“Translation-Transnation:
1994-2004, 10 years of literary exchange”

09h00 — 11h00
Panel 1: Writers

Moderated by Achille Mbembe (Senior Researcher — Wiser), this panel will ask the writers to reflect on their works in translation, with a focus on Dutch and French translations. The authors who do not write in their mother tongue will be asked to talk about the issues related to writing in another language, for example, whether writing in a less familiar language can be seen as an act of translation, or perhaps as a betrayal. Within the South African context, translation is obviously at the centre of language issues. Writers will also address the question of the relationship between the writer and his or her translator as well as the limits of translation. The Congolese (DRC) writer Lye Yoka will broaden the discussion and talk about literature in Central Africa, the production of works in the vernacular, the translation to English of fiction from the Congo, and the literary exchanges between Central and Southern Africa.

Participants in the Panel: Sello Duiker (RSA), Chenjerai Hove (Zimbabwe), Phaswane Mpe (RSA), Charl Pierre Naude (RSA), Etienne van Heerden (RSA) and Lye Yoka (DRC).

11h30 — 13h00
Panel 2: Publishers and booksellers

The diffusion of translated fiction is closely linked to the choices and strategies of publishers and the availability of books in local bookstores. Moderated by Walter Andries Oliphant (Professor of literary theory at UNISA, Chairperson of the Network for Arts and Culture in South Africa - NACSA, Chairperson of the Arts and Culture Trust - ACT, Chairperson of the South African Writers Association — SAWA), this second panel will raise questions such as: Do people buy translated books? Do publishers expect people to read translated books? Based on what knowledge of the readership are editorial choices made? What can be said about the cultures of the book in South Africa and how do they relate to other forms of media (oral, visual)? Included in this panel will be a preview of the South African book market (Corina van der Spoel — Boekehuis), a presentation of the Praag publishing house’s choices for the translation of contemporary European literature into Afrikaans (Dan Roodt — Praag), and a presentation on the translation of early African texts into French (Alain Ricard — CNRS).

Participants in the Panel: Maggie Davey (RSA), Ntone Edjabe (Cameroon), Alain Ricard (France), Dan Roodt (RSA), Nicol Stassen (RSA), Annari van der Merwe (RSA), Corina van der Spoel (RSA).

13h00-14h00
Lunch Break

14h00 — 17h00
Panel 3: Translators

Moderated by Isabel Hofmeyr (Professor, Department of African literature, School of Literature and Language Studies, Wits), this central panel will be an opportunity for translators to talk about their experience of translating between South Africa, France and Holland over the past ten years. The participants will be asked to speak about the very practice of translation, its technicalities and the reasons behind their choices (of authors, texts), what they consider to be the limitations of translation, and whether the practice of and the choices for translation have changed in the past ten years. Additional questions will focus on whether a poor translation of a work of fiction can still be meaningful, or whether the act of translating can be compared to the act of writing. This panel will broadly consist of an attempt to define the relationship of the translator with the source text, the author, the publisher and the reader.

Participants in the Panel: Robert Dorsman (RSA), Stephen Gray (RSA), Daniel Hugo (Netherlands), Michel Lafon (France), Catherine Lauga du Plessis (France), Georges Lory (France), Jean-Pierre Richard (France), Lydia van Eeden (RSA).

09h00 — 10h30
Panel 4: Reviewers

The success of a translated work of fiction depends a lot on the media coverage. Moderated by Michael Titlestad (Lecturer, Department of English, School of Literature and Language Studies, Wits), this panel will gather participants from the press, radio and online literary reviews. Reviewers will explain if there is a specific way of reviewing translated fiction, the nature of their relationship with translators and publishers and how the selection of books for review is made. They will also be asked give an opinion on translated fictions over the past ten years. The last decade has not only been the decade of the “New South Africa”, it has also been the decade of the emergence of the Internet: reviewers will also discuss how this new medium offers new opportunities of reviewing and new opportunities for translated texts.

