I Was an Elephant Salesman: Adventures Between Dakar, Paris, and Milan

159 Pages·2010·1.681 MB·English

by  Pap Khouma, Rebecca Hopkins, Graziella Parati

Fiction • Africa
A compelling novel about the life of an illegal African
K I Was an
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immigrant in Europe
O
Elephant
U
M
“One of the first and most influential autobio- A
graphical [immigrant] narratives published in Europe.”
—Alessandra Di Maio, University of California, Los Angeles
Salesman
I
A landmark bestseller in Italy, I Was an Elephant Salesman gives a name and a face to the
W
thousands of anonymous African street vendors in cities across Europe. Through the voice
of a thinly veiled first-person narrator, Pap Khouma offers us a chilling, intimate, and often a
s
ironic glimpse into the life of an illegal immigrant. Khouma invents a life for himself as an

itinerant trader of carved elephants, small ivories, and other “African” trinkets, struggling a
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to maintain courage and dignity in the face of despair and humiliation. Constantly on the
a novel

run from the authorities, he finds insight into the vicissitudes of law and politics, the con- E
straints of citizenship, national borders, skin color, and the often paralyzing difficulties of
l
obtaining basic human needs. His story reveals a contemporary Europe struggling to come Pap Khouma
e
to terms with its multiracial, multireligious, and multicultural identity. p
Pap Khouma h
is author of Nonno Dio e gli spiriti danzanti (Grandfather God and the
Dancing Spirits) and founding editor of El Ghibli, an online journal of migrant literature. a
n
Rebecca Hopkins
teaches English and writing at the School of Advanced International
t
Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, Italy.

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Graziella Parati
is Professor of Italian at Dartmouth College. She is author of a
Migration Italy. l
e
Global African Voices
s
Dominic Thomas, editor m
Front cover illustration: Selling trinkets at Versailles. © Todd Gipstein/CORBIS.
a
INDIANA
n
University Press
Bloomington & Indianapolis
www.iupress.indiana.edu • 1-800-842-6796
$18.95
IN Edited by Oreste Pivetta • Translated by Rebecca Hopkins
D
IA
NA with an introduction by Graziella Parati
I Was An Elephant Salesman MECH.indd 1 5/17/10 12:08:38 PM
I Was an Elephant Salesman i
I Was an Elephant Salesman
ii Pap Khouma
Global African Voices
Dominic Thomas, eDiTor
I Was an Elephant Salesman iii
I Wa s a n

