Workshop on Poetry in Spanish from Equatorial Guinea with David Shook
We're delighted that the American poet and translator, David Shook, was able to join us for the first in our new series of workshops. He came with a long poem, 'Minitopography of Santa Isabel' by Marcelo Ensema Nsang, from Equatorial Guinea, the only Spanish-speaking country in Africa.
Santa Isabel is the former name of the capital of Equatorial Guinea, Malabo. The Wikipedia entry for Malabo says, 'During his "reign of terror", [President] Macías Nguema led a near-genocide of the country's Bubi minority, which formed the majority on Bioko Island, and brought many of his own tribespeople, the Fang, to Malabo. In the final years of his rule, when Equatorial Guinea was sometimes known as the "Auschwitz of Africa", much of the city's population fled as, indeed, did about one-third of the country's population. Malabo has yet to recover from the scars of that period.'
You can read the poem in the original Spanish, in David's literal version and the final translation we completed in the workshop.
Published 22/09/2010
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