ABSTRACT
This chapter, inspired by Isidore Okpewho’s influential book African Oral Literature, traces the complex transformation of a traditional Chewa folktale (nthano) about a magical personal transformation, as this metaphorical story has been subsequently adapted for a dramatised radio re-presentation. The artistic “transformer,” Julius Chongo, took a recording of the original village tale (performed by Dumbo Banda on January 12, 1974) and used its plot as the kernel to generate a narrative “makeover” for his popular weekly program, Poceza m’Madzulo (“Visiting together in the Evening”), aired on the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (January 31, 1974). My close comparative analysis reflects the various interrelated changes that this literary transformation manifests in terms of content and style as it is masterfully adapted to suit a very different contextual setting, an oral-aural medium of text transmission, and a modified goal of communication. In addition to demonstrating a particular text/context-oriented functional methodology for information and critique, this essay also raises a number of crucial questions regarding the future of recordings, transcriptions, and translations from a bygone oral-aural age for a video-dominated present-day. Can the traditional dramatic tale be transformed once again ̶ and if so, how and to what end?
