Hamzat Koriko
Photo by Kirstine Serobyan
Bio
Hamzat Koriko, PhD, is a translator; playwright; executive and artistic director of the African Arts Arena, an art organization based in Grand Forks; and co-founder of the Escale des Écritures, a nonprofit organization that offers writing workshops for young playwrights in Togo. His works are experimental pieces that combine his rich cultural experience and the urgency to share and engage. His plays include The Case of the Missing Girl (Lambert, 2019), Jazve ou la voix du silence (Awoudi, 2018), L’ombre d’une Nuit (L’Harmattan, 2012), Quand l’oiseau s’envole (L’Harmanttan, 2007). He co-authored The Complicated Identity Negotiation of Women in Kangni Alemdjrodo’s Chemin de Croix and Gustave Akakpo’s Catharsis (IJFS, 2016). His play, When the bird takes flight, was invited to the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Region V in 2010. He was a featured author at the 42nd Writers Conference in North Dakota.
Project Description
To support (in collaboration with Michael Beard) the translation from the French of the play Catharsis by Togolese playwright Gustave Akakpo. Catharsis is an allegory of Africa with themes of war, wealth, identity politics, religion, and American slavery, told from the perspective of contemporary Africans in everyday conversation. The play explores issues of colonialism and the African diaspora in post-colonial Francophone nations. Written in French with elements of the Ewe language that change the French syntax and structure, the world this play creates is populated with complex characters that each have a distinctive voice. Akakpo (b. 1974) developed the play through improvisation between African actors and directors from Togo, Niger, and France, and revised each spontaneous moment into a cohesive play. First performed in France in 2006, the play has toured several countries in Africa, including Togo, Ghana, Niger, Guinea, Senegal, and The Gambia. This will be the play's first translation into English.
When I left Togo in 2004 to come to the United States of America, I promised my fellow writers that once my English became good enough, I would translate their works into English. Thirteen years later, I began my translation collaboration with Professor Emeritus Michael Beard. The idea to translate Catharsis emerged gradually, as I invited Dr. Beard to explore the realities of Togolese through the works of Togolese playwrights. As I described the play and Dr. Beard found himself asking about the processes of creation and what it was like to act in it. He asked to see the text, and gradually we decided to collaborate on a translation. But we knew we needed support and time to successfully carry out the project because Catharsis is a stylized, lyrical play, which includes rituals and songs. Our goal from the first has been to make it not just “sayable” in English but to give it rhythms that distinguished the characters and make the atmosphere or dark mystery palpable. The National Endowment for the Art Fellowship came at the right time, after I completed my PhD and have the time to work on the play. The award is a testament that in the USA, when you are committed, resilient, and qualified, your turn will come, someone will see. The fellowship is a dream come true. For that, I will be forever grateful and will produce a translation that will conquer the U.S. and the world.