Mandela Anouya Kuna Leah

Shona

Tanaka Chidora

Kwete’, anodaro, ‘Rusununguko haruna zviga’

Ipapo gamba reRobben Island rinobva rasungwa nengetani.

‘Kwete,’ anodaro, ‘Ruzivo harutenderi rusarura’ – 

Chiso cheMurandakadzi wePakistan chinosiiwa chizere mavanga, asi chisina kutya.

‘Kwete,’ anodaro, ‘Chitendero hachimanikidzwi munhu’ –

Izwi reakatapwa kuDapchi, rizere nesimba muhunyoro hwaro,

Mwenje wake hauna kudzimwa kunyangwe akakombwa nezvimbwasungata zvehudzvanyiriri.

Naizvozvo, izwi rine huchapupu rinonzwikwa nekusingaperi – 

Mandela, Malala, Lea Sharibu – mwenje wekuramba:

‘Kwete, Prometheus akadaro’, moto nerwiyo,

Zvinowana hwangwaridza yekuti mwenje ungandume

KuChibok neDapchi, kuti nyika ive nechiedza zvakare.

—

Read the English translation – Mandela Comes to Leah by Prof. Wole Soyinka 

---

Tanaka Chidora is a literary academic, poet, short story writer and novelist from Zimbabwe. His first poetry collection, BECAUSE SADNESS IS BEAUTIFUL? was published in 2019 to critical acclaim. Tanaka is currently based in Germany at Goethe University, Frankfurt where he is a Humboldt postdoctoral fellow researching on memory, violence and literature in Zimbabwe. His first novel, HOW TO CARRY A COUNTRY ON YOUR FOREHEAD will be published in 2023. Chidora writes in both English and Shona. Additionally, Tanaka is a translator who has worked at the National Language Institute in Zimbabwe as an editor and translator. He is currently working on a commissioned project to translate Tsitsi Dangarembga’s THE BOOK OF NOT into Shona, one of Zimbabwe’s indigenous languages.