I thought this one might defeat me. As far as I could see, there was not – nor had there ever been – a single novel, short story collection or memoir published in English translation by a writer from the Comoro Islands. No matter who I asked or how charmingly I smiled at the Google homepage, the answer was always the same: nada. It seemed I had come to the end of the road.
In despair, I mentioned the dilemma to my colleague – the same colleague who came up trumps with the Niger book. A few weeks later he was back with, in his words, ‘possible gold’. He’d found a CV online of Anis Memon, a lecturer in French and Italian at the University of Vermont. It stated that in 2005 he’d done a translation of Le Kafir du Karthala by Mohamed Toihiri, the Comoros’ permanent representative to the United Nations and, according to Simon Gikandi’s Encyclopedia of African Literature, the country’s first published novelist. Perhaps if I contacted Memon, he might be able to dig out the manuscript for me?
I fired off an email and received a modest response from Memon. He said he couldn’t vouch for the quality of the translation as it was a personal project he’d undertaken when Mohamed Toihiri was a visiting lecturer one year at Memon’s grad school. The two had spent quite a bit of time together and as a result Memon had decided it would be good practice for him to try and translate one of the writer’s novels. Still, if I wanted to look at the manuscript, he’d see if he could find it for me.
A nail-biting wait ensued. The way I saw it, Memon’s translation was probably my one chance of reading a Comorian novel in English. I just hoped he was better at backing up and archiving his files than I was.
Luckily, that turned out to be the case and when I next checked my emails while on holiday in Spain, the file was waiting for me. The Kaffir of Karthala was mine to read.
Beginning on the day Dr Idi Wa Mazamba discovers he has terminal cancer, the novel tells the story of one man’s struggle to free himself from the conventions, patterns and prejudices that have dogged his life. Liberated by the knowledge that his days are numbered, married Mazamba embarks on an affair with a French woman, Aubéri, and comes to look at the world around him with new eyes. Yet this fresh vision brings with it a heightened awareness of the racism, corruption and contradictions that riddle society. Appalled by the hypocrisy he encounters, Dr Mazamba hatches a plan to challenge the status quo while he still can.
Toihiri is a clear-eyed writer, who excels at presenting complex situations in concise, memorable ways. Whether he is describing the inequality of living conditions in Chitsangani – ‘a neighbourhood where the Middle Ages and the Third Millennium went hand in hand’ and where ‘here one slept on a mat of fleas, there one got ill from hyper-cleanliness’ – or the double standards that see foreign nationals and the ‘generous partner’ donors who pull the political strings behind the scenes receiving top treatment while patients in Mazamba’s hospital can not afford drugs, Toihiri’s descriptions are precise and fearless.
Often, they are very funny too. Ranging from witty anecdotes to satirical attacks, such as the summary of the political career of Marshal Kabaya – ‘at first Minister of Sand in Your Eyes, he was then promoted, following a shuffling of the cabinet, and became the Minister of State in Charge of the Occult Sciences’ – they puncture pomposity and pretence wherever Toihiri sees it. Meanwhile, the writer balances these descriptions with a wry affection for some of the customs on the archipelago that keeps the narrative from becoming overly bitter, as when Mazamba explains the rivalry between the islands to Aubéri:
‘In Ngazija and Mmwali they say that the Anjouanese are poisoners, that they’re skinflints, morbidly jealous, that you mustn’t even look at their women otherwise they’ll arrange to have you thrown off a bridge; we actually say a lot of nonsense about each other.’
Perhaps the most fascinating passages of the book for readers unfamiliar with Comorian culture, like me, are those surrounding marriage traditions in Mazamba’s home village. There, the concept of the ‘great wedding’, a huge celebration which each man is expected to save for and go through once in his life, regardless of whether he is already married to another woman or not, holds sway. And when Issa, Mazamba’s best friend, allows himself to be flattered into going through a great wedding with a canny teenager, the folly of the institution is laid bare.
Occasionally, Toihiri’s desire to encapsulate contradictions and struggles in punchy imagery runs away with the narrative. Muslim Mazamba and Jewish Aubéri’s first physical encounter, for example takes place in a church during a trip they both conveniently have to take to apartheid-riven South Africa. Reading the descriptions of Mazamba breaking his Ramadan fast with Aubéri’s bodily fluids under the shadow of a crucifix, I couldn’t help feeling the author was labouring the point. In addition, the final stages of the plot, during which Mazamba is unexpectedly manoeuvred into a position of influence that enables him to take radical action, rely too much on coincidence and luck to be entirely credible.
