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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