Participants in the panel: Fred de Vries (RSA), Shaun de Waal (RSA), Maureen Isaacson (RSA), William Pretorius (RSA), Alan Swerdlow (RSA), Kirby van der Merwe (RSA), Etienne van Heerden (RSA).

11h00 — 13h00
Panel 5: Triomf and its translations

Moderated by Professor Gerrit Olivier (Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Wits) this panel will be devoted to Marlene van Niekerk’s novel, Triomf and its various translations. Marlene van Nierkerk will sit in front of the translators of her novel into French (Donald Moerdjijk) and into Dutch (Robert Dorsman). All the questions raised during the panels dedicated to writers and to translators will be re-addressed through this specific example.

Biographical elements

Maggie Davey
Maggie Davey is the Publishing Director of Jacana Media, a Johannesburg based African publisher, which has specialized in transforming complex information into down-to-earth, user-friendly publications since 1991. Jacana’s catalogue includes works in the fields of medical and primary health care, the environment, eco-tourism, community and life skills, literacy, and curriculum-based materials for primary and secondary school sectors. In 2002, Jacana Media started what has become a strong and well-respected general books division, featuring an eclectic mix of fiction and non-fiction titles spanning a wide range of subjects and categories. With the addition of this general books division, Jacana Media now publishes within three main categories: Life, Earth and Fiction (novels, short story collections, poetry, anthologies and African writers series). Maggie Davey has also published fiction and writes for newspapers.

Fred de Vries
Fred de Vries is the books editor of This Day.

Shaun de Waal
Shaun de Waal is the literary editor and movie reviewer for the Mail and Guardian in Johannesburg. He has published a collection of short fiction, These things happen (1996), the graphic novellette Jackmarks (1998) and recently a book on South African dancer and performer Steven Cohen in collaboration Robyn Sassen.

Robert Dorsman
Robert Dorsman, born in Utrecht in 1955, has translated a large number of South African poets and writers (both Afrikaans and English speaking), including Sandile Dikeni, Lesego Rampolokeng, Marlene Van Niekerk, Ekm Dido, Peter Snyders, Wilma Stockenstrom, Olive Schreiner and A.C. Jordan. He translates the fiction of Etienne van Heerden and the poetry and non-fiction of Antjie Krog, whose work he introduced to the Netherlands. He has edited a number of poetry anthologies and is currently working on a comprehensive anthology of Afrikaans prose (1875-2000).

Sello Duiker
Sello Duiker was born in Soweto, South Africa, in 1974. Holder of a B.A in Journalism from Rhodes University, Grahamstown, he is the author of two novels and an Anthology of Short Stories. Winner of a number of literary awards, such as the Commonwealth Writer’s Best First Novel Prize (2001) for Thirteen Cents. A second novel, The Quiet Violence of Dreams, was published by Kwela Books in 2001. It was awarded the 2001 Herman Charles Bosman Prize for English Literature. Sello, who is currently living in Johannesburg, says that his mother, an insatiable reader, inspired his decision to become a writer.

Ntone Edjabe
Ntone Edjabe is a Cameroonian-born journalist and DJ. He is the Founder and Editor of Chimurenga, a pan African quarterly of arts, cultures and politics based in Cape Town. His writing, mostly on arts and cultures, has been widely published in newspapers and magazines in South Africa and abroad. He hosts Soul Makossa on Bush Radio, a progressive radio station in Cape Town, and is a member of the Fong Kong Bantu Soundsystem, a collective of DJs. During the day, he manages the Pan African Market, a trade and cultural centre in Cape Town.

