Travelling story

The story’s beauty lies in the Swahili poem that does not literally translate selected parts from neither the Quran or the Bible, nor does it provide an interlinear translation into Arabic; what the poet appropriates are scenes and figures, which he seeks to bring to life as much as he can.

There is a sense of continuity across space and time as the Swahili poet appropriates preexisting concepts, but also a sense of creativity: the figures are reshaped in the light of the Swahili audience and its context. Thus, in the case of Swahili Islamic poems we must also understand ‘translation’ as a creative and mimetic practice: the poet does not seek to convey the original words, but rather to pass on its effect. But it is more than that: if on one hand the beauty of Joseph’s story lies in the wide horizon of the world-wide reception of the story, the many Swahili versions from the Lamu Swahili poetical scene of the last century offer a new significant cartography of travelling texts, which includes islands where poets, custodians of manuscripts and talent calligraphers live. Each existing Swahili Muslim version reveals a specific textual relationship with and to the Indian Ocean world.

The beauty of the manuscript and its realization by the hands of scribes also demonstrates the intricate web of relations between Swahili poets and the European scholars who were fascinated by Swahili classical literature and who – in any case – contributed to the preservation and documentation of the culture heritage of the old Swahili manuscript.