Poet and literary scholar Veronique Tadjo speaks to Stephen Gray about his selecting, translating and editing of the anthology Invitation to a Voyage: French-language Poetry of the Indian Ocean African Islands.
Where does this passion for the Indian Ocean islands come from?
Unlike most of my South African fellows, I learned French in my youth, and have always respected the literary culture of mainland France and the francophone countries. I would like South Africans to share that.
Moreover, during the bad years of the 1970s and 1980s when most of the continent was closed to us there were always the Indian Ocean countries to experience. From 1970 to today I have had many contacts with those countries.
Why did you choose poetry? Is it particularly vibrant in these islands?
Yes, poetry has a very strong tradition in this region and I wish to pay tribute to predecessors like Roy Campbell and Dorothy S Blair who were pioneers in this field.
Poetry is also my own special interest. The area is rich in poets. It is strong in their traditional culture and is the dominant art form.
Madagascar is by far the biggest of the islands and it has the greatest number of poets in the anthology. Would you say that Malagasy poets are the most influential ones?
Indeed, Madagascar is the biggest island but the other island countries are equally important. They have different literary traditions. Each of the six areas has an impressive creative output. But a local-minded literary tradition began first in the 1920s in Madagascar.
Tell us about your choice of poets.
My intention was to produce a South AfricanÂoriented anthology in the sense that I chose poems that would interest South Africans. Although we know little about them, they know much about us and it is reflected in the poetry. Poems, for example, about Soweto, Nkosi Johnson or about contemporary events in South Africa, especially in the past 10 to 15 years. I wanted to show this and to point out that here is a whole historical and cultural knowledge to be tapped into.
The second-biggest number of poets comes from Mauritius. Edouard J Maunick is maybe the best known among them.
He is a prime example of a Mauritian poet who has been translated into English and even published by Protea, the publisher of this anthology. He has always been an expert on South African affairs and has been a resident in this country for many years.
The poems read beautifully. How did you proceed with the translation?
Although I made the choice of the poems, I had Carole Beckett, who put together the first anthology of Comoran poetry, as my language consultant. We thought we would go a bigger step to include the whole region. Unfortunately in the process we had to make some exclusions, like the poetry in Malagasy, Creole, English, Arabic and Hindi.
How does it compare with francophone African poetry in terms of the themes?
There is a similar francophone experience for post-colonial peoples. In the 19th century French was the language of the colonisers. In the early 20th century it became the language of assimilation and then post-World War II the language being turned around to express nationalist aspirations.
What about the women poets, what do they say?
Not many but some wonderful ones. Some of the poets are very recent and coming into prominence now.
Why do you think the anthology is timely?
Because the history of the region has been linked to South Africa for at least 400 years. There are the four S’s:
- Up to the 18th century Slavery (most of the slaves from the Cape came from there).
- In the 19th century the connection was the Sugar industry.
- In the 20th century it was Socialism.
- In the 21st century it is Soccer and also tourism.
Also because this is the first anthology of poetry of this region, I guess it won’t be the last. Now that black Atlantic studies have become well developed, surely it is the turn for black Indian studies.
Invitation to a Voyage: French-language Poetry of the Indian Ocean African Islands, edited by Stephen Gray, is published by Protea