Poesia swahili in Katanga: multilinguismo e corporalità nei versi di Patrick Mudekereza

Flavia Aiello; Roberto Gaudioso

doi:10.13135/1825-263X/3360

Flavia Aiello University of Naples "L'Orientale"
Roberto Gaudioso University of Naples "L'Orientale"

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/3360

Keywords: Swahili, Katanga, corporalità, Patrick Mudekereza

Abstract

The world of Swahili contemporary poetry, as remarked by M. M. Mulokozi and T. S. Y. Sengo (1995: 22), is amazingly broad, given the progressive diffusion of the Swahili language in the course of the last two centuries, from the East African coast to the continental regions of Eastern and Central Africa. Accordingly, authors of Swahili poetic texts can also be found in the “periphery” of the Swahilophone area, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, where this language has become the medium of modern songs and written poetry in many areas, although the latter is hardly visible in a context where creative writing is predominantly expressed in French.

In the present contribution, after an introduction on Swahili poetry in the DRC and on the linguistic complexity of the Swahilophone environment of Katanga, and particularly of its main city, Lubumbashi, we will present some (so far unpublished) poems by Patrick Mudekereza, art curator and director of the cultural centre WAZA, together with a first analysis of his verses, whose poetics emerges from plurilingualism and corporality.

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Author Biographies

Flavia Aiello, University of Naples "L'Orientale"

Flavia Aiello presently works as research fellow at the University of Naples “L’Orientale,” where she also teaches Swahili Language and Literature. She is the author of numerous publications on Swahili oral and written genres and, for an Italian audience, has produced Separazione (Iride Edizioni, Soveria Mannelli, 2005), a translation of the Swahili novel Utengano by S. A. Mohamed. Research interests: contemporary Swahili literature (including children’s literature), Swahilophone verbal arts and literary translation.

She can be reached at: faiello@unior.it.

Roberto Gaudioso, University of Naples "L'Orientale"

Roberto Gaudioso is currently doing post-doc research on Swahili Literature of DR Congo at the Univesity of Napoli “L’Orientale.” His PhD thesis is on the poetics and philosophy of Euphrase Kezilahabi (University of Napoli “L'Orientale” and University of Bayreuth). He has written on: Euphrase Kezilahabi, Ebrahim Hussein, Ingeborg Bachmann and Giacomo Leopardi, whom he has translated into Swahili. Research interests: Literatures in African languages, Comparative Literature, Theories and practices of Translation, Aesthetics of Literature, Hermeneutics, Philosophy.

He can be reached at: roberto.lumuli.gaudioso@gmail.com.

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