SOURCE: Ofuani, Ogo A. “Old Wine in New Skins? An Exploratory Review of Okot p'Bitek's White Teeth: A Novel.” Research in African Literatures 27, no. 2 (summer 1996): 185-93.

In the following essay, Ofuani discusses the difficulties in translating p'Bitek's works, focusing particularly on White Teeth.

White Teeth: A Novel is Okot p'Bitek's first—and last—published work. This apparent contradiction can be explained: it was his first published work because it appeared as Lak Tar Miyo Kinyero Wilobo (“White Teeth Make People to Laugh a Lot on Earth”), a story in the Acoli language published by the Eagle Press of the East African Literature Bureau in 1953, when Okot was 22 years old. As his last published work, it appeared posthumously in its English version in 1989. The problem of translating source text to target text that had been experienced in translating Song of Lawino from Wer pa Lawino surfaced once again. Could...