Stephen Gray
Born in Cape Town, Stephen Gray was educated at the universities of Cape Town, Cambridge, and Iowa, and was Professor of English at the Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg before taking retirement in 1992. Notable among his publications are editions of H.C. Bosman’s and Athol Fugard’s work, three Penguin anthologies of South African stories and poems, and four other volumes of South African drama; he has also published eight novels and an extensive output of poetry.
Between 1974 (It’s about Time) and 1992 (Season of Violence), Gray published five volumes of poetry. Many of the poems offer clear, fresh readings of landscape and animal life. A far more troubling subject, however, is the role of the poet in a restricted society, in ’a country of words without dialogue’ (‘Chamber Music at Mount Grace’). In many of the poems Gray engages in a cruel candour, employing concatenations of images, historical references, and often scabrous punning as he interrogates South Africa’s violent history. He identifies continuities of oppression and of resistance in that history (in the title poem and ‘In Memoriam: C. Louis Leipoldt’ from Hottentot Venus, 1979): the rewriting of history, both its recovery and its correction, can be said to be the commanding theme of much of Gray’s work. In the title poem of Apollo Cafe (1990) he chronicles survival in a city of appalling violence and dazzling plenty (Johannesburg, ‘In which I live save my soul’). In the late 1980s an increasingly brutal environment led Gray to the harsh, breathless, truncated utterances of Season of Violence. After a break from poetry and the opportunity to take a retrospective in the Selected Poems (1994), the poems of the mid-1990s show a new range and depth, less scarred by the immediate present.
Among Gray’s work for theatre is Schreiner: A One-Woman Play (1983), highly successful both in Britain and South Africa. The novels are extremely diverse in form. While an early work such as Visible People (1978) is impaired by its fragile and caustic humour, John Ross: The True Story (1987) is a revelatory account of relations between a group of British traders and the Zulu emperor Shaka. War Child (1991) is an account of a Cape childhood during the Second World War, an elegiac work with disturbing undercurrents. Two novels, Time of Our Darkness (1988) and Born of Man (1989), deal with homosexual relations; the first is a provocative and often moving account of a love affair between a white schoolmaster and a black schoolboy, which Gray powerfully contextualizes in the political situation of the 1970s, and the second employs scandalous comedy to dissect South African attitudes towards sexuality.
His latest work is the translation of Jules Verne’s novel L’Etoile du Sud (Star of the South), published by Protea Books in 2003, which is the first complete version to be published in English.

Chenjerai Hove
Novelist, poet, essayist and lecturer, Chenjarai Hove was born in Zimbabwe in 1956. He is an outspoken social critic, acutely aware of the injustices of the colonial era, as well as the turbulence of present-day Zimbabwe. He trained as a teacher and has since worked as an editor for a number of publishing companies. One of the founding members of the Zimbabwe Writers Union (ZIWI), Hove has travelled extensively throughout Africa, Europe and the U.S.A. on lecture tours, and has acted as writer-in-residence at the universities of Zimbabwe, Leeds, Lewis and Clark (Oregon) and Leiden. His poetry anthologies Up in Arms (1982) and Red Hills of Home (1985), both received special mentions at the Noma Awards for Publishing in Africa, and his first novel Bones (1988), which demonstrates a deep empathy for rural people, in 1989 won both the Noma Award and the Zimbabwe Book Publishers Literary Award. His concern for vulnerable and powerless people is also in evidence in his Shona novel Masimba Avanhu?
Chenjerai Hove is currently living in exile in France, writing, lecturing and giving poetry readings. A novel is due for publication later in 2004.
Publications:
And Now the Poets Speak (poetry), 1981; Up in Arms (poetry), 1982; Red Hills of Home (poetry), 1985; Bones (fiction), Heinemann/Baobab Books, 1986; Rainbows in the Dust (poetry), Baobab Books, 1997; Masimba Avanhu? 1986; Shadows (fiction), 1991; Ancestors (fiction), 1994; Shebeen Tales (essays), Serif, London, & Baobab Books, 1994; Palaver Finish (essays), Weaver Press, 2002; Blind Moon (poetry), Weaver Press, 2003.

