Mislike me not for my complexion, the barnished livery of the sun…
This is a line from the Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, a set book I did in my last year of high school, which pretty much made no sense to me. I hated reading that book and for the mere reason that the English was a handful. There is no doubt that William Shakespeare is one of the greatest writers to have ever lived but I question the relevancy of his work to an East African setting.
I bet many who read the book, can agree with me that they could not really relate to it as much as they did to Half a Day, an additional set book which was a collection of short stories, from the African continent. Specifically from North Eastern and Eastern Africa. Whoever settled on the Merchant of Venice, for our last year of Secondary School Literature study must have been quite ambitious. We really struggled with that book.
You can imagine an East African student born and raised in an East African environment, trying to decipher the hidden meanings behind a 16th century play written in the English of that time. And while some sections of the book made for some good comic relief, like the aforementioned line which always got us giggling, as it referred to a Moroccan Prince whose skin, we assumed from the description looked like ours, a greater majority of the book was simply gibberish.
It did little to make us appreciate the literary prowess of our own African writers, whose books would have been a worthier choice for Literature study. As a matter of fact, my copy of the Merchant of Venice is still gathering dust in my metallic box, the one I used in high school.
Domestic Pains: Diary of a Househelp, my serialized novel, resumes in the next post.
definitelylorna 