text are the derivatives which “consist of diverse
linguistic and cultural materials…” and a source text is a repository of many
semantic possibilities (Venuti, The
Translator’s Invisibility 18). Translation of a source text becomes
successful in retaining the same aura of semantic possibilities and reproducing
the flavor if the translator possesses the capacity to accommodate all these
dimensions of meanings. A translator has to overcome every nuance of the
original text but this task becomes difficult when he fails to bring about a
negotiation between the source culture and the target culture. A translator
does not merely translate; he also interprets and adapts the source text.
Hence, a proper dialogic negotiation between the source text and the target
text is a must and it authentically presents the source culture to the target
readers to a great extent. In Bangladesh some distinguished translators are
producing some remarkable translations. As documentation is the first and
foremost condition of appropriate translation, it should be addressed by the
translators to represent Africa truly. To the readers and this task will
obviously perpetuate the source texts. In this connection, translators like Shamsuzzaman
Khan, Kabir Chowdhury, Syed Shamsul Haque, Asad Chowdhury, Kajal Bandyopadhyay,
Khaliquzzaman Elias and several others have achieved accolade in translating
some of the major literary oeuvre of Senghor, Christopher Okigbo, Chinua Achebe
and many other African litterateurs. They have also translated a handful of
folktales, speeches, interviews, dramas and novels. All their translations
manifest the authorial voices of the source texts. Their translations have
achieved viability to a great extent because of their capacity to bring about a
correspondence, not always with physical contact with African culture and
languages, but with their extensive and sincere study of Africa with all its
diversities. But as translation is not apolitical, only translating the major
authors translators may knowingly or unknowingly stereotype the image of
Africa. Venuti, in his book The
Translator’s Invisibility claims that translation is a site in which a
cultural other is manifested. But it is also true if the translator can bring
about intertextuality between the self and the other, then the distance between
the source text and the target text can be overcome to a considerable extent.
And in this connection, the above mentioned translators have exhibited their
potential in their translated texts.
The volume or quantity of translation of African literature in Bengali
should have been much more in comparison with the translation of English or
American or Latin American literary texts. In this connection, it is relevant to
mention that the study of African literature in Bengali is not new.
Rabindranath Tagore wrote his famous poem ‘Africa’ in Bengali in 1936 after
Mussolini invaded Ethiopia. Buddha Dev Bose composed ‘Chayachanna hey Africa’
(Trans. ‘O Shadowed Africa’). Both the poets with great compassion depict
Africa with all its wealth of cultural diversity, ethnographical resources and
geographical spectrum. They have criticized the colonial enterprises in Africa.
In 1968 the then Bardhhaman House, now Bangla Academy, published a periodical
named Parikraman. It was edited by
Hasan Hafizur Rahman and three valuable essays on African literatures and
cultures were published in this periodical and “Hasan Azizul Haque, Ahmed
Humayyun and Safdar Mir reflected on various pros and cons of African
literature and its future” (Hossain 235). Their focus of delineation fell
mostly on political aspects, such as Africa’s colonial experience and its
response to the advent of colonial enterprises. Veteran author and linguist
Suniti Kumar Chattapadhyay composed several highly informative essays on
culture and ethnographical aspects of Africa. All these essayists, poets and
translators have drawn a considerable amount of interest of the Bangladeshi
readership to African literature and culture.
True, Comparative Literature Departments of universities can play a very
crucial role in patronizing translation studies. Cross-cultural and
cross-disciplinary translations and inter-lingual translations are usually
encouraged by the Comparative Literature departments of the universities.
Inclusion of more African literary texts in the curricula of the Comparative
Literature Departments along with the development of a dialogic relationship will
inspire the task of translating African literary texts. Translation without
developing dialectical relationship with Africa may have the risk of offering a
fragmentary picture of the diverse spectrum of African literature. It is
undeniable that Comparative Literature Departments of universities are
considered to be a potent apparatus and they shape and reframe the attitude and
ways of viewing things of the learners. In the capitalist economic framework
these departments are not out of the direct control of the hegemonic
power-structure. Remaining under the directives of these institutions the
readers may fail to pick up the cultural nuances, contextual contents and the
circumstances out of which these literary texts emerge and consequently, they
may run the risk of falling into a false consciousness that African literatures
do not deserve considerable attention. Besides, the biases and prejudices
borrowed from the colonial legacy and racial complexities invariably interfere
the insight into African literature.
But it is optimistic that at present some initiatives are being taken
from different corners to translate African literary texts in Bengali. With a
view to bringing about a dialectical connectivity with African literatures Centre for Studies in African Literatures
and Cultures, Dhaka has been working since 2014. It is working for
inspiring the study of African literatures in Bangladesh. Its regular
periodical Africar Alo publishes
translation, essays, book reviews and interviews of African authors. It is
found now that young people are becoming more and more interested in African
literatures and cultures and they are translating fictions, interviews, dramas
and short stories and getting them published in little magazines and
periodicals occasionally. If patronized by the state, translation of African
literary texts in Bengali will immensely contribute to the development of
Bengali literature through intertextuality and it is undeniable that
intertextuality is the reality of the present globalized and cybernetic world.
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