This article deals with the translation into Italian of the Swahili novel Utengano by Said Ahmad Mohamed, which was published in March 2005 under the title `Seperazione`by an Italian Publishing House, Rubbettino Editiore. Translation is a very important form of intercultural communication, which can provide contact with new readers, expected and unexpected ones. In the following pages I will decribe the main features of my translation of the novel Utengano, highlighting the main differences between the first version, that I produced as an appendix to the M.A. thesis, and the manuscript that I submitted to the publishing house.

I would like to present the latest novel by Said Ahmed Mohamed, Babu alipofofuka (\''When Grandfather came to life again\''), published at the end of the last year. The mine will be only a first, preliminary and very inadequate attempt as, I am sure, this work will challenge us for quite a few years. In fact, after five realistic novels the author has adopted a new technique, turning to magic realism as he himself defines his work, but perhaps it is a too limitative definition. He depicts our world in a near future, when Tanzania and other African countries will have already undergone the process of globalization. The results are disastrous: impoverished and dulled masses are governed by a handful of immensely rich, powerful and arrogant persons mostly of foreign origin, deprived of all human qualities, who have thrown away any inhibition and deliberately sunk in all sorts of physical and moral debasement; nothing embarrasses nor frightens them anymore as they feel unpunishable.

The Swahili novel, a literary genre lately appeared in Tanzania, has undoubtedly found a brilliant and mature expression in the works of the Zanzibarian writer Said Ahmed Mohamed. His novel Utengano, published in 1980, is a unique work in the Swahili literary production of the Seventies and Eighties, with regard to both the themes treated and the very elaborated style of the author, who has given a dense and homogeneous quality to this genre, which is by definition open and composite, totally different from the short story, the organisation of different elements representing a challenge to the capacities of a writer in terms of composition. In this paper I will focus on a feature of Utengano which, in my view, points out to the good achievement of a novel, namely the author`s utterance of a leitmotiv or general abstract idea creating cross-references and symbolic relations between the different levels of a literary text. The leitmotiv I found in Utengano is the idea of dynamism, in other words motion, energy that produces changes, which permeates the whole work unifying the different levels of expression. These latter will be analysed separately to allow a clear exposition, but the dialectical relationship between the `what` and the `how´ represents the key to the reading of this novel.

Contemporary Swahili poetry is developing according to three main trends. The followers of the first trend - the so called "traditionalists" - stick to classic forms of old Swahili poetry. Following the Swahili canon of versification, traditionalists continue to be within the limits of two main genres of old Swahili literature - tendi (long poems) and mashairi (moderate lyrics and philosophical verses). In Swahili poetry foregoing sudden changes were marked by the appearance of a group of young authors on the poetic stage in the 1970s, who gave a dare to tradition. Their venture radically changed the character of Swahili literature, marking the appearance of the second trend of Swahili poetry, the \\\"new\\\" or \\\"modernistic\\\" poetry. But along with traditional and \\\"modernistic\\\" schools there exists a third trend of Swahili poetry - it is that sort of versification, which one may call \\\"transitional\\\". In general it looks lile pure \\\"modernism\\\", where at first sight one cannot see even the faintest resemblance with the traditional canon, but the more careful search makes it obvious that there is a true continuity between traditional and contemporary art. The best examples of such transformation are the poems of two prominent figures of contemporary Swahili poetry, the Tanzanians Theobald Mvungi and Said Ahmed Mohamed.

This article presents an interpretation of Said Ahmed Mohamed`s forth novel Kiza katika Nuru (1988). My aim is to show that this novel is an engaging model of modern Swahili fiction, in which the author provides a very acute perception of the contemporary social and political realities in Tanzania. The article focuses on the plot and characters, and will wouch some aspects of language usage and problems of translation. The latter aspect is derived from my work experience in translation Kiza katika Nuru into Italian: Il buio nella luce (Nocera 2004).

The depiction of family ties is one of the core elements of Swahili novels in Tanzania, especially in the post-Independence, socialist period, conveying all the contradictions of that social and cultural context. On one hand the representation of family relationships in terms of tense and aggressive behaviour (Mlacha 1987: 82) reflects the clashes of those years, between town and countryside, between genders and between different generations. On the other hand, the image of a new family - like for instance Chonya, Masika and her baby in Ndyanao Balisidya’s novel Shida (1975) - stands as a commitment to an alternative society, a dream of a better life inspired by Ujamaa which marked the Swahili prose of the 1970’s (Mbughuni 1980: 92). Said A. Mohamed, after his first novels which dealt with the colonial and pre-revolutionary past, turned his attention to contemporary society, but has continued to develop the idea of the family as a symbolic space where relationships between the characters articulate the inequalities and the conflicts within Zanzibari society. His literary discourse, as will become clear in the following pages, brilliantly investigates the deep roots and the countless facets of authoritarianism in contemporary Zanzibari society, depicting a gallery of fathers - in a biological and in a metaphorical sense – who are despotic, immoral, hypocritical, and increasingly cynical.

