Interviewed by Valentina Acava Mmaka
Born in Rome, Valentina Acava Mmaka grew up in South Africa during the apartheid regime. She is a Journalist, writer, poet and a translator from Kiswahili and English into Italian and a reporter for numerous NGO's on Africa. She had always been committed to telling the Western world about African with an inside point of view. She has authored: "Il mondo a colori della famiglia BwanaVal" / The colourful world of the BwanaVal family (Kabiliana, 2003); Jabuni: il mistero della città sommersa/ Jabuni: the secret of the submerged town (EMI; 2003);
I nomi della pace.Amani / Amani. The names of peace (EMI 2003). She is also author of the poetry collection "L'ottava nota" (Prospettiva, 2002) and of the play Io...donna...immigrata / I .... migrant .... woman..... (EMI 2004).
Her play Io...donna....immigrata.... will be produced by TEATRO REON together with UTAFIKA THEATRE (Congo) next 2005-2006 in Italy and France with the sponsorship of U.N.E.S.C.O. She writes for several magazines and lives between Italy and Africa. She met Simon Mol in Ferrar during the Italian phase of the European Project ‘And The City Spoke and conducted an exclusive interview with him, which is reprinted below:
Valentina Mmaka: How did you get involved in the project AND THE CITY SPOKE?:
Simon Mol: Jennifer Langer, director of the pilot organisation of the project ‘Exile Writers Ink!’, contacted me and proposed to me to not only take part in the project as a writer/poet, but to organise the Warsaw phase of the project.
V.M: The performance, through the contribution of all the artists, underlines how much it is important for one’s identity and that without it, it is impossible to be conscious of the Self. Today that you live elsewhere than your country, how do you preserve and maintain alive your identity and how do you put it into relationship with your new identity as a migrant?:
S.M: I don’t have to preserve my identity because I am It, i.e., my identity is a culmination of where I come from and my experience in life. One feeds the other and therefore there is no fear that my identity can perish. On the contrary, the experience of living in exile adds to my identity. So you can deduce that Identity too, is a phenomenon that evolves. You could rightly describe it as a snake peeling its skin off when it’s done with. Again it’s like being initiated into an order of any sort… after the initiation new knowledge is open to you and you realise that some of the old things do not fit anymore.
V.M: Let’s talk about the places where you’ve lived throughout your life, how did they influence your perception of reality? How did they determine the “topography” of your soul?:
S.M: The Soul in my opinion is unchangeable. I perceive it as a ‘sleeping phenomenon’ that is gradually stirred to life by experience garnered in the course of living. The level of awaken is what shapes a man’s consciousness. Hence new places, new people and cultures help in this awakening process.
V.M: Many writers in exile say that the places where they went were no more than mirrors for the place they came from. Just think about James Joyce who after leaving Ireland, spend many years recreating the city he left. Was it the same for you?:
S.M: I haven’t had such an experience... however there are often very radical realities that could be painful or ecstatic. Recreating a former city is one thing, (as J. Joyce). Which dimension of the city one seeks to recreate is the key thing... is it the physical infrastructure of the city or life and culture in the city? This is perhaps what determines the outcome. And the main factor here is which dimension of the city one left behind was one most attached to. Quite often, for those who seek the physical dimension of a city, it could be easier to adjust and totally accept a new ‘place’ owing to its corporal beauty. It is never and can hardly be the same with the deeper and non-representational dimensions of a ‘Space’ left behind.
V.M: What does it mean to leave your own country with a one way ticket?:
S.M: Even if I were to tell you that, you won’t grasp the depth of the message. One has to experience it to ‘know’ what it means. Tell me, how can you describe what it means to be scorched by fire? I think you will agree with me that to simply say ‘pain’ is inadequate. See what I mean?
V.M: In your experience writing has come into your life with exile or were you writing also before?:
S.M: Before. Simply put, the consequences of writing in the way I do was what forced me to exile.
V.M: How is to “live” in another language, a language different from your original one?:
S.M: In many ways it is like mental torture. You are constantly struggling to be heard, you are constantly searching for words like a child learning to walk, fighting for a space to express your feelings. I think it could be a lot easier for a non-writer to adjust (not entirely though as this is difficult) or as you put it, ‘live’ in another language. For a writer/poet, the challenges are inconceivable. The mastery of a language for a writer squarely depends on the right order of manipulating words to convey imagery; the chronology of rhythm even in prose, which is what, makes a writer’s style. The one advantage of ‘living’ in another language is that handicapped by a lack of words, the power of ‘perception’ develops as one has no other choice than to navigate around logic in order to understand and ‘own’ truth.
