Banana (English)

Publication Instance Details #1317

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No

Details

Human Rights Issues	HR & Colonisation/Colonial Legacies Indigenous Rights (incl. culture & language) Forced Labour (incl. slavery & child labour)
Irish Context	Specific Irish place or place-name mentioned Other
Languages	English
Original Language	Irish
Original Poem	Banana
Original Author	Críostóir Ó Floinn
Genre	Short Lyric
Medium	Print Anthology
Notes	The speaker of the poem, sitting by the River Life, Dublin, to eat a banana for lunch, reflects on its place of origin - Ecuador - and the exploitative working conditions of the fruit pickers. Once an exotic fruit in Ireland, he considers the low price he paid in the supermarket and how he, as a consumer, is implicated in the exploitation of others. Today's disenfranchised fruit pickers, he says, are the offspring of natives whose land was confiscated by the Inca and later the Conquistador. The poem ends on a note of grave regret at this neocolonial context. This translation varies slightly from the original Irish-language version; the references to Irish mythology are not explicit and the tone of the poem is more polemical in parts.