Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T11:53:22.840Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Translation as destruction: Kezilahabi's adaptation of Heidegger's “Being”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2018

Alena Rettová
Alena Rettová*
Affiliation:
SOAS University of London
*
ar42@soas.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Tanzanian novelist and philosopher Euphrase Kezilahabi strives to “dismantle the resemblance of language to the world” (1985: 216) through challenging the fundamental philosophical dichotomy of subject and object. The result of this dismantling will be a new “language whose foundation is Being” (Kezilahabi 1991: 69; lugha ambayo msingi wake ni kuwako). This is an expression of a new relationship between humanity and Being built on a holistic epistemology of experience and embodiment. Through “kuwako”, Kezilahabi expresses in Swahili the Heideggerian concept of Sein (Being). His adherence to Heidegger, however, puts him at risk of compromising the very foundation of his own philosophy: his continued critique of essentialism. This article argues that Kezilahabi salvages his concept of “kuwako” from these essentialist pitfalls precisely through his declared “destructive rather than deconstructive stand vis-à-vis the Western philosophy of value and representation” (Kezilahabi 1985: 4). The destruction is implemented on the thematic level: a phase of “vurumai” (chaos) which destroys previous traditions of philosophy is staged in Nagona. However, translation is an even more powerful device to carry out this destruction: “kuwako” is not an innocent reiteration but a radical reformulation of Heidegger's central philosophical concept, decisively informed by Kezilahabi's lifelong propensity for existentialism.

