The first review of Ignatius T. Mabasa's The Mad

 Review by Rutendo Chichaya

Reproduced from negwande.com/post/the mad-by-ignatius-t-mabasa-translated-by-j-tsitsi-mutiti

'I tried to pick up my jacket and missed it as I stumbled. I tried to laugh at myself but what I was feeling led to self-pity. The hunger was now a real pain, like a hot brick in my belly. I decided to go to the bins, where I had often seen people in search of food. Shyness is a luxury for the well-fed, not for those who feel the way I was feeling.'  page 27

The Mad is a novel by Ignatius T. Mabasa, translated by J. Tsitsi Mutiti. It was first published in 1999 in ChiShona as Mapenzi. I have read translated books that lose the essence of the original text by using a direct translation approach. While effective in its own way, as a reader I am captivated by translations that capture the moments and mood in a manner almost as similar to the original text. A heated conversation arose at the 2nd Edition of the Harare Open Book Festival, where I was moderating a discussion with Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya about translating works written in our mother tongues, the extent to which meaning is lost in translation, and the very act of translation: what purpose does it serve? (a conversation for another day). I commend Mutiti for boldly translating this Zimbabwean classic. Her admirable work begins with the title, ‘the mad’, because 'mapenzi' can be translated in different ways; this title applies to the city, its things, and its people, making it all-encompassing.  From the University of Zimbabwe to Seke Unit D, these characters will have you wondering if it is true that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

The novel tackles themes like the liberation struggle, postwar trauma, culture, identity, family dynamics, HIV/AIDS, sexual violence, and substance abuse in a web of chaos. The novel begins with the winding rant by Hamundigoni, the main character. It’s easy to dislike Hamundigoni, a war veteran and former teacher who refuses to accept the assertion that he has lost his mind. 'No one likes a profound thinker who speaks his mind. That's me, wide awake and always on the ball. I'm a genius but they call me mad. Do they even recognise madness when they see it? Amai, do you know madness?’- page 5. He is crude and annoying to a great extent, yet I found some empathy for him. This is the case with most of the characters linked to Hamundigoni, whose actions evoke frustration.  Closely connected to the post-independence disappointment is the trauma of war, which Hamundigoni marries in his periodic rants. Mabasa's humour is as strong as the sarcasm, which makes the blow of reality manageable to swallow. Mabasa’s comedic relief is clever, sneaking up on the reader in the fashion of a crow attentively preying on oblivious chicks and catching them at a perfectly calculated time.

The Mad is a commentary on Zimbabwean society, where racism, homophobia, and sexism are rife at the time of the novel. The book comes with a warning that alerts the reader to expect characters who reflect the society of the time. One of the things that this book asks the reader to interrogate is whether it's possible for us to be alright in a society filled with so much decay, disappointment and pain. One connects with these characters as they navigate life in an evolving society and realise that we are all on the brink of losing it somehow. Repression was the order of the day at the time this book was written. People who often speak their minds are seldom applauded unless their voices conform to the established norms, but is this the case for Hamundigoni as he alleges?

There are many strong characters in this novel, but alongside Hamundigoni, in the fashion of African folklore, Harare, the dog, is an indispensable character (Mabasa is a notable sarungano). This dog (formerly known as Salisbury before being renamed to ‘go with the times’) is given to Mai Jazz by her white employer, who, upon having to leave Zimbabwe to return to her home in Britain, can't travel with it. The employer gives this dog to Mai Jazz out of constraints. Harare is a key site in the novel, and as I read this, I couldn't help but draw parallels between Harare the dog and Harare the city. The allegory is sharp and impossible to miss. The characters curse Harare for what it has done to them, the city where people go to take on new characters (or their most authentic selves?) and shift their culture. Yet their intersections reveal that Harare is what it is because of its people, which leads us back to the title.

The novel beautifully intertwines the music produced by the singers, who have come to be regarded as legends in Zimbabwe, with the art of storytelling. Music and books meet at the well of storytelling, where people can draw what they require. In this text, Mabasa fuses the two; you can tell a great deal about people from their music over the years, as it also captures the language of the day. Mabasa effectively mirrors the tone of the time. I enjoyed reading this story once again, and the translation was well done. I highly recommend!

 

Book Details

Title: The Mad   

Genre: Fiction

Author: Ignatius T. Mabasa, J. Tsitsi Mutiti

Publisher: Carnelian Heart Publishing, amaBooks Publishers (2025)

Pages: 244

Ignatius Mabasa in conversation with Philani Nyoni about the translation of Mapenzi and its publication in English as The Mad

 Reproduced from South Africa's Litnet  (https://www.litnet.co.za/from-mapenzi-to-madmen-a-conversation-with-ignatius-mabasa/)

From Mapenzi to The Mad: 

A conversation with Ignatius Mabasa

Philani A Nyoni, Ignatius Tirivangani Mabasa

Ignatius Mabasa (Photo: supplied)

In 1999, a 28-year-old, Ignatius Mabasa, wrote a novel that would not only stake its claim in the Zimbabwean literary canon, but go on to receive international recognition in the form of the Times Literary Supplement calling it “one of the most significant books to have come out of Africa”. It was rumoured that Tanaka Chidora would translate it into English, but sadly that did not come to pass. It is not all gloom, however. In 2025, amaBooks Publishers will publish Tsitsi Mutiti’s translation of Mapenzi into English under the title The Mad, while the University of Georgia Press is set to release the translation in North America. Philani A Nyoni talks to Ignatius Mabasa about this new lease of life on his iconic multi-award-winning book, and what it means to him and the zeitgeist after a quarter century in circulation.