V.M: Do you believe as many writers do, for example Ngugi wa-Thiongo that writing in a different language can compromise the emotional component of the creative expresion. Or you can say that writing in a new language can be also a way to dismantle barriers and create a new code of emotions through which different cultures can meet?:
S.M: Ngugi is absolutely correct. The second part of your statement is right only when literature is translated by a professional translator from one language into another. Even here, the snag of misinterpretation is always looming close at hand. If this snag is bypassed, then literature written in one language can enrich another language through the often inevitable process of inventing new words so as to convey the original message. Because there are words that exist in one language and have no equivalent in another. And also there are words in one language which ‘cannot’ be translated into a second language.
V.M: Many writers in exile loose their “voice”, their writing”, how was it in your experience and how did exile influenced your writing?:
S.M: I haven’t lost my ‘voice’ yet… I think this will happen only when I die. As long as I am alive, I shall write. Whether at home or in exile won’t change a thing. Being a witness to history writing itself, I shall write about the things I have seen until I loose the power to move my fingers;
Behold an African Eye— staring and stirring
to see itself.
It stretches beyond bounds, boundaries –
across lands, mountains and seas,
guarding a promise to justice.
It races to bridge times with tales
of things seen…
for the children of war
and gods in exile.
V.M: South African novelist Nadine Gordimer says that we are not sons only of the time in which we live but also of the place where be born and live. Do you think that writing can be separate from any political commitment? Which weight does it have the place where we born and grow?:
S.M: Literature should be literature as in ‘arts for arts’ sake’. Literature in a deeper sense is everything. Though I was born into a Catholic family and do respect Ancestor Worship as well, my true religion now is Poetry. Literature has such a power as it lives on a higher sphere, i.e., imagination. Politics, religion and culture, are all playthings in the hands of a writer. And this is precisely why some who are power-hungry often loathe writers to the point of wanting to axe their necks.
V.M: William Plomer says in one of his poems Let’s go in another country, not mine, nor yours and let’s start a new life…. The hope will be our passport, all the rest will come by itself…. Is this the spirit which has characterized your migration?:
S.M: Well, by implying ‘Let’s go’, Plomer had a choice to move to ‘another country’, with a ‘passport’. In my situation, I had no choice. To be precise I am now using a borrowed passport.
V.M: Iosif Brodskij says that the most high lesson of exile is humility. Do you recognise yourself in this image?:
S.M: Humility towards who? If it’s humility towards the higher forces that have protected me all along, from the day I was born, to this very day that I am writing this, I agree with that. Nothing less. I am humble whenever I stand face to face with that ‘Goodness’ in man that appreciates the Good and God in me as I do in others.
V.M: Separated from your country, how do you live today? Have you ever thought one day you would go back and live there?:
S.M: Home is irreplaceable. I would more than anything love to live in my village. I constantly think of this. I visit my homeland every night in my dream. An experiment I conducted with dreaming showed that 90% of my dreams are played out in the place I was born, with people I know. This says it all I guess.
V.M: Writer Milan Kundera talks about the “dream of exile” and writes the day was enlightened of the beauty of the abandoned land, of night of the horror to go back. The day showed her the paradise which she had lost and the night the hell which she escaped from. Which are or were the contradictory dreams of your exile?:
S.M: If I have to return to Cameroon today, sure as hell I shall miss something of the country that granted me refuge. This is quite natural. Journeys come with discoveries, not only of places but of people as well. And people are what make places. We meet and make new friends, we explore and are forced to explore. And when we leave, we miss the good. Home is where one should rest… the final point of return, even if it is a situation where one doesn’t return physically. There is no going without coming; there is no up without a down. Everything comes in pairs and this goes for discoveries as well. We belong to ‘our home’ yet we hate certain things about it sometimes and hold dear others. The bad as well, is part of a man’s identity. In exile, we equally like and dislike different phases and faces of the new place:
GooD Bye Day
We shall be gone
Yes we shall be gone... soon.
This is our GooD Bye—
We are leaving to leave your all... for you.
We are taking only our time and memories along
We shall leave behind the part of you that strove
to make us forget
but Your smiles will go with us
And for the sake of the good times we shared we shall leave your anger behind.
We shall take along too the part of you that welcomed us
We shall take along those eyes of yours that saw the good in us
And forgive the malice and hold dear your children in our hearts—
they never saw any fault in us;
Soon dear will be our goodbye day….
Bye!
V.M: Who do you consider your literary fathers and mothers?:
S.M: Due to the rich tradition of oral literature which they inherited and without desecrating it, passed over to me, my father and mother remain my principal mentors. I have equally drawn much inspiration from certain western writers and poets also, who I won’t list here as this is a personal thing.
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