The following interview with Senegalese author Boubacar Boris Diop is from the current issue of the UNESCO Courrier (2008 - number 1), which is devoted to the International Year of Languages.
"Preaching in the wilderness or banking on the future?" http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=41349&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html After prolific production in French, the Senegalese novelist Boubacar Boris Diop decided to write in Wolof. For a poor, multilingual population with an oral tradition, books are not a priority. Yet African writers who express themselves in their national languages are becoming more and more numerous. Interview by Jasmina Å opova JÅ : You wrote a dozen books in French before choosing Wolof, your mother language. Why this reversion? BBD: Actually, my language was always there, inside me. The only problem I faced was the ability to write in my language. I was "corrupted" by French. I spoke everyday Wolof, but I didn't possess it intimately. Then there was Rwanda. A group of writers I belonged to went there after the genocide, in 1998, as part of the operation "Rwanda: writing as a duty to memory". I said to myself that if we'd let 10,000 Rwandans get killed per day for three months, if nobody had done anything, this conveyed a certain contempt for Africa... At that moment I felt even more strongly the desire to write in my mother language. It became essential. Oh, at first it was painful ... I was very afraid of writing a French novel in Wolof. I had to fight against myself, but the Diops are stubborn! Then I began to hear voices â" voices that came up out of the past. And writing became very easy. I am certain that my first novel in Wolof, Doomi golo (the she-monkey's young), is my best piece of writing. JÅ : Is writing in Wolof therefore also a political act? BBD: Absolutely. Coming back to the title of my novel The she-monkey's young: what's a monkey? It's an imitation of the other. The passage that best sums up the book is the one in which you see a huge mirror in the middle of nowhere. Two gorillas find themselves in front of the mirror and they see their own images. They start fighting their reflections and as a result of hitting the mirror, they hurt themselves and die. What we call hatred of the other is in fact self-hatred. You have to be able to tolerate your image in the mirror, assume your identity. At the moment I'm translating this novel into French. It will be published in France in September 2008. JÅ : Why didn't you decide to publish it in French in Senegal? BBD: Because now there are only publishers in national languages. That's good news, anyway...even if their tongues are hanging out! They work with enthusiasm, but with immeasurable difficulties too: no way to make a profit, no distribution...True, the state occasionally steps in. The "Direction du Livre et de la Lecture" (book and reading administration) funded, for instance, a second edition of my book Doomi Golo after the first run of 3000 copies was sold out. Besides my publisher Papyrus, there's the « Organisation Sénégalaise d'Appui au Développement » (OSAD) that does remarkable work. And also ARED publishers, but they're specialized in research and in education for development. JÅ : How many readers can you have in Wolof? BBD: If I'd asked myself that question, I would never have started writing! It's true that where I come from, many people don't know how to read and don't buy books. And they have other priorities: their children's health, feeding their families....There's also another phenomenon: rich people who live in poor societies generally prefer buying a fancy car, because you can't show off a book.... We have to accept this situation and bet on the long term. It will take a while for books written today in the African languages to prevail, but they'll eventually find acceptance. Thirty years ago, literature in national languages didn't exist, except for a few isolated cases. Today the situation is the opposite: hundreds of books have been published in Wolof and Pulaar, definitely more than in French. There are two writers' organizations in Senegal, one composed of writers in French, the other of writers in national languages. The latter are far more numerous, but they have no visibility, because we live in a society where French is the language of prestige. JÅ : Do you count on diaspora readership? BBD: A great deal. But although the younger generations of the diaspora speak their mother languages, they don't know how to read or write them. Which is why I had the idea of organizing a Wolof workshop with young people whose background is Senegalese immigration in France. At first the parents didn't necessarily see any benefit in their children's learning their mother language. But there was great demand from the young people. We're starting in Bordeaux on 25 February. It's an idea that seems odd initially, but if it works I'll be very proud of it. JÅ : Often when one travels from one African capital to another, one has to stop off in a European capital. Does this also happen in the world of African literature? BBD: It would be fantastic if I could translate the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiongo directly form Kikuyu into Wolof, without going through English and French... . To my knowledge there's almost no translation from one African language into another. My novel Doomi Golo is translated into Pulaar now. But who will translate it into Swahili? Do we have to wait two or three centuries? Not necessarily, but that's what I fear, alas. You know, Africa was divided up by the colonial powers in Berlin in 1885. Africans speak to each other through the colonial languages. And me, making fun of it, referring to the Berlin Wall of the Cold War, I call it our "Berlin Wall". It is invisible but terrible â" it separates the English-, French- and Portuguese-speaking countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. With Moussa Konaté, Malian writer who heads the French-speaking festival "Etonnants voyageurs" (amazing travelers) in Mali, I've often discussed the idea of organizing a big meeting of African writers who write in national languages. A way of at least making cracks in this wall. But it's easier to find sponsors for French-language writers than for those who write in national languages. UNESCO could be the perfect venue for such a pan-African encounter. Particularly this year, international year of languages. And it's an international space. Without walls. **************************** Disclaimer ****************************** Copyright: In accordance with Title 17, United States Code Section 107, this material is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material posted to this list for purposes that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. 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