Daniel Hugo
Dr. Daniel Hugo is a specialist announcer / producer for Radiosondergrense, nationwide Afrikaans radio, and is also responsible for the literary programme “Leeskring en Vers en Klank”. Daniel Hugo, who has a B.A.Honours degree (Afrikaans and Dutch) from the University of Stellenbosch, later did his Masters degree at the University of Pretoria. Between 1980 and 1988 he worked as a lecturer of Afrikaans and Dutch at the University of the Free State. From 1983 he studied at the Catholic University Leuween in Belgium. He was awarded his doctorate in 1989 for his thesis “Poetry of wit”. Daniel Hugo has written 12 poetry albums - the latest Die Twaalfde letter in 2002 and has also compiled numerous “bloemlesings” (poetry and short stories). He has translated several books by the following writers from Dutch to Afrikaans: Tom Lanoye, Herman de Coninck, Harry Mulisch, Herman van Veen, Karel Glastra van Loon and David van Reybrouck.

Maureen Isaacson
Maureen Isaacson is currently the Books editor and Assistant editor of the Sunday Independent. She has worked for that newspaper for the past seven years. She also writes short stories and has published a book of short stories Holding back midnight.

Michel Lafon
CNRS-researcher associated with IFAS since 2001, Michel Lafon is a linguist. As part of a study of the Shona language, Michel Lafon translated Charles Mungoshi’s masterpiece Ndiko Kupindana Kwamazuva (Ainsi passent les jours, 2003) into French. A specialist in the Bantu languages of Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean, Michel Lafon designed and set up a Zulu course for the French Language Institute INALCO in 2003. He also directed a pioneering project on the reintroduction of mother tongue as a medium of education in the central Mozambican province of Manica from 1998 to 2000. Michel Lafon is currently working on South African language policy and completing a French-Zulu grammar and language method due to be published in 2005.

Catherine Lauga du Plessis
Born in Paris, Catherine Lauga du Plessis taught English as a foreign language. She arrived in South Africa in 1976, first taught at the Alliance Française in Cape Town before becoming a lecturer at UCT. She first translated J.M. Coetzee’s works into French with Dusklands in 1976. Over the years, Catherine Lauga du Plessis has translated several novels by Mike Nicol, Zakes Mda, Es’kia Mphahlele and J.M. Coetzee. She was awarded the Prix Baudelaire and the Prix Amphi 2002 for Disgrace. The French translations of three novels by Coetzee, Mda, Nicol are due to be published by Le Seuil in May.

Georges Lory
Once a journalist in Africa and a diplomat in South Africa, George Lory now is director for development at Radio France Internationale. He translates from Afrikaans (Breytenbach, Krog, Jonker), English (Gordimer, Ndebele, Mphahlele) and Dutch (Van Dis).

Donald Moerdijk
Donald Moerdjik, now retired, has been teaching English literature at the Ecole Normale Supérieure Fontenay-St Cloud. He has translated literature from English and Afrikaans to French. He is the author of the French translation of Triomf by Marlene van Niekerk.

Phaswane Mpe
Born in 1970, Phaswane Mpe grew up in a rural village near Polokwane in the dry and poor Limpopo Province of South Africa. He completed his degrees in African Literature and English at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and a Diploma in Advanced Study in Publishing at the Oxford Brookes University, Oxford. His debut novel, Welcome To Our Hillbrow (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 2001), deals with themes of xenophobia - especially amongst Africans in South Africa - HIV/Aids, suicide and witchcraft. Commenting on his novel, Mpe wrote “The twin themes of xenophobia and HIV/Aids in the South African context have to date not received as much attention as they merit, especially given the high numbers of African internationals in the country and the high death rate amongst South Africans due to HIV/Aids; I hope that my novel goes some way in contributing to the quality of discussion and exploration of these concerns in the meagre relevant literature that exists in the country.”
Mpe has also published a number of poems in different journals: New Coin, English Academy Review, Botsotso Magazine, Blue Fifth Review and Popular Culture.

