Translating a classic drama into another language without losing its flavor, essence and message or transposing it to a different culture is something that is natural and practiced everywhere in the world quite frequently. Tsegaye G/Medhin, an Ethiopian poet laureate and dramatist, has translated Shakespeare’s major dramatic works and brought them to the Ethiopian stage in a language that is not as rich as English and succeeded in moving the audience with the messages of the plays.
Tsegaye is one example among many Ethiopian translators of works of world literature. In addition to Shakespeare’s works such as Othello, Macbeth and Hamlet, Tsegaye has also translated French dramatist. Molere’s Tartuffe, Le Medecin Magre Lui as well as German playwright Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage in Amharic.
There are also many translators who brought Russian, American, British and other novels to the local audience in Amharic translations. Recently some Ethiopian translators have also tried to translate works by African writers into Amharic. Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” was translated into Amharic which is something important because Achebe dealt with universal theme of slavery and African resistance, a theme that is also dear to the hearts of Ethiopian readers. Another translator has also worked on Brazilina author Paulo Coehlo’s, famous novel “The Alchemist” into Amharic.
Changing a classic dram into a drama in a different language and culture is a different matter. Earlier this year, Ethiopian poet and dramatist Lemn Sissay has turned Franz Kafka’s famous novel, “The Metamorphosis” into a stage drama. In his novel, Franz Kafka deals with human alienation, which is a universal condition of humanity both in the religious and secular sense. Man is alienated from his God as well as from his fellow human beings. Alienation is therefore a universal human condition and human destiny. Changing a novel into a stage drama is no easy business. The challenges are obvious. This is also obvious when the novel is transported from one culture to another and the task of making it appealing to the new situation or environment is one of the trying moments in the work of the man who transposes a classic novel into a stage drama. He is expected to be as talented as the original author of the novel, although he may add his own touch while bringing it to the stage.
Good literature has a universal appeal simply because it deals with the universal themes of humanity’s life, with unman lives and struggles and destinies. Otherwise, no one would have bothered to read Shakespeare’s British drams for the last 400 years. What makes Shakespeare immortal is that his works appeal to different generations of readers of his books and audiences of his dramas. Dostoevsky was once quoted as saying that human beings are the same everywhere.
Another author remarked that the guy who walks in the street of New York is basically similar in their essence to the one who tills the land somewhere on this planet. Our common physical and mental characteristics make us similar to one another. That is why Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment is considered relevant to criminology and psychiatry in the following centuries simply because the criminal character in his novel was and is found anywhere in the world and at any time.
Thus, African literature which is part and parcel of human experience resonates both within Africa where it is based and everywhere in the world as it reflects human values and characteristics common to humanity everywhere. The difference between various literatures is therefore not one substance but that of depth. Different literatures reflect reality or experience with different depth and richness. This is also what differentiates classics from the average work of art or literature.
Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” is a small book or a novella published in 1915. It is sometimes considered a short story or a long short story. “The Metamorphosis is a short novel by German language author Franz Kafka. The story details the events that transpired after Gregor Samsa awakens to discover that he has been transformed into a giant insect overnight.” What makes the novel intensely suspenseful and interesting is in fact the short space within which this tale of absurdity takes place. When you read the story you almost feel suffocated as Gregor Samsa felt when he stayed in that tiny room until death came to deliver him from his alienation.
For more than 100 years, Kafka and his novel have been provoking intense debates and discussions among literary, philosophical and intellectual circles mainly in Europe and in the West in general. The symbolism of the insect itself was put under microscopic examination to the extent that some critics said that the insect must be a cockroach while others came up with the idea of a beetle. Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov (the author of the novel Lolita among others, is quoted as saying that, “Gregor must have been transformed into a beetle since he is not flat like a cockroach.”
The inspiration that gave rise to the story is also interesting. Kafka had a love affair with a girl in the same city and he used to write to her love letters she did not answer to. One day he is said to have decided to stay in bed and never to leave his bedroom until his lover writes him back. While waiting for the letter lying in his bed he is said to have found the inspiration to The Metamorphosis whose basic success is in portraying the state of alienation and isolation a man could suffer to the extent of becoming like an insect. However, The metamorphosis is not only a personal or an isolated story. It is a story of human alienation and suffering and its finale in death and destruction.
According to one study or analysis of the novel, in The Metamorphosis, “Kafka deals with modernist themes such as isolation and the absurdity of life. In the story, Gregor has devoted himself to his family and the absurd situation of becoming an insect has alienated from other humans. The same concern might have inspired Lemn Sissay to change Kafka’s classic novel into a stage drama for reasons that have something to do with his own life as a Diaspora African or Ethiopian who might have gone through similar episodes of alienation, loneliness, or despair due to the color of his skin or to his place in British society as a kid who grew up in a foster house.
What inspires writers to translate a classic work from one language to another cannot be known exactly. But why do translators take the pains of transforming on classic work or a novel from a language to another one? “Many of the most famous works considered to be classics today are widely consumed through a translated version, mainly in English. Translations help to preserve works of literature with literary merit and make them more widely available to people outside of its immediate linguistic community.”
Why did Ethiopian poet Lemn Sissay choose to translate Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and change it into a stage drama? In other words, why did he “translate” the novel into a play? Although the basic answer to this question may be obvious, there may be other ramifications when we look at the answer. In the first play, Lemn chose to change the novel into a play because it is a classic of European literature that proved itself enduring and immortal. Second, The Metamorphosis depicts the universal theme of the human condition at any time and in any place.
The third reason may be that Lemn might have a particular appreciation to Kafka’s work. Last but not least, the most relevant answer might be that Lemn found in Kafka’s novel his own personal condition or his personal experience as an abandoned child who grew up in a foster home in a society where racial prejudice is rampant and often leads to alienation, marginalization and frustration. To some critics who saw Lemn’s play on the stage, his adaptation is more poetic than dramatic. This is naturally the case because Lemn is basically a poet and his natural inclination is bound to be reflected in his translation of the novel.
One Mark fisher in the Guardian online wrote that the play is “linguistically playful, politically needling and gives the actors long speeches to sink their teeth into. But Lemn Sissay’s version of the Franz Kafka novella is also low on narrative tension. It is more poetic than dramatic.” This quotation shows that Lemn did not adapt the novel to a play quite literally or word for word. On the contrary, he transformed the original language into a poetic one without changing the basic essence and the message of the novel. This is different from literal translation that could be 100 per cent loyal to the language of the novel.
Comparatively speaking, Lemn Sissay’s translation of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is more creative and adaptive than say, Tsegay’s G/Medhin’s translation of Macbeth into Amharic. This may be due to the dramatic and historical nature of the play while gave us a different approach with The metamorphosis because of his poetic background and his emphasis on the theme of alienation or separation. In both cases however, the two Ethiopian poets have given us different tastes of European drama one contemporary, the other more ancient and classical
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 5 APRIL 2024
