Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún
In Conversation
Photo by Ayobami Ogungbe
We spoke to Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún about linguistics, translation and his love for African languages.
Interviewed by Zulaikhah Agoro.
ZA: I would love to start from the very beginning. How did you get interested in the world of languages and literature? When was the seed planted for you? What captured your interest at that stage?
KT: Well, these things are easy to trace back only in hindsight. I had a father who was a Yorùbá language poet, writer, publisher and broadcaster, but that wasn’t enough, because I spent all my youth trying to not be like him. However, the books were there in the house, in both English and Yorùbá, and I read both of them quite early. There was also the music, traditional Yorùbá poetic performances by Odòlayé Àrẹ̀mú, Herbert Ògúndé, Ògúndáre Fọ́yánmu, Moses Adéjùmọ̀, and so much more. Because my father traded in and produced indigenous poetry, I got into them pretty early. I spent a lot of time memorizing lines I didn’t quite understand, but they became a part of my mental and early cultural landscape.
My parents spoke to us in Yorùbá at home but sent us to a private nursery and primary school where they only used English. We had books by Fálétí, Ògúnníran, Fágúnwà as well as Shakespeare, Ṣóyínká, Achebe, and copies of periodicals like Reader’s Digest to Ikebe Super and Drum Magazine. So, I think what was really important was the environment, where it was normal and ordinary to speak and appreciate your own language and others, to be yourself and not need to defend each choice to anyone, because it was never out of place. It wasn’t a big deal. Yorùbá was just what was spoken. You knew how to switch to English when you were about to enter the school, where you were punished for even daring to use a word of your own language, which they called “vernacular”. We had neighbours from every culture, and the difference only added to the colour and magic of our relationships.
I’ve spoken a bit, in other places, about a certain event in which my father came to school and chose to speak Yorùbá in class to our teacher, even though he knew how embarrassing it would have been for me, among my eight-year-old classmates, and how that triggered something in my understanding of the conflict that existed in the society about those two languages, judging by the giggling of my mates and my own consternation about why I felt the way I did. My personal interest in language research/work happened over time, perhaps in my eventual understanding of how privileged that background was, and how I had acquired a lot of knowledge and interest that could be beneficial to others. So when I found myself, also not by active choice, as a student of linguistics (my first choice was Theatre Arts), I realized that much of this was meant to happen. I had been moving in that direction, without knowing, all along. In the US, when I had to teach Yorùbá as a Fulbright Scholar, I saw not just the creative benefits, but also the economic ones. In linguistics, I found a path to explore all I had known before but not fully understood. The course in collage gave me the tools to bring some of my ideas to life, and satisfy my own curiosity. And when I added technology to it, and my background in the arts and literature, the circle was complete.
ZA: That definitely sounds like a full-circle journey. Personally, my fascination with your work began after I read your Yorùbá translation of Haruki Murakami’s ‘Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey’. Admittedly, my Yorùbá reading skills are not the sharpest and I had to occasionally go back-and-forth between the original and your piece to follow the story. However, what struck me as particularly interesting was to see decidedly Japanese concepts that many would argue have no place in the Yorùbá tongue so fluidly captured. What do you think of the term ‘lost in translation’? How do you ensure you are capturing the full nuances of the original language in your own work, especially when both originate from opposite ends of the world?
KT: Translation is fascinating, mostly because it leads in many different directions. Sometimes, the final work is a totally new work entirely, bearing a new ideological direction. I am often reminded of this story I heard about when George Orwell’s Animal Farm was translated into German during the cold war. Those who read it in East Germany thought the villain was the Western capitalist society, while those who read it in West Germany knew that the villains in the story were the socialists/communists. This is because the two translators of the work came from different backgrounds, and targeted different audiences, even though the language was the same.
So, translators certainly bring something into their work, beyond their knowledge of language. Knowing that frees you somewhat, and allows you the space to be creative in your own ways, especially when you encounter blocks that would otherwise scare you away. Before I translated the Murakami you referenced, I’d done a whole book of poems by Emily R. Grosholz, an American philosopher and teacher from Philadelphia, whose work deals with subjects from war to nature to childhood. Some were easy to translate into Yorùbá while some needed creative inventions. Finishing such a large work gave me some freedom.
When I had to do Murakami, I was already liberated from the worry about what is lost, which is an inevitable angst that isn’t helped by self-flagellation. I focused instead on what is gained, and what the process brings to my own enjoyment of the craft. I took liberties (like using Ìnàkí instead of Ọ̀bọ or any other generic ape name, and localizing some of the Japanese place and food names. What I hope emerged was something enjoyable in Yorùbá to those who had never read Murakami before.
ZA: I belong to that class of Murakami novices and it was a very enjoyable piece for me, so your mission was certainly accomplished. This brings me to my next question. Most of your work is poetry and prose in translation. However, another creative medium you explore is writing book reviews. For many people, book reviews are just about listing off plot points and fawning over their favourite characters but I am very taken with how you bring your own voice even into talking about other people’s work. How do you think this practice helps in developing a writer’s craft? What else would you recommend to achieve that goal?
