Tsitsi Dangarebga, the author of Nervous Conditions, a Zimbabwean classic.
Photo: Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images
"I started translating Nervous Conditions around 1999 when I was a visiting Fulbright scholar in the US, where I was teaching Zimbabwean literature. Nervous Conditions was one of the books I was teaching. Coincidentally, 1999 is the year that my first novel Mapenzi was published and I used to talk to my students about the sad situation that there was more Zimbabwean literature in English than in indigenous languages.
I pointed out that the majority of the ordinary women whose story Nervous Conditions was telling would not be able to buy, read and understand Nervous Conditions in English, because of their literacy levels. I thought perhaps I could try to translate the book into Shona as a way of repatriating and decolonising the story. " - Ignatius Mabasa
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