Charl Pierre Naude
Charl Pierre Naude writes poetry. He published his first anthology in 1995 for which he won the Ingrid Jonker Prize in 1997. In 2000, his works were the focus of an international project of translation at Poetry International in Rotterdam. His second book of poetry is due out later this year, each poem being written by the author both in Afrikaans and English. He is also the translator from Dutch to Afrikaans of the Dutch-Arubean poet Alfred Schaffer. Charl Pierre Naude has also been working as a free lance journalist for twelve years.

William Pretorius
William Pretorius is a free-lance film and book reviewer. He has been a journalist since 1976, specialising in books and film and has worked for several Johannesburg based newspapers (Sunday Times, Weekly Mail, Star Tonight  ...). He currently contributes to Beeld as a film reviewer and to the Artslink cultural website, where his column on books and films is called “Free Wheeling” (www.artslink.co.za).

Alain Ricard
Prof. Alain Ricard, senior research officer with the CNRS and affiliated with the LLACAN (Langage, Langues et Cultures d’Afrique Noire), teaches a seminar on the emergence of the writer in 20th century African literature in the doctoral program of the INALCO. His 1995 book Litteratures d’Afrique noire will appear this summer in a revised and expanded English version with James Currey under the title African Languages and Literatures: the Sands of Babel. He created the collection Traversées de l’Afrique with Editions Confluences which has published two translations from Sesotho including L’homme qui marchait vers le soleil levant (Confluences, 2003), and an original French translation by Victor Ellenberger of Moeti Oa Bochabela, probably the first African novel (1907).

Jean-Pierre Richard
Professor Jean-Pierre Richard teaches Literary Translation to post-graduates at the University of Paris 7-Denis Diderot. His French translations include works by Alex La Guma, Miriam Tlali, Njabulo Ndebele, Ivan Vladislavic, Nadine Gordimer, Mandla Langa, Chenjerai Hove, and, from kiSwahili, Adam Shafi from Zanzibar.

Dan Roodt
Dan Roodt is an author, activist and publisher who directs Uitgewery Praag which has recently published Afrikaans translations of Jean Echenoz and Günter Grass. He holds a Ph.D. in Afrikaans literature from Wits University, as well as a D.E.A. in French philosophy from the Université de Paris VIII where he studied under Gilles Deleuze and René Scherrer. Apart from his numerous contributions to newspapers and on the internet, his latest novel, Moltrein, set in Paris in the 1980s, is due for publication in April 2004.

Nicol Stassen
Nicol Stassen is the Manager of Protea Book House, a publisher and bookseller located in Pretoria (1067 Burnett Street, Hatfield)

Alan Swerdlow
Alan Swerdlow made his name initially as an actor - first on stage, then on television and last (but certainly not least) on radio. It was through his acting in radio drama that he developed a love for the medium per se - and it didn’t take him long to demonstrate his versatility as a broadcaster. He also sometimes directs plays or spectacular stage musicals that capture his imagination. He currently writes film reviews and book reviews (The Bookshelf) for SAFM.

Annari van der Merwe
Annari van der Merwe heads Kwela Books in Cape Town which, since its inception in 1994, has helped to make the South African world of books more inclusive. She serves on the board of the Centre for the Book and on the executive committee of the Trade Council of the Publishers Association of South Africa (PASA). She holds degrees from the universities of Port Elizabeth and Rhodes and in the late 1970s carried out post-doctoral studies at the Rijksuniversiteit of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

Kirby van der Merwe
Kirby van der Merwe is a journalist and book editor at Insig magazine. He trained as a teacher and taught diverse subjects such as language, art and biology before starting to work as a professional artist and newspaper columnist, essayist, photo journalist and book editor. After receiving nominations for his investigative journalism and creative writing, he gained national prominence as a writer with his novel Klapperhaar slaap nie stil nie [A coir mattress does not sleep gently] (Kwela Books, 1999) and for short stories and poetry which appeared in anthologies and popular and literary magazines. He was a founder member and vice-chairman of the Black Afrikaans Writers Union, an organisation which challenged the Afrikaans literary tradition, and which strives to get the silent majority to voice their experiences in prose and verse.

