Cultural appropriation and (mis)translation in Petina Gappah’s ‘Washington’s wife decides enough is enough’

Abstract

ABSTRACTBased on a close reading of ‘Washington’s wife decides enough is enough’, which is taken from Rotten row, this paper discusses how Gappah deploys the themes of cultural appropriation and (mis)translation to anchor the tensions between tradition and modernity. In the focal story, the writer uses the conflict between a mother-in-law and daughter–in-law to foreground the social and cultural appropriation of the Shona cultural nudity curse, its subsequent misidentification and desacrilization by other members of the family, witnesses, the police, and the media. This drama takes place in the contemporary urban space of Harare, which, as I argue, is a largely detraditionalized space.