Skatryk

Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom now available in Afrikaans

For those international readers who don’t know, Afrikaans is my native language. In the town I grew up, or perhaps more accurately, in the neighbourhood of Paarl I grew up, you’ll hear very little English. (That may have changed over the last two decades, although I suspect not by a lot.)

Afrikaans is, of course, native to South Africa. As with almost any language, it has a complicated history, associated with colonial conquest and emancipation, nationalism, decolonisation, repression and discrimination and, ultimately, freedom. And despite what Charlize Theron might believe, it is a language still thriving, from music festivals to sport events, from academic treatises to coffee shops to rural villages, from the south to the north of South Africa, and beyond.

For that reason, I was easily convinced when the local publisher of Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom approached me with the proposal to translate and publish the book in Afrikaans. Skatryk is available in bookstores this week.

I was surprised at how much I learned from the translation process. When writing the English version, I had an international reader in mind. When reading the translated version, carefully done by Anne-Marie Mischke and ably assisted by Pieter Malan, language editor Elmarie Viljoen-Massyn and editor Sadé Walter, it initially felt aloof, as if I had lost my voice. Part of that is that many of the technical economics jargon – Industrial Revolution, for example, or marginal product of labour – just sound very formal in Afrikaans. But part of it is that I also have a different reader in mind when reading it in Afrikaans. The nice thing was that I had ample time to tweak the text to reflect this shift in the audience; I hope readers will enjoy it too.

But translating it also forced me to rethink several economic concepts. For example, I became stuck at how one would translate the ‘Great Divergence’. The Groot Uiteenlopingsdebat is a mouthful. We ultimately settled for the Groot Gapingsdebat. But, of course, this removes the dynamics of the process. It was the first time I had to think carefully about what ‘divergence’ actually means.

The same can be said of translating in the opposite direction. We considered many candidates for the title. Ultimately, we chose Skatryk, partly because it is a word that is very difficult to translate into English. Ask Google, and it tells you ‘darling’. Ask ChatGPT, and it says, more accurately, ‘wealthy’ or ‘rich’. ‘Filthy rich’ is probably better, but without the negative connotation. Translating is just difficult, full stop. I have no idea how authors do more than one language, especially one that they don’t read or speak themselves.

Skatryk is based on the revised and expanded international edition published in 2022 by Cambridge University Press. Readers of the South African edition of Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom (Tafelberg, 2021) will find a new chapter (on war) and at least 10000 additional words. Several chapters were rewritten based on responses I received after the first edition. I believe there is much more to learn from this edition.

I will use social media to promote events related to the book. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook. And, as per usual, please refer me to any mistakes you may find. I would very much appreciate readers sharing their experiences on their social media platforms, and spread the word!

Finally, I’ve abused the privilege of an Afrikaans edition to dedicate the book to Helanya. She has suffered through enough of my (hi)stories to almost warrant co-authorship. Perhaps, although I’m still not convinced she has actually read the book… or, indeed, any of these posts.

Skatryk is now available on Kindle. Visit my website for more information.

I will update this post with more info about upcoming events. The first one: I speak to Magdaleen Krüger at the Netwerk24-feeskafee during the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK) festival on 2 April (at 11h15). And for a cameo appearance, tune in to Sakegesprek Wednesday night with Theo Vorster on Kyknet. Or tune in on 13 April for a conversation with JP Landman.