Keywords

Euphrase KezilahabiMartin HeideggerHermeneutics of translationSwahili literatureAfrican epistemology
Type
Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 81 , Special Issue 3: Translating African Thought and Literature , October 2018 , pp. 439 - 457
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS, University of London 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Batchelor, Kathryn. 2015. “Fanon's Les Damnés de la terre: translation, de-philosophization and the intensification of violence”, in Goulbourne, Russell and Silverman, Max (eds), Fanon in Contexts: Essays in memory of David Macey, special issue of Nottingham French Studies 54/1, 7–22.Google Scholar
Bernarder, Lars. 1977. “Ezekiel (sic!) Kezilahabi – narrator of modern Tanzania”, Lugha 1, 46–50.Google Scholar
Farías, Victor. 1989. Heidegger and Nazism. (Edited, with a foreword, by Margolis, Joseph and Rockmore, Tom. Translated by Burrell, Paul, Bernardi, Dominic Di, and Ricci., Gabriel R.) Philadelphia: Tempels University Press. (Originally published in 1987.)Google Scholar
Faye, Emmanuel. 2009. Heidegger. The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy. (Trans. Smith, Michael B., Foreword Rockmore, Tom.) New Haven and London: Yale University Press. (First edition in French 2005.)Google Scholar
Gaudioso, Roberto. 2014. “Kuwako na wakati: mipaka ya lugha kama hatua za falsafa katika mashairi ya Euphrase Kezilahabi”, Swahili Forum 21, 76–103.Google Scholar
Gaudioso, Roberto. 2015. “Transferring and rewriting freedom in Euphrase Kezilahabi”, Nordic Journal of African Studies 23/2, 63–89.Google Scholar
Gaudioso, Roberto. Forthcoming. “Euphrase Kezilahabi's thinking poetry”, in Rettová, Alena, Lanfranchi, Benedetta, and Pahl, Miriam (eds), Asixoxe – Let's Talk! New Trends in African Philosophy (provisional title).Google Scholar
Gromov, Mikhail D. 2014. “Visions of the future in the ‘new’ Swahili novel: hope in desperation?” Tydskrif vir letterkunde 51/2, 40–51. http://www.letterkunde.up.ac.za/argief/51_2/04%20Gromov%2003%20WEB.pdf.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. 1991. “The self-assertion of the German university”, in Wolin, Richard (ed.), The Heidegger Controversy. A Critical Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, 29–39.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. 1996. Being and Time. (First published in German as Sein und Zeit, 1927.) Trans. Stambaugh, Joan. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. 1998. “Letter on ‘Humanism’”. (First published in German 1946.) Trans. Capuzzi, Frank A., in McNeil, William (ed.), Pathmarks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 239–76.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. 2000. Introduction to Metaphysics. Lecture from 1935. Trans. Fried, Gregory and Polt, Richard. New Haven and London: Yale Nota Bene (Yale University Press).Google Scholar
Kagame, Alexis. 1955. La philosophie bantu-rwandaise de l'Être. Brussels: Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana.Google Scholar
Kagame, Alexis. 1976. La philosophie Bantu comparée. Paris: Présence africaine.Google Scholar
Kezilahabi, Euphrase. 1985. “African philosophy and the problem of literary interpretation”, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin (Madison).Google Scholar
Kezilahabi, Euphrase. 1990. Nagona. Dar es Salaam: Dar es Salaam University Press.Google Scholar
Kezilahabi, Euphrase. 1991. Mzingile. Dar es Salaam: Dar es Salaam University Press.Google Scholar
Kezilahabi, Euphrase. 2008. Dhifa. Nairobi: Vide-Muwa.Google Scholar
Kezilahabi, Euphrase. 2017. “The real and the imaginary: propellers of knowledge in literature”, lecture delivered during the BIGSAS Denkatelier 03 at the University of Bayreuth, 26 May 2017.Google Scholar
Khamis, Said A.M. 2005. “Signs of new features in the Swahili novel”, Research in African Literatures 36/1, 91–108.Google Scholar
Kohák, Erazim. 1995. “Relationship between Heidegger's philosophy and Nazi ideology”, unpublished lecture, Charles University, Prague, 5 March 1995.Google Scholar
Lanfranchi, Benedetta. 2012. “Daring to be destructive: Euphrase Kezilahabi's onto-criticism”, Swahili Forum 19, 72–87. http://www.qucosa.de/fileadmin/data/qucosa/documents/10743/SF_19_5_Lanfranchi.pdf.Google Scholar
Lanfranchi, Benedetta. 2015. “Judging crimes against humanity in Acholi. A philosophical interpretation of the use of Acholi traditional justice mechanisms in the aftermath of the war in northern Uganda”, unpublished PhD thesis, SOAS, University of London.Google Scholar
Löwith, Karl. 1991. “The political implications of Heidegger's existentialism”, in Wolin, Richard (ed.), The Heidegger Controversy. A Critical Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, 167–85.Google Scholar
Massamba, David P.B. 2004. Kamusi ya Isimu na Falsafa ya Lugha. Dar es Salaam: Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam.Google Scholar
Mazrui, Alamin. 2017. “Fanon in the East African experience: between English and Swahili translations”, in Batchelor, Kathryn and Harding, Sue-Ann (eds), Translating Frantz Fanon Across Continents and Languages. New York and London: Routledge, 76–97.Google Scholar
Mkufya, William E. 1999. Ziraili na Zirani. Dar es Salaam: Hekima Publishers.Google Scholar
Ngugi wa Thiong'o. 1981. Decolonising the Mind. The Politics of Language in African Literature. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich (no date). Also Sprach Zarathustra. First edition 1883–85. http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Nietzsche,+Friedrich/Also+sprach+Zarathustra.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 2008. Thus Spake Zarathustra. Trans. Thomas Common. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1998/1998-h/1998-h.htm.Google Scholar
Ott, Hugo. 1993. Martin Heidegger. A Political Life. Trans. Blunden, Allan. London: Harper Collins Publishers.Google Scholar
Rettová, Alena. 2007. “Lidství ni Utu? Ubinadamu baina ya Tamaduni”, Swahili Forum 14, 89–134. http://www.qucosa.de/fileadmin/data/qucosa/documents/9767/14_06_Rettova.pdf.Google Scholar
Rettová, Alena. 2016a. “Writing in the swing? Neo-realism in post-experimental Swahili fiction”, Research in African Literatures 47/3, 15–31, doi: 10.2979/reseafrilite.47.3.02.Google Scholar
Rettová, Alena. 2016b. “From Mimesis to Mize. Philosophical implications of departures from literary realism”, in Vierke, Clarissa and Greven, Katharina (eds), Dunia Yao. Utopia/Dystopia in Swahili Fiction. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe, 113–46.Google Scholar
Rettová, Alena. Forthcoming. “Brave new worlds: postapocalyptic narratives in Swahili”.Google Scholar
Safranski, Rüdiger. 1998. Martin Heidegger. Between Good and Evil. Trans. Osers, Ewald. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Originally published in 1994.Google Scholar
Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1958. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. First published in French as L’Être et le néant: Essai d'ontologie phénoménologique (1943). Trans. Barnes, Hazel E.. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Senghor, Léopold Sédar. 1995. “On Negrohood: psychology of the African negro”, trans. Kaal, H., in Mosley, Albert G. (ed.), African Philosophy. Selected Readings. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 116–27.Google Scholar
Tchokothe, Rémi Armand. 2014. Transgression in Swahili Narrative Fiction and Its Reception. Vienna: LIT Verlag.Google Scholar
TUKI. 1990. Kamusi Sanifu ya Isimu na Lugha. Dar es Salaam: Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam.Google Scholar
Wiredu, Kwasi. 1996. Cultural Universals and Particulars. An African Perspective. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Wiredu, Kwasi. 2002. “Conceptual decolonization as an imperative in contemporary African philosophy: some personal reflections”, Rue Descartes 36, 53–64.Google Scholar
Wolin, Richard (ed.). 1991. The Heidegger Controversy. A Critical Reader. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Zeytinoglu, Cem. 2011. “Appositional (communication) ethics: listening to Heidegger and Lévinas in chorus”, Review of Communication 11/4, 272–85.Google Scholar