You recently translated Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions into Shona, and have been a strong advocate for the preservation of native tongues, especially your indigenous language, Shona. You must admit there’s a certain irony to your book being translated into English. What gives, milord?

Irony, because Mapenzi has been translated from its original language into English, and not vice versa – I actually see the translation into English as a gain against Western hegemony, because the mountain has come to Muhammad to acknowledge his existence. Instead of an African story being forced by the capitalist world system and globalisation into English, the translation is a sign of respect to Shona people in wanting to understand their worldview and the issues that trouble them. The Mapenzi story is important for my people’s pedagogy and emancipation, because it encapsulates the historical, cultural and social identity of a nation. It is a kind of extension of Dambudzo Marechera’s House of Hunger and a version of Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions. Getting Mapenzi translated into English is a coup, because our efforts and works in our own languages are a way of refusing to let the world dominate and silence us ideologically. The Mapenzi translation is giving a bird a branch to perch on, but the bird truly belongs and finds meaning, rest and peace in the nest of its mother tongue.

In 2001, the Times Literary Supplement named Mapenzi “one of the most significant books to have come out of Africa”. In your opinion, why has it taken so long to have it brought to a wider audience in the form of translation?

Personally, I think it has taken this long to have Mapenzi brought to a wider audience in the form of translation because it is not a light read. It reeks with the experiences of marginalised people dealing with issues of poverty, violence, disintegration, fear, coloniality and dejection. It paints huge murals of the brutal nature of African life in the postcolonial era. Such socially realistic issues are like Third Cinema – they don’t sell and are uncomfortable for Western readers, because they are indicators of the long-term impact of colonisation.

Are you worried something might be lost in the process of translation? Something particular and nuanced that may be part of the book’s immortal soul? I mean this in the context of your having said that the lines always come to you in your mother tongue, and that you have found difficulty in translating the words when they come.

Certainly I am. There is something deeply ingrained in the language of the people who are telling their story in Mapenzi. There are issues which don’t need translation, because they are at home in the nest of the language that is telling the story. However, there were cases where the beauty and richness of the Shona idiom, metaphor and way of expressing issues presented a real struggle. It was like trying to get a stubborn donkey to move – you can pull and pull, but it simply will not move, digging its hooves into the ground. Under such circumstances I felt for the translator, because the message that was coming across was, as somebody clever once said, that “each language has its own language”. Mapenzi is a story of ordinary folk in the ghetto who may understand English, but English doesn’t quite define, explain or get tickled by the witty and clever use as the original language.

How involved were you in the process of translation? Did Tsitsi Mutiti and Jane Morris engage you during the process, or did you leave the process to their professional discretion?

I got heavily involved only in the end when I had to work with the editor, who did a fantastic job in pointing out ambiguities and things she felt had the potential to confuse foreign audiences. I also had the task of reading the translated story three times, as we kept discovering things and had to make difficult decisions.

It has been about a quarter of a century since Mapenzi was published. With the time that has passed in your personal and professional life, what does this text mean to you today, now that you are a different man in a different epoch?

I tell you that this was the biggest challenge for me. Literature is shaped by the conditions of the time in which it is created, but it is also influenced by the level of development that the author is at. Mapenzi is my first novel, written when I was aged 28, and I feel that, if I had proper guidance, I would have paid more attention to developing my characters and story. Actually, if I were to be given the opportunity, I would love to rewrite the story, paying more attention to what I now consider amateur ways of handling the story. This is something Tendai Huchu observed and struggled with when he at one time helped me. However, major improvements would have had implications for the original story. I consulted widely, and the sentiment was that if I were to rewrite or embellish the story as the mature writer that I am now, I would be destroying the popular Mapenzi, which was well received and loved with the “flaws” that I was now noticing. Although the TLS called it one of the most significant books to have come out of Africa, Mapenzi also shows how much indigenous literature has potential but requires support. As a budding writer at the time, I benefited immensely from studying the Shona novel as a course for my BA general degree. It was through that course that I understood that for most indigenous books, a sincerely told story matters more than the style. There is a lot of work that still has to go into the aestheticisation of Shona writing. Anyway, I am glad that while Mapenzi may be from a different epoch, it still remains relevant in terms of the themes and issues it deals with.