Recent Interviews with African Novelists

(非洲作家最近受访):

Petina Gappah, Zimbabwean author of Out of Darkness, Shining Light, about 19th-century explorer David Livingstone: “Livingstone was an absolute gossip and his journals were valuable – he wrote about other people, but also about nature, ants, leaves. The most interesting snippets, I weaved into the story. I learned Swahili to write this book – it’s an amazing language. I lived in Zanzibar to write some of it. ”

Chigozie Obioma is the 33-year-old Nigerian author of An Orchestra of Minorities, a tale of frustrated love largely set in Cypress. “The truth is that I am a reluctant exile in America. I wish I could live in Nigeria, frankly. That is my home. That’s where I live untrammeled, without any fear of being an immigrant or a racial minority. It is where my ancestors lived and died, and the place whose food I love to eat. But yet, I feel I cannot live there.”

********

Latest additions to my database of African writing in Chinese translation (非洲文学: 中文译本数据库). To view, you must visit the database, and you will find the first title (i.e., the anthology of literary criticism) at the very top. For others, please scroll down and search for author’s family name (underlined here): 

• Edited by Tejumola Olaniyan, Ato Quayson: African Literature: An Anthology of African Literary Criticism and Theory 《非洲文学批评史稿》
• Chimamanda Adichie: Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions《亲爱的安吉维拉》
• Mariama Bâ: Une si longue lettre 《一封如此长的信》
• Birago Diop: Les Nouveaux Contes d’Amadou Koumba 《阿瑪杜‧庫巴的新非洲寓言》      
• Agostinho Neto: Agostinho Neto Uma Vida sem Téguas 《忙碌的一生》
• Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: Devil on the Cross  《十字架上的魔鬼》
• Manuel Rui: Quem Me Dera Ser Ondas 《谁能把我变成一朵浪花》

********

Joshua Hammer’s The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts has just been translated by 吴娟娟 and published as <廷巴克图> in mainland China. An earlier version (by a different translator), <廷巴克圖的盜書者: 搶救伊斯蘭古手稿行動>, was launched in 2017 in Taiwan. 豆瓣读书的描写: 【在撒哈拉沙漠的边缘，有一座堪比敦煌的古城，它叫作廷巴克图。那里曾是声名远播的学术文化中心，留存着珍贵的古阿拉伯文手稿。在历史的动乱中，手稿被摧毁、掩埋，直到1984 年，一个名叫阿卜杜勒·卡迪尔·海达拉的年轻人横穿撒哈拉沙漠，沿尼日尔河搜集、保护和修复手稿，廷巴克图的文化传统得以复兴。然而，威胁再度降临。2012 年，恐怖组织占领廷巴克图。为使手稿免受极端分子的毁坏，海达拉再次踏上冒险之旅，密谋将手稿偷渡出城。】