Corsino Fortes

Photo by Vesstra, from the Mindelo carnival

But . . . after having mentioned Almeida’s novel in my last post, I can’t resist saying: Cape Verdean literature is really all about poetry! There’s a poem on its bank notes I've heard, the mornas – Cape Verde’s lyrical songs with a melancholy undertow – are poetry as well as music, and there is a long line of wonderful Cape Verdean poets, the most famous of which is Jorge Barbosa.

Little has been translated into English . . . until now. The Poetry Translation Centre at SOAS is committed to translating a good selection of poems by Corsino Fortes, the greatest and most innovative living Cape Verdean poet.

Influenced by poets like T. S. Eliot, Pablo Neruda and St.-John Perse, his voice is unique. Not easy reading – invigorating stuff! Built on Greek and Portuguese epic poetry, the Brazilian concretist experiments and African rhythms, Cape Verdean morna and medieval troubadour song, the three collections of his trilogy A Cabeça Calva de Deus show a continual play between these elements from three continents, which both collide and fuse.

This, as you can imagine, has its challenges for translation – not least the Creole passages in some of his poems.

Kriolu, the Cape Verdean Creole language, is a separate language to Portuguese and is the language of everyday usage. If you’ve heard Cesaria Evora, you’ve heard it. It is very important to Cape Verdean literature, as an expression of their unique identity. Can this be registered in an English translation in any way?

Creole English could be used, but the Cape Verdean identity won’t necessarily be found there. The Kriolu could be left untranslated in the poem, with a translation in a footnote, but this will leave English listeners more lost than Portuguese listeners had been in the original, where most of the written Kriolu is understandable to Portuguese readers. Hmm . . . Any ideas?

Senor Da Silva?

2005 is the thirtieth anniversary of independence for Africa’s six Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) colonies! (hadn't heard? not to worry, nor has the UK media)

The years around 1975 were marked by exciting experiments, as writers Lusophone Africa searched for their own African identity. Mia Couto from Mozambique, who is excellently translated by David Brookshaw, is perhaps the only Portuguese-language African writer be widely known in the UK. A handful of other writers, such as the Angolans Pepetela and Jose Eduardo Agualusa have also been translated. Arcadia published Creole by Agualusa, and are soon to bring out another by this brilliant and versatile author.

The American publisher New Directions has just scored a first – Germano Almeida’s The Last Will and Testament of Senor Da Silva is the first book-length English translation from Cape Verde.

New Directions can be forgiven for having cut the wonderfully extravagant name of the gentleman in question, who in the original title is no less than Sr. Napumoceno da Silva Araujo.
Pedants might still quibble that Sr / Senhor needn't have been hispanicized to Senor. I wonder about 'Senor Da Silva' - is it only me, or does it conjure up Manuel from Fawlty Towers for other readers too?

This book is a good introduction to life on the islands whose music – particularly Cesaria Evora’s – is so popular on our islands. The author’s little asides are deliciously funny and it brought post-modernism into Cape Verdean fiction, as the truth about Senor Da Silva is not as cut and dry as his respectable image while he was alive . . .