Elephant
salesman
Adventures between
Dakar, Paris, and Milan
Pap Khouma

Edited by Oreste Pivetta
Translated by Rebecca Hopkins
introduction by Graziella Parati
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
4 Pap Khouma
This book is a publication of
indiana University Press
601 north morton street
Bloomington, indiana 47404-3797 Usa
www.iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
Orders by e-mail [email protected]
Published in italian as Pap Khouma, Io, venditore di elefanti
© 2006 Baldini castoldi Dalai editore
english translation © 2010 by rebecca hopkins
all rights reserved
no part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by
any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publisher. The association of american University Presses’ resolu-
tion on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
the american national standard for information sciences—Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library materials, ansi Z39.48-1992.
manufactured in the United states of america
Library of congress cataloging-in-Publication Data
Khouma, Pap.
[io, venditore di elefanti. english]
i was an elephant salesman : adventures between Dakar, Paris, and milan /
Pap Khouma ; edited by oreste Pivetta ; translated by rebecca hopkins;
with an introduction by Graziella Parati.
p. cm. — (Global african voices.)
isBn 978-0-253-35522-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — isBn 978-0-253-22232-9
(pbk. : alk. paper)
i. Pivetta, oreste, [date] ii. crockett-hopkins, rebecca. iii. Title.
PQ4871.h68i1913 2010
853'.914—dc22
2010008142
1 2 3 4 5 15 14 13 12 11 10
I Was an Elephant Salesman 5
Contents
TranslaTor's Preface vii
InTroducTIon by GrazIella ParaTI xi
selling 1
illegal 4
africa 6
The market in abidjan 9
Dakar–riccione 15
street-smart . . . Beach-smart 19
italian money 24
Paolo il nero 27
Girls from senegal 29
Police . . . Just Joking! 31
Germany via Paris 36
a month in Paris 38
The Foreign Legion 43
From Paris to riccione 48
The car-house 52
Double malaw 59
chief Laman 64
vi cPaopn Kthenotusma
a senegalese Lunch 68
a Dresser in Piacenza 72
The end of ma 79
milanese chronicles 85
a run on the Beach 92
Dakar via moscow 98
Life in senegal 102
a Tourist in rome 106
To catch a Thief 109
Lacoste 115
Fights in the metro 119
changes 124
Political accusations 129
children 135
I Was an Elephant Salesman vii
tr anslator's preface
Rebecca Hopkins
in italian the terms traduttore (“translator”) and traditore
(“traitor”) are remarkably similar. Perhaps of all the ways in
which a translator inevitably “betrays” the original work, it is
the act of translating the title that often proves the thorniest.
in translating the title the translator faces the daunting task
of trying to preserve the part of the work that is most closely
linked to the work’s core identity—at least in the eyes of the
readers. The title serves as the first point of contact between
readers and the work, thus establishing an inextricable link
between the texture and form of the original language and
the emotional memory of the reading experience. often it is
the appeal of a highly peculiar or poetic title that originally
leads a reader to become enamored with the work—a lin-
guistic love affair that is thereafter reinforced by the familiar
interplay of syllables, syntax, and metaphor, which in turn
become terms of endearment of sorts.
This is certainly the case with Pap Khouma’s I Was an
Elephant Salesman: Adventures between Dakar, Paris, and Milan,
whose original italian title, Io, venditore di elefanti. Una vita
per forza fra Dakar, Parigi e Milano, has undoubtedly become a
term of endearment in its own right, a title almost as beloved
to readers of italian as the book itself. The boldness of the
italian title’s use of the first person (“Io, venditore”)—while
a fairly common structure for book titles in italian—imme-
diately captures our attention as it alerts us quite dramati-
viii Ptarpa nKhsloatuomra's preface
cally to the earnest attempt of the narrator to forge some de-
gree of individuality in a world that would at times unjustly
bereave him of such aspirations. Yet it is this endearing qual-
ity of the italian that gives the translator cause for concern.
The title reminds us that the experience of being “renamed”
in another language—of having one’s name misspelled or,
worse, mistranslated—constitutes an inexorable part of the
overarching difficulties of migration. This problem becomes
apparent in the story when the italian police misspell the
narrator’s name on their arrest report, just as it does when
the narrator must resort to adopting a “battle name” to pro-
tect himself on the italian streets and beaches, and finally in
the numerous times when the narrator is erroneously “re-
named” marocchino or “moroccan,” a highly anonymous and
derogatory term that marks his inauspicious baptism in his
new host country and language. Given this unfavorable link
between renaming, or misnaming, and migration, i consid-
ered it important to avoid “renaming” the book itself beyond
recognition. For this reason i chose to retain the use of first
person in the english translation, albeit changing it to the
more common english syntactical form “i was,” which has
the added benefit of capturing the simple, forthright quality
of the original italian.
The second key element of the title that seemed impor-
tant to retain in the english translation was the ingenious
play on words evoked by the phrase venditore di elefanti. The
book’s title most certainly owes part of its popularity to this
beguiling term, whose simplicity belies a sophisticated cri-
tique of the colonial legacy in the context of immigration
in contemporary Italy. in italian the term venditore di elefanti
might initially be misconstrued as a person who sells actual
elephants. it is only upon closer perusal of the italian cover
and the first page of the story that we see that in actuality
this phrase refers to what in italian would be more com-
monly called a venditore ambulante, a term commonly used to
refer to african street vendors who sell little elephant figu-
rines, lighters, and T-shirts on the beaches and streets of italy.
The confusion of the title deliberately appeals to the Western
fascination with an exotic Africa, one associated with wild
I Was ant rEalenpshlaatnotr S'sa lpersemfaacne ix
animals and safaris, big game hunting, and adventure. in
contrast, the actual venditore of the story is much less exotic:
we soon discover that the word points to an extremely tense
social issue—and one even marked by racism—currently
unfolding right in italy’s own backyard, namely immigra-
tion from africa. The double entendre of the title therefore
quite compellingly asks the reader to reconcile the West’s
simultaneous romanticization and demonization of africa.
in fact, i deliberately chose the term “salesman” as a way
of furthering this initial “misunderstanding” in the original
title. While “salesman” evokes the image of a business rep-
resentative, perhaps one dressed in a suit with briefcase in
hand, it captures the narrator’s repeated attempts in the sto-
ry to convince the reader, italian society, and himself that
the life of an immigrant is “a fine line of work” and “noth-
ing to be ashamed of.” While the term “seller” or “vendor”
might indeed be more appropriate to the actual reality of the
narrator’s work in Italy, the use of the term “salesman” also
reflects the second part of the title’s emphasis on inventing
“a life” (una vita) and, more importantly, on creating a modi-
cum of dignity—which is the larger goal of the work.
although it was possible to preserve the first part of the
original title (Io, venditore di elefanti), doing this with the sec-
ond part—Una vita per forza fra Dakar, Parigi e Milano—was
more challenging. While i initially toyed with the idea of
translating the phrase “una vita per forza”—an idiom difficult
to translate literally in english— as “a life at all costs” as a
way to keep the theme of the psychological and even exis-
tential “costs” of migration of the story, instead i finally opted
for “Adventures between Dakar, Paris, and milan.” Beside the
advantage of its comparative brevity, the term “adventure”
manages to express a similarly biting and profound critique
of the immigration experience in Europe that is evoked in
the phrase “una vita per forza,” a somewhat colloquial italian
idiom that suggests both the possibility of agency and an in-
evitable lack of agency. That is, the idiom “per forza” is often
used to express a situation in which one has no other choice
(for instance: Did you study for the exam? Per forza. Yes, of
course, what other choice did i have?). Furthermore, “per