L’Homme représente la vraie richesse de la nation, car il poursuit le progrès social tout en cherchant son bien-être personnel par le biais d’actions concrètes pour améliorer son mode de vie. C’est pour cela que le Maroc a lancé à travers le discours du Roi Mohamed VI, l’Initiative Nationale pour le Développement Humain (INDH), le 18 mai 2005, pour lutter contre l’exclusion sociale, la précarité et la pauvreté et se hisser au rang des pays avancés. Notre étude de l’INDH prend appui sur l’évaluation du programme de lutte contre la précarité dans la région Chaouia-Ouardigha. Celle-ci est une des régions du Maroc qui a été étudiée de plus près pour avoir bénéficié de projets dans ce cadre. L’Initiative Nationale pour le Développement Humain est donc un vaste chantier permanent qui met l’Homme au centre du développement, et assure la durabilité de ses projets. Le développement humain a un caractère à la fois économique et social. Il suppose une politique publique active. C’est pourquoi, il n’aurait de raison d’être sans l’Etat, qui s’est affirmé dès la fin des années 1990, conformément aux travaux de A. Sen mettant l’accent sur le rôle de l’Etat dans le développement humain. / Man represents the true wealth of nation, as he persues social advance while seeking his personal well-being by means of concrete actions to improve his life style. That is why Morocco has launched the National Initiative for Human Development through king Mohamed Vl’ s speech on the 18th of May 2005, to fight against social exclusion, precariousness and poverty and to raise itself to the position of advanced countries. Our NIHD study rests on the evaluation of the fight program against precariousness in Chaouia-Ouardigha region. This is one of Morocco’s most closely studied regions, since it has benefited from projects within this framework. The National Initiative for Human Development is therefore a vast and permanent field which puts man at the heart of development and ensures the durability of his plans. The human development has both an economic and a social nature. It requires an active public Policy. That is why there would be no more reason for it to exist without the state, which asserted itself from the end of the nineties in accordance with A. Sen’ s Works which emphasize the role of the state in human development.

Makala hii inachanganua wahusika na dhana kuu zinazosawiriwa katika riwaya ya Kiza Katika Nuru (1988) ya Said Ahmed Mohamed kwa kuzingatia mihimili ya mojawapo ya mikabala ya Umarxi Mpya, mkabala wa mwanafalsafa na mwananadharia kutoka Marekani ya Kilatini, Paulo Freire. Kiini cha mkabala huu wa umarxi-mpya ni kukosoa na kutupilia mbali mitazamo kuhusu elimu inayomnyima mwanafunzi fursa ya kujifunza kutokana na mazingira yake. Uchambuzi huu unabainisha jinsi Umarxi Mpya wa Kifreire unavyofaa kwa kuchambua riwaya ya Kiza Katika Nuru, na riwaya nyingine za Kiswahili zinazofanana nayo. / This article analyses characters and main concepts in Said Ahmed Mohamed’s novel Kiza katika Nuru (Darkness in Light) through applying tenets of one of the Neo-Marxist theories, namely the Freirean one. Paul Freire’s Neo-Marxist theory is primarily associated with the Latin American environment and centres around the debunking of the banking concept education as a modus operand of revolution. This analysis demonstrates how Freirean Neo-Marxism is relevant and appropriate to the understanding and interpretation of Kiza Katika Nuru and other Kiswahili novels that are similar to it.

The depiction of family ties is one of the core elements of Swahili novels in Tanzania, especially in the post-Independence, socialist period, conveying all the contradictions of that social and cultural context. On one hand the representation of family relationships in terms of tense and aggressive behaviour (Mlacha 1987: 82) reflects the clashes of those years, between town and countryside, between genders and between different generations. On the other hand, the image of a new family - like for instance Chonya, Masika and her baby in Ndyanao Balisidya’s novel Shida (1975) - stands as a commitment to an alternative society, a dream of a better life inspired by Ujamaa which marked the Swahili prose of the 1970’s (Mbughuni 1980: 92). Said A. Mohamed, after his first novels which dealt with the colonial and pre-revolutionary past, turned his attention to contemporary society, but has continued to develop the idea of the family as a symbolic space where relationships between the characters articulate the inequalities and the conflicts within Zanzibari society. His literary discourse, as will become clear in the following pages, brilliantly investigates the deep roots and the countless facets of authoritarianism in contemporary Zanzibari society, depicting a gallery of fathers - in a biological and in a metaphorical sense – who are despotic, immoral, hypocritical, and increasingly cynical.

Contemporary Swahili poetry is developing according to three main trends. The followers of the first trend - the so called "traditionalists" - stick to classic forms of old Swahili poetry. Following the Swahili canon of versification, traditionalists continue to be within the limits of two main genres of old Swahili literature - tendi (long poems) and mashairi (moderate lyrics and philosophical verses). In Swahili poetry foregoing sudden changes were marked by the appearance of a group of young authors on the poetic stage in the 1970s, who gave a dare to tradition. Their venture radically changed the character of Swahili literature, marking the appearance of the second trend of Swahili poetry, the \\\"new\\\" or \\\"modernistic\\\" poetry. But along with traditional and \\\"modernistic\\\" schools there exists a third trend of Swahili poetry - it is that sort of versification, which one may call \\\"transitional\\\". In general it looks lile pure \\\"modernism\\\", where at first sight one cannot see even the faintest resemblance with the traditional canon, but the more careful search makes it obvious that there is a true continuity between traditional and contemporary art. The best examples of such transformation are the poems of two prominent figures of contemporary Swahili poetry, the Tanzanians Theobald Mvungi and Said Ahmed Mohamed.