Shakespeare in Swahililand by Edward Wilson-Lee: book review

Shakespeare in Swahililand: Adventures with the Ever-Living Poet (2016) is published in the 400th anniversary year of the British playwright’s death in 1616. In this book William Shakespeare is examined from an African perspective – that is, when and where his works were was read, by whom, the English literature syllabus in schools, the translatinons (and by whom), and the dramatic productions in Swahili and English throughout East Africa.

The book is divided into the regions and cities of East Africa: The Lake Regions, Zanzibar (Kenya), The Swahili Coast, Mombasa (Kenya), Nairobi (Kenya), Kampala (Uganda), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), PanAfrica, and Juba (South Sudan).

Wilson-Lee answers the question whether Shakespeare is ‘universal’ – i.e. universally understood and translatable even in the remotest regions of Africa. He begins with the early explorers that carried the works of Shakespeare with them: Henry Morton Stanley, John Speke, and Richard Francis Burton – the Indian settlers and the pioneers and travellers from many countries: Karen Blixen, Henry Rider Haggard and even Che Guevara, as well as African and American presidents.

He includes the debate about Shakespearean productions – in English, in Swahili, in Juba Arabic – faithful to the bard, or adapted to the African context. He discusses the impact of colonization, African Socialism, and the impact of independence on theatrical plays as countries break away from Western control.

Wilson-Lee says the book is also a travelogue and cultural history of East Africa, and makes no apologies for injecting a personal memoir of his experiences ‘to give some sense of the tangle of emotions from which my judgements proceed.’ I think there is too much personal interference, as some of it becomes rather rambling. However, it is interesting to see just how far and just how deep into the dense landscape and population of ‘Swahililand’ Shakespeare’s works have travelled.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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