Archive · 17 Sep 2025
African Literature: New Trend of Translating Novels
Imagine African stories being shared with more people!
Many books written in African languages are now being translated into English.
A new series called 'African Language Literatures in Translation' is helping with this.
One of the first books is 'The Mad', which was originally written in Shona by Ignatius Mabasa.
The goal is to let English readers experience the stories as they were first imagined in their original languages.
This shows how important it is to read books from all around the world.
African literature is seeing more translations from African languages into English.
The book 'The Mad' is an English translation of Ignatius Mabasa's Shona novel, 'Mapenzi'.
The translation is part of the new book series 'African Language Literatures in Translation'.
The series aims to translate works from various African languages.
The translator is J Tsitsi Mutiti, though the article lacks information about the process.
- Who
- Ignatius Mabasa, J Tsitsi Mutiti, Christopher Ouma, Alexander Fyfe
- What
- Translation of the novel 'Mapenzi' into English as 'The Mad' and the emergence of a new series to translate African works into English.
- When
- Mapenzi published in 1999, with the English translation, 'The Mad,' being released more recently.
- Where
- Zimbabwe, UK, USA
- Why
- To make African literature more accessible to English-speaking audiences, promote African languages, and counter the marginalization of African languages.
- Book Title
- The Mad
- Original Title
- Mapenzi
- Original Language
- Shona
- Translator
- J Tsitsi Mutiti
- Author
- Ignatius Mabasa
- Publisher
- University of Georgia Press; Carnelian Heart Publishing and amaBooks
- Book Series
- African Language Literatures in Translation