Corina van der Spoel
Corina van der Spoel is the book buyer and manager of Boekehuis, a bookshop for world and Afrikaans literature, located in Auckland Park (Johannesburg). Boekehuis is one of the few independent bookshop in Johannesburg where meetings with writers are also organised.

Lydia van Eeden
Lydia van Eeden was responsible for the Afrikaans translation of Jean Echenoz’s novel Un An, published in 2003. She is a freelance translator, accredited with the South African Translators’ Institute. Lydia has an Honours degree in French from the University of Pretoria. After completing her studies she spent several years in Paris before returning to South Africa. She is currently based in Johannesburg and works for a Swiss perfume company.

Etienne van Heerden
Etienne van Heerden is Hofmeyr Professor in the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Cape Town. His novels have been published in many languages. He is founder editor of LitNet (www.litnet.co.za), one of South Africa’s leading online multicultural journals.

Marlene van Niekerk
Marlene van Niekerk was born on 10 November 1954 on the farm Tygerhoek near Caledon. She attended school in Riviersonderend and Stellenbosch, where she matriculated at Hoërskool Bloemhof. She studied languages and philosophy at the University of Stellenbosch and obtained an MA with the thesis: “Die aard en belang van die literêre vormgewing in Also sprach Zarathustra” in 1978. At university she wrote three plays for the lay theatre. In 1979 she moved to Germany to join theatres in Stuttgart and Mainz as apprentice for directing. From 1980—1985 she continued her studies of philosophy in Holland and obtained a PhD with the thesis on the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Paul Ricoeur: “Taal en mythe: een structuralistische en een hermeneutische benadering.” Back in South Africa she lectured in philosophy at the University of Zululand, and later at Unisa. She was then lecturer in Afrikaans and Dutch at the University of Witwatersrand and is now Professor at the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, University of Stellenbosch. Marlene Van Niekerk has been awarded several literary prizes, the 1978 Eugène Marais-Prize and the Ingrid Jonker-Prize for Sprokkelster, the 1995 M-Net-Prize, CNA-Prize and Noma-Prize for publications in Africa (the very first time it was awarded for a South African book) for her novel Triomf .
Publications:
1977: Sprokkelster (poems)
1983: Groenstaar (poems)
1992: Die vrou wat haar verkyker vergeet het (Short stories)
1994: Triomf (novel)

Lye Yoka
Born in Kinshasa, Lye M. Yoka has a PhD in Literature from the University of Paris 3. Adviser to the Department of Education and the Department of Culture from 1979 to 1989, Lye Yoka is now the coordinator of the Copyrights Society of DRC, consultant for the UNESCO Office and and lectures in Performance Arts Semiotics at the National Arts Institute and the Catholic Faculty of Kinshasa. He has published various plays, short stories and pamphlets and, in particular, Lettres d’un Kinois à son oncle du village (1995) (“Letters of a Kinshasa Citizen to His Uncle at The Village Back Home”), and Kinshasa, signes de vie (2000) (“Kinshasa, Signs of Life”) published with L’Harmattan. Lye Yoka is currently working on his next book entitled Carnet de guerre d’un Kinois (“War Diary of a Kinshasa Citizen”).
Publications:
Lettres d’un Kinois à son oncle du village (Letters of a Kinshasa Citizen to His Uncle at The Village Back Home), L’Harmattan 1995 Kinshasa, signes de vie (Kinshasa, Signs of Life), L’Harmattan, 2000.

LitNet: 24 March 2004

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