Le sable de Sahel: traduction et apartheid (review)

Alain Ricard's Le sable de Babel differs from other recent works on translation in Africa in that it is not so much a study of translated literature texts as it is a history of translation in Africa. As in some of his earlier work on African literature, Ricard aims for a view that is comprehensive and panoramic in two respects. First, he seeks to cover most of sub-Saharan Africa. Secondly, he situates literary translation within the broad spectrum of writings in Africa, and writings by Africans. He points out early in the book that his interests extend beyond literature to encompass African textuality as a whole. As such, he positions the literary activity of well-known writers like Alexis Kagamé, Hampaté Bâ, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and Antje Krog among several others in relation to their work as translators. This study is also resolutely Africanist in its sensibility, bringing to bear the work of Africanists in diverse fields on the topic of translation with references to scholars like Mahmood Mamdani, Abiola Irele, Jean and John Comaroff, among others. His is an approach that is to some extent anthropological, finding inspiration in Karin Barber's Anthropology of Texts, and comparative in scope in the manner of Pascale Casanova's The World Republic of Letters.

Unlike several other studies of literary translation in Africa, this work examines texts that are actually written in African languages, or translated from African languages, as well as the contribution of translation to the development of writing in Africa. While other scholars have identified Africans who wrote or write in African languages, I am unaware of any other work that so carefully searches out all those who translated written texts from and into African languages over several centuries. Ricard's main argument is that the acknowledgment and development of written texts in Africa has always been intertwined with the practice of translation. Early European visitors who took an interest in African textuality inevitably took an interest in translation. Contemporary African writers who take an interest in African languages sooner or later come to terms with the demands of translation. Despite the book's subtitle, Traduction et apartheid, its focus is not exclusively on South Africa, though it does start with translation in southern Africa in the 1700s and ends with translation in South Africa in the early twenty-first century. As Ricard explains it, the principles undergirding translation and those undergirding apartheid are at odds. Apartheid sought to establish walls between languages and denied our common linguistic humanity. Translation is about bridging those divides and welcoming conversation between languages and cultures. To this end, Ricard frequently invokes Bakhtin's notion of dialogism. For him, translation is by its nature dialogical. Thus, studying the encounter between languages and texts advances our understanding of the encounter between cultures. Scholars of textuality in Africa, African literature, African language writing, and African translation will find this an immensely engaging and provocative work. Like Ricard's earlier Littératures d'Afrique noire (1995), translated as The Languages and Literatures of Africa (2004), this too is a study deserving of translation.