KT: I can’t speak for others, but I’ve often enjoyed writing reviews as a way of better understanding what I felt while reading the book. I wrote the Ogadimma review on my way back into Nigeria during the pandemic lockdown, and that was reflected in how the work came out. I’ve put together, in one collection, a selection of my favourite book reviews over the years, including those that have never been published. Maybe I’ll find someone to publish it.
ZA: I hope you do because I definitely want to read that. Going back to your linguistic background, one common struggle faced by many African writers is that contemporary literature is expected, almost by default, to conform to Western standards. Otherwise it runs the risk of under-performing or just not being taken seriously. How do you think African writing, particularly when in local languages or utilizing local colloquialisms, can find an audience outside the continent without sacrificing its integrity?
KT: I think good writing will find its place, no matter what language or style it is written in, though — admittedly, I’m very interested in reading more work in unconventional styles and in many languages that aren’t English or French etc in Africa. But as with most things, you often have to go through the frogs before you find the prince — both as the reader and as the writer, so I’ve stopped worrying too much about telling people what they should do. As a linguist, I’m doing all I can to make the environment more conducive for writings in the local language, and hoping that my work inspires people in that direction and helps create the space for these languages to gain agency, maturity, and growth. But how much can you tell others how to practise their own creativity?
The only thing I will repeat is that we need publishers to take more risks in this direction too, particularly African publishers (in Africa or in the West), who have the means to commission and empower the writers doing the work. Publishing is a business but it is also, in some way, a civic duty. You’re presenting to an audience what you’ve vetted to represent the best literary production of a certain time or space or generation. If you keep telling us that the African writer is only the writer that produces in English (or other hegemonic European languages), then that’s what the market understands to be true, and the vicious cycle continues to decimate writings in African languages and other ways of expression. As a human, I’ll consider that a tragedy. As a linguist, even more so. But I know that brave writers will always emerge to surprise and delight us in these directions when we’re not expecting.
ZA: Due to colonial influences, many Africans - both at home and in the diaspora - can’t speak or understand their native languages. What role can literature play in remedying this situation?
KT: I think I’ve addressed that above, in some way. But the problem is bigger than one can address only through literature. Government policies, publisher efforts, individual dare-devilry, technological advancements, direct action, educational policy, legal and constitutional changes, social media, self-reorientation, the marketplace etc, have bigger roles to play.
ZA: Now, I’d like to talk for a bit about the technical side of your work. What does your writing process look like in a practical sense, and how do you balance it with your daily life and other projects?
KT: Ah, this is hard, because it’s not uniform. When I’m busy, I use the Google Doc on my phone to jot down paragraphs that come to me while on the move. Lines or phrases litter my drafts. When I have some time, I return to them — sometimes in the night when the house is silent — to flesh them out. Sometimes, depending on how tight the deadline is, I do it during the day. There’s something about the night, or a public place with muted chattering not directed at me, that helps the writing mood.
ZA: In a 2020 interview with Isele Magazine, you mentioned that your aim is to publish a collection of translated short stories. How is that project coming along? What else are you planning or already working on now, if you can talk about it?
KT: Mehn, I don’t know where the hours go. My days, since that interview, have gotten way busier than I planned.
I got two language grants, one of whose work lasted about two years. We just finished it in late 2023 and recently got accepted into a language conference to present our results. I also re-published a famous African memoir, joined the editorial team of the Best Literary Translations anthology, the maiden edition of which is coming out this April, got a new son, moved countries, and received some support to produce a documentary on Africa’s first Nobel Prize in Literature winner. I also completed a new collection of poems that should be announced soon.
Alas, some things have had to take a back seat but the work you referenced is still in the works. You should know though that we worked on a multimedia multilingual fiction anthology of African language works last year with a print version planned for this year. So, you can see that the work continued.
As regards current plans, I will be at Brown University’s Translation Conference at the end of February, and I’m very much looking forward to that.
ZA: Wow! You have been incredibly busy. I have one last question before I let you get back to work. If you could give one piece of advice to aspiring authors, what would it be?
KT: Read a lot. Then show up at your desk and do the work.
Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún is the author of two collections of poetry: Edwardsville by Heart (2018) and Ìgbà Èwe (2021), and several works in translation between English and Yorùbá. He is a Nigerian linguist, founder of YorubaName.com, and publisher of OlongoAfrica.com.
He was a Fulbright Scholar (2009) at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and, until recently, a Chevening Research Fellow at the British Library in London (2019/2020). His work has been published in African Writer, Aké Review, Brittle Paper, International Literary Quarterly, Enkare Review, Maple Tree Literary Supplement, PEN Transmissions, Jalada, Popula, Saraba Magazine, The Guardian, among others. He is the African co-editor of The Best Literary Translations annual anthology.
His work in language advocacy earned him the Premio Ostana Special Prize in Italy in 2016.
