Meet the author of ‘La Danse du Vilain’: Fiston Mwanza Mujila and Roland Glasser at the Institut Français d’Écosse
Fiston Mwanza Mujila and Roland Glasser were at the Institut Français in Edinburgh in May to talk about Mujila’s book, La Danse du Vilain, translated by Ronald Glasser as ‘The Villain’s Dance’. It is Mujila’s second novel and, like his first, Tram 83, published in 2014 and also translated by Glasser, it has won prizes in both French and English.
La Danse du Vilain is not a book you’d want to summarise. It is multi-layered, complex and, like its author, prone to go off at a tangent at any moment. It is set in 1990s Angola and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and features a cast of diamond miners, street children, spies, and an Austrian writer (Mujila now lives in Austria, where he teaches African literature at the University of Graz). The book begins with Tshiamuena ‘surnommée à juste titre et à titre posthume – la Madone des mines de Cafunfu’ / ‘nicknamed (posthumously and entirely appropriately) Madonna of the Cafunfo Mines’ – a story teller, a witch and much more. ‘Elle n’était pas la mémoire d’Angole. Elle était l’Angola. L’Angola des mines, de l’argent, des diamants, des éboulements, de la rivière diamantifère de Kwango.’ / ‘She was not the memory of Angola, she was Angola, the other Angola, the Angola of mines, money, diamonds, cave-ins, the diamantiferous River Kwango.’
As these extracts suggest, Mujila’s language is flamboyant, baroque and poetic. Asked whether he uses different language for novels and poetry, he said no: it’s like cooking utensils – you reach for the ones you know. But poetry is the source. He also says he uses French as he uses his saxophone, for the rhythm and sound, to create an atmosphere. And music is a catalyst for his writing. When not writing or teaching, he is also a jazz musician.
The discussion touched on politics – jazz as a form of subversion, used by the anti-apartheid movement and banned in Nazi Germany; references to other literature – Tshiamuena is a Mother Courage figure while the mines, of course, recall Zola – and different concepts of time. Typically, Mujila rounded off a riff on multiple eras – occupation, colonial, pre-colonial – with an anecdote about the difference between expectations of the punctuality of trains in Austria, where even a few minutes delay is a source of criticism, and African time where a train may be hours or a day late, or simply never arrive. And how that underpins the resilience shown by his characters.
Mujila draws deeply on personal experience. He uses notebooks, which, he says, water memory like a garden. Like his characters, he is a migrant. His family are traders (diamond mining exists because of trade) and miners: they did not recognise that he has a proper job until he started to win prizes. Men’s lives where he comes from are focused on the mine, home, football and the bar.
All of this creates major challenges for a translator. When asked about his approach to the work, Glasser said that he sees it as rather like an archaeological excavation. It’s hard work. And joyful. Asking lots of questions is his key to a good translation. At first, Mujila was puzzled by this approach, not seeing the point, but over time, the essential relationship of trust developed. Mujila says that the process of translation changes his relationship to the book: it’s both my work and not mine.
So, not necessarily an easy read, in French or English. But worth the effort!
