Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Tragedy of Agbezuge

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was speedy keep‎. Per WP:SPEEDYKEEP#1. The nominator has withdrawn their nomination and there are no other rationale for deletion. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 09:55, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Tragedy of Agbezuge

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This book gets a brief index mention on the 1994 UNESCO collection of representative works, which suggests notability, but searching for the English and Ewe titles I can’t find any third party sources discussing - no reviews, nothing in scholarly literature about fiction of the period, or indeed anything else. Can anyone else find anything? Mccapra (talk) 09:51, 13 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Literature, Africa, and Ghana. Mccapra (talk) 09:51, 13 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This work is notable as the first novel in the Ewe language and has received scholarly study as such. Here are sources:

Awoonor, Kofi (1975). The breast of the Earth : a survey of the history, culture and literature of Africa south of the Sahara. Internet Archive. New York : Nok Publishers International. p. 138–140. ISBN 978-0-88357-019-7. One of the most prolific of the relatively younger writers is Sam Obianim, whose novel Amegbeto (Man) is very well known throughout the Ewe country... Amegbeto is a sentimental story of man's suffering in a wicked world and his undying faith in God. It is also the story of a journey from rags to riches and back to degradation and sorrow. Agbezuge is the heroic, humble, persevering, trusting Christian man, who in spite of brief moments of doubt accepts the faith of the Church and the irrevocable and implacable nature of his destiny.
Ricard, Alain (2005). "La publication de la littérature africaine en traduction" (PDF). IFAS Working Paper Series / Les Cahiers de l’ IFAS (in French) (6): 58–62. Machine translation: I then campaigned, the term is strong, but chosen on purpose, for the publication by Karthala of a novel translated from the Ewe, Agbezuge, the first and greatest, for its admirers, of the Ewe novels (Obianim, 1949). Written in 1948, well known in Ghana and among the Ewe who read their language, this text circulated in Togo, but was not translated. I formed a team with Simon Amegbleame, Martin Ahiavee and Senouvo Agbota Zinsou who undertook the translation of this text. Simon Amegbleame was the project manager of this company. The three translators with the support of UNESCO – under the program of representative works – have produced a text which arouses the support of its readers French as I was able to verify. However, they find it difficult to believe that this translation into French was made directly from Ewe and that there are no such translations from Ewe into no European language. In short, the image of literature printed in an African language clashes our representations of Africa. The text published almost twenty years ago was, in its own way, a success: his praise of the misfortunes of virtue appeared welcome, in short moral and realistic. There is in these first novels a new force: the world is reconfigured thanks to an appropriation of Christianity, but there is never any question of proselytism.
Amegbleame, Simon Agbeko (2007). "Amegbetoa alo Agbezuge le nutinya de sam obianim (éwé, 1949) : une quête exaltée de l'humain". L'effet roman: Arrivée du roman dans les langues d'Afrique (in French). Editions L'Harmattan. p. 167–179. ISBN 9782296165021. This is a scholarly monograph on the work. Subsections: Le text et son histoire, Le statut de l'œvre, L'univers d'Amegbetoa, Une rhétorique de l'écriture.

Jfire (talk) 18:32, 13 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep the "best known" Ewe language novel, "considered a classic of Ewe literature"...appears more frequently in searches under the French title: "Amegbetoa; ou, Les aventures d'Agbezuge": ON THE POWERS AND LIMITS OF LITERATURE see pp27-28, "le plus connu des romans ewe, Amegbetoa ou les aventures d’Agbezuge, de Sam Obianim (Karthala, 1990)", Histoire des Togolais. Des origines aux années 1960 p.191. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 04:00, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
According to Littératures d'Afrique noire: des langues aux livres p. 115 - French is the only European language to which the text has been translated. It would appear that the current English title is misnamed; if consensus is to keep, probably should be moved. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 05:26, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Withdraw nomination as there plainly are sources I didn’t find. Mccapra (talk) 06:00, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.