But then I’m writing this having just read a translation that until a couple of months ago existed only on the hard drive of an academic I’ve never met more than 3,000 miles away. Hmmn. Perhaps anything is possible after all…
The Kaffir of Karthala (Le Kafir du Karthala) by Mohamed Toihiri, translated from the French by Anis Memon
My goodness – that was a lucky find 🙂
I am concerned for the health of your bookshelf though; there’s a definite bow to it in this latest picture…
Thanks. I know. We were going to put a bracket under it, but Steve reckons leaving it will add another element of danger to the whole quest. Who knows if it will last out the year?
Fascinating. (1) This particular find. (2)Your world tour in search of books. (3) Your adventures finding them. Your style is gripping and the idea of the tour is very original (at least to me!)
Thanks very much – that’s made my day!
I’m sure I’m coming late to this, and I hesitated even writing, but you’re ubiquitous in my news feed! So please feel free to ignore this: but I wonder how you think about the difference between reading to find out about the world and reading fiction. Why not, in the simplest terms, read nonfiction? And if you’re not distinguishing (John D’Agata style), then how, rather than why, do you attend to properties of writing as fiction?
Well, I’m very glad you did write. I think for me ‘finding out about the world’ is a sort of by-product rather than an end for this project. I’m very conscious that as I’m only reading one book from every country I am in no position to draw conclusions about national identities, trends, psyches or anything like that. Occasionally a book will throw up insights into particular customs or local habits, such as the ‘great marriage’ above, and that’s fascinating but not really what’s driving me.
For me, it’s more about seeing if it’s possible to access voices from all over the world as an English-language reader and to explore what those voices are saying. When I first thought of doing the project, I thought I would stick to fiction (I talk more about this here http://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/2011/12/22/what-counts-as-a-story/), but the dividing line between fiction and non-fiction gets blurrier the more you look at it. Every narrative, whether it’s a fairy story or the account of the founding of a nation will contain some aspects of creativity and very often things that others may regard as ‘not true’. I was also conscious that prose fiction may not be a form that storytellers in some parts of the world feel particularly at home with. So I decided to throw the net wider and consider stories in the widest sense, leaving the door open for memoirs and biographies as well as fiction works.
Hope that makes sense. Thanks very much for your comment.
I see. Well, for me, that would raise the question of what a “voice” is. If it’s a written voice (as in authorial voice) then writing, in a general sense, is what’s at issue. And if that’s the case, then regardless of how fiction or nonfiction are understood, it’s a matter of thinking about whether writing is a good way to understand the world. An enormous, unsolved problem. I also try to read internationally, but I try hard not to learn anything. Voice matters differently for me, I suppose.
Absolutely. One of the many fascinating questions raised so far this year.
Pingback: Comoros: beyond belief « A year of reading the world | Metaglossia
Hi,
I found your blog 30mn ago (thank you Twitter :p). What a great project you have! It’s very interesting. I would never have thought it could be possible to find a novel from Comoros in English. And yet, you did it. Is it possible to get a link to Anis Memon’s translation? I would love to read it.
Thanks Mayda. Glad you like it, I’ll check with Anis and see if he’d be happy for it to be available online. Thanks for stopping by.
Hi – did this ever make it online? It looks fascinating.
Hi. No, not yet – but maybe one day…
Wondering whether this translated book is now available?
Not yet as far as I know. Hopefully one day…
Hi, have Anis been positive sharing his script with others? We are two girls on the same journey as you, but over a longer time period. Finding something in English from Comoros is difficult. Would he share with others? 🙂
Hi Lillian. Great to hear of your quest. I have a policy of not sharing unpublished manuscripts because I don’t want to hurt the writers’ chances of getting an English-language book deal. Hopefully the book will be available in English one day – I’ll keep the blog updated about it. In the meantime, do let me know if you discover any other Cormorian gems that have come out since my quest. These days I get most of my information from fellow literary explorers like you. Happy reading!
Pingback: Travelling in books: English, French, French translations and Lingala books | CACEAfrica
I am doing a project for my world health class and I need to find an original piece of literature from Comoros in english. If you still have the english translation of the book Le Kafir du Karthala would you be able to email it to me? This would would help me out a lot. Thank you.
Hi Mike. I can’t share the manuscript I’m afraid (I don’t hold the copyright), but I hope one day it will be published so everyone can read it. Good luck with your project.
Hi Ann, Is there any way for others to get a copy of this English translation? I can only seem to find it in French. Help! – Scott
Hi Scott. I’ll email you
Pingback: Reading the World – The List – Scott's Blog
This was a great story! I came across your blog in my own quest, as a military africanist, to read a work of fiction from every country in Africa. Anis was kind enough to share a copy with me when I tracked him done–I wrote about it here: http://kruzoo.blogspot.com/2016/04/kafirdekhartala.kafirofkhartala.comoros.moroni.auberi.legrandmarriage.fao.html
Anyway, I so admire your passion in pursuing this project–it’s been a goldmine for me on some of the dead ends I’ve hit along the way!