adminStephen Walsh, a teacher and travel writer, took the award in the John Dryden Translation Competition for 2011-12 for his translation of the poem which he called Walking In The Ruins.
Run by the British Comparative Literature Association, the prize is given to the best literary translations of the year.
Stephen Walsh first encountered the Ndebele language when he was a young teacher at Msiteli Secondary School, Bulawayo, in the early 1980s.
He now teaches at Christ’s Hospital, a boarding school in Sussex, England. His books include Heartache Spoken Here and Faithful Departures, both published in the UK by Penguin Books.
While teaching at Msiteli, one of his pupils was Imbongi frontman Albert Nyathi and the two men have stayed in touch since.
Albert was able to help with some of the finer points of the Ndebele text.
“I owe a big debt to Albert and also to a woman named Grace Dube, who lives in Spain. My Ndebele is rusty to say the least,” said Walsh.
He said he was really pleased to have won the prize, adding that the prize was not for him, but for the Ndebele language and Ndebele poetry so they get a bit more recognition across the world.
“I am hoping to revisit Zimbabwe soon. Albert and I are forming some plans to hold some poetry translation workshops in Matabeleland to bring some more of these great Ndebele poems to the forefront,” he said.
Online Reporter