Forgotten genre celebrated at MU

Afro-Hispanic authors struggle to get published and recognized in English translation

By Victoria Okoye
Adelante Staff

Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo has written critically acclaimed novels, more than 2,000 articles and compiled literature anthologies from his native Equatorial Guinea, but that is still not enough to get his novels published in English. Despite a small, loyal following, Ndongo and other Afro-Hispanic authors receive little notice in the wider world of Hispanic literature.

April 14-16, Ndongo and Lucía Charún-Illescas, two Afro-Hispanic writers, shared the spotlight at the MU international symposium “Transnational Identities: Afro-Hispanic Literature of European Exile.” More than 30 Spanish-speaking scholars came from all over the United States and Canada, and met with romance language students and community members for discussions of the authors’ works.

“Studying Afro-Hispanic literature is a sacrifice for future scholars,” said Marvin Lewis, director of the MU Afro-Romance Institute, during his closing remarks at the conference. He said the voices of Hispanics of African descent are rarely included in university Spanish-language programs. He encouraged participants to continue their studies, but left them with a warning: People will always question the legitimacy of the work.

Some scholars encounter outright discouragement when they pursue studies in Afro-Hispanic Literature, like Dorothy Odartey-Wellington of University of Guelph in Canada. Beginning her lecture about Ndongo’s works, she recalled her graduate advisers’ reactions when she told them she wanted to pursue a doctorate in Afro-Hispanic literature with an emphasis on Equatorial Guinea, the only Spanish-speaking country in Africa.

“The reception that I got was not enthusiastic,” she recalled.

The rest of the world’s indifference aside, the literature should not be ignored or limited to the descendants of the indigenous tribes or Europeans and Portuguese colonizers, several conference participants said.

“If it weren't for the Afro-Romance Institute … I would have been ignorant of Equatorial Guinea as most Spaniards are,” said MU Spanish Professor Michael Ugarte. The conference -- the fourth of its kind at MU -- “is especially good because it’s serving sort of a global function of making African culture accessible,” he said.

Ugarte has been working on a translation of Ndongo's work Las tinieblas de tu memoria negra (Shades of your black memory) for more than a year. Raritan, a literary journal, published the first chapter of the novel, and Ugarte hopes that will lead to other publishing opportunities.

Ugarte said he’s written to publishers, but many think the book is not marketable. A few publishers said they might be interested in looking at the completed translation, he said. “Who knows, this may go nowhere. My big nightmare is that nobody is going to want to publish it,” he said. “But I'm going to try anyway.”

While translating the book, Ugarte, a native Spanish-speaker, said that he’s learned a few things about Africa. He’s also learned new words and new meanings for familiar words. “Here I am, an older member of the department of Spanish Romance Languages and I'm learning about Spanish.”

Ndongo is a visiting professor at MU, who is living in exile from Equatorial Guinea and resides permanently in Spain with his family. In 1968, Ndongo was studying in Spain when dictator Francisco Macías came to power in Equatorial Guinea. He returned in 1985 and worked as a journalist for EFE Central Africa News. He fled to Spain once again in 1994 after the government threatened him because of his work at an independent newspaper.

Ndongo said his exile has given him a love for liberty and a better perspective on the status of his country and Africa. “I believe that exile has given me serenity,” he said. “All the problems (in Africa) affect me profoundly and obligate me to reflect from a personal point of view, from a literary point of view. All my work that I've written in exile is intended to reflect and discover why Africans live as they do.”

The Afro-Romance Institute, which focuses on the literature and languages of the African diaspora in Spanish-speaking countries, is the only one of its kind in the United States. It sponsored similar conferences in 1991, 1993 and 1999. Lewis said he did not know of any other Afro-Hispanic literature conferences being held this year.

Among the Afro-Hispanic authors who have received critical acclaim but are still not widely known, Lewis listed Manuel Zapata Olivella of Colombia, Nelson Estupinan-Bass of Ecuador, Quince Duncan of Costa Rica, Jorge Emilio Cardoso of Uruguay and Nancy Morejon of Cuba.

FACTS ABOUT AFRO-HISPANICS
-An Afro-Hispanic is a Hispanic who is, at least in part, of African heritage or lineage.
-The first Africans to arrive in Latin America were explorers with the Portuguese and Spanish in the 15th century.
-Following exploration, most Africans were brought to Latin America and the Caribbean as slaves. They were taken from the West African countries of Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Congo, Gold Coast, Morocco and Cote d'Ivore across the Atlantic Ocean to South America, Central America and the Caribbean.
-The Spanish colonized the African countries of Equatorial Guinea and Spanish Morocco in the 19th and 20th centuries.