A Zulu king in conversation with the world: Translational and transcultural strategies in Chaka (1981) by Thomas Mofolo

Abstract

This article discusses Chaka (1981) by Thomas Mofolo as a transcultural text written by a transcultural author. It had hybrid origins, was written with local and global audiences in mind and forges linkages between different ethnicities, nations, languages and literary traditions. In this way it disrupts the centre periphery polarity associated with stark distinctions between “European” and “African” literatures. In shifting the attention to the transcultural entanglements without which Chaka would never have been written or read, I am being mindful of the view of Rebecca Walkowitz, outlined in her book Born Translated (2015), that some literary works begin collaboratively and comparatively, in multiple languages and geographical locations, and are targeted to readerships in various cultures and languages. Walkowitz examines the importance of these literary processes in contemporary Anglophone literature, but I will argue that Mofolo’s novel was in its own way “born translated” and displays many of the characteristics highlighted by Walkowitz in her discussions of writers like J. M. Coetzee, Haruki Marukami and Jamaica Kincaid. The article outlines how translation shaped Mofolo’s novel and became a condition of its production, how its literary and political meanings are influenced by the fact that it exists in different editions in different languages and in different markets, and the multiple ways in which Mofolo’s novel can be understood as “born translated” writing.