Translating a Swahili literary work into French poses specific problems due to the small number of translations existing so far and the imaginary representations associated with these two languages in the translator’s mind. In the case of Euphrase Kezilahabi’s novels Nagona (1990) and Mzingile (1991), the task is complicated by the very peculiar nature of these narratives, whose apocalyptic substratum does not refer to an identifiable cultural universe but to the interstitial space between a world condemned to die and a world yet to be born. In this article I will provide some insights from my experience of translation of these two Swahili novels.

The mediation of foreign films for Swahili audiences is an established cultural and linguistic practice in Tanzania that combines translation with commentary and story-telling. It helps audiences make sense of films whose original language and cultural background are unfamiliar to them. Today, an industry has grown around translated foreign films of all genres and from all regions. The practice also makes genres accessible that are still under-represented in Tanzanian film production, such as science fiction. The genre’s depiction of a futuristic, technically advanced and strange world presents a challenge to commentators. Through the analysis of a particular episode of the Star Wars saga, I show how the commentator acts as an ethnodramaturg, who through translation, re-narration and intertextual reference explains and re-enacts the strange cultural universe of the source film and brings it closer to the audience.

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In this paper, I propose translation as a main tool for a sensualistic and hermeneutical approach to texts. In agreement with the writer and thinker Euphrase Kezilahabi, who claims that the text has to be considered as a living event, I propose to look at a text not as an object but as a living body. I ague that this approach reduces the distance between the body of the text and that of the reader. Perception can thus be used as a means to know and critique a literary text. I present a multifocal sensualistic analysis based on an analogical idea of knowledge, taking translation as a tool to push the critic to focus on the text word for word (not excluding the paratext or the context). The translations discussed here are poems by Kezilahabi and a proposal for a Swahili translation of the poem L’infinito by the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi.

Obituary in memory of Irmi Maral-Hanak and her scientific work

Obituary in memory of John Francis Marchmant Middleton

‘Taarab’ is a popular music entertainment in East Africa whose origin is ‘contentiously’ given as Middle East. It is an art form imported to East Africa perhaps in the early years of the 1900s. Taraab has been ariedly looked at, but has generally been seen as a uniform body. This essay sets out to show that from its inception in East Africa, taarab has never been uniform as it started to develop its own characteristics and peculiarities as a performing art. It has been undergoing a number of changes in its musical and lyrical structures. It moved outward to become a popular music instead of being court music, and from being coastal music to being a music that has spread out to inland Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Burundi, thus approximating musical structures of these regions as it is assuming new roles and functions. Although in our description we do in passing refer to the whole body of the art complex ‘taarab’, it is on the lyric that we focus on. This article is written on the basis of findings from field work and library research that have been conducted from 2000 to date in a project entitled Local and Global Aspects of Taarab: A Popular Music Entertainment in East Africa, under the umbrella topic “Lokales Handeln in Afrika im Kontext globaler Einflüsse”, funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

This paper discusses Standard Kiswahili honorifics in Nairobi. It used observation as a means of obtaining data in Nairobi where Standard Kiswahili is also spoken. It points out that honorifics are a chief politeness strategy across many discourse domains; Kiswahili honorifics are conspicuously used and seem easy to learn; honorifics complement other politeness strategies; they are used in both formal and informal encounters. This paper also argues that honorifics in expressing face sav-ing ideals in Kiswahili language have both a social and individual appeal. There is, therefore, a strong suggestion for social face and communal based politeness as opposed to individual polite-ness in Kiswahili. This paper observes that politeness and especially by means of honorifics makes a Kiswahili conversational encounter fruitful. The honorifics also help to define, redefine and sus-tain social strata that are used as a basis of expressing face-saving ideals and politeness in Kiswa-hili and hence contributing to less conflict in interaction and strengthening cohesion in society in question.

The 6th National Book Fair in Nairobi, Kenya, in September 2003 saw a new publication in the field of Swahili literary studies that should draw the attention of Swahili scholars in and outside of East Africa: the first comprehensive literary dictionary in Swahili language. Kyallo Wadi Wamitila, who is currently Senior Lecturer for Swahili Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Nairobi, has committed more than a decade of meticulous research to compile this major work. It comprises roughly 1.300 entries, arranged alphabetically, ranging from adhidadi (antonym) to muhakati (mimesis), tashtiti (satire) and zila (tragic flaw).

Book review of `Kenya Coast Handbook. Culture, resources and development in the East African littoral`by Jan Hoorweg, Dick Foeken & R. A. Obudho.