uHlanga and akono Verlag are proud to announce the upcoming translation of Kopano Maroga’s Jesus Thesis and Other Critical Fabulations into German.
Maroga’s debut will be translated by Berlin-based writer, speaker and actor Ralph Tharayil, supported by the German Translator’s Fund, and will be published by akono, based in Leipzig.
Since its publication in the hard-lockdown days of November 2020, Jesus Thesis has attracted rave reviews. South Africa’s News24 praised Maroga’s debut as both “harrowing” and “tender”, adding that “Jesus Thesis invites readers to investigate their preconceptions by making empathy coexist alongside sorrow while combining the erotic with grief and alienation.”
Similarly, U.S magazine MAYDAY praised Maroga’s imagining of “Jesus’s “lost years” as full of queer erotic bliss and newly vibrant prayers”, with poems that “revolt against convention” and praise “the holy black queer self”.
Akono’s director Jona Elisa Krützfeld is delighted with the collaboration, which has come about in the midst of the pandemic and across four countries. “I am so happy and grateful that through this project we can expand Kopano Maroga's and uHlanga’s creative network – and especially that the German-speaking audience will be introduced to Maroga’s extraordinary and courageous work. We hope to be touring through Germany with readings and performances of Jesus Thesis in 2023.”
“This deal is wonderful news,” says uHlanga’s director Nick Mulgrew. “It always struck me as a cruel irony that a book by one of South Africa’s great young performance artists came out at a time when they could not perform in public, due to the Covid pandemic. This marks a resurrection, not just for an excellent book by an excellent writer, but for our collective hopes as literary workers. Thank you to akono Verlag for making this dream a reality.”