African Literature

[Colette Jones]

If you can easily get to London, you may be interested in this (http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/literature-spoken-word/productions/african-writers-evening-39632).

[Stewart]

For years the African Writers’ Evening has filled the air with loud whoops and ethereal words, keeping African writing on the map at times when it wasn’t the new cool thing. To celebrate its fifth anniversary, Ghanian writer Nii Ayikwei Parkes brings the event to Southbank Centre, mixing emerging voices with more established names. Join us to experience a fabulous night where Africa speaks and the world listens.It would be nice if they gave a list of the names, both emerging and established.

As you can tell by the content of the forum, African literature isn't the most popular. I can count on my hands the number of African books I've read and/or attempted. And most of these are South African: Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee.

But there are others I've picked up and, to some degree been happy with. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart was a good read and one I may consider revisiting. I've enjoyed Nuruddin Farah's From A Crooked Rib (http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9) (Somalia) but I couldn't get into Tayeb Salih's Season Of Migration To The North (Sudan). I have a couple of Egyptian novels (Alaa Al Aswany's The Yacoubian Building and Naguib Mahfouz's Midaq Alley) that I want to read, too.

Other than that there's a couple by Nigerian novelists, in addition to the aforementioned Achebe: Becoming Abigail by Chris Abani and Beasts Of No Nation (http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63) by Uzodinma Iweala, although I think both of them are more Nigerian-American. Kole Omotoso came to my attention recently, his The Combat being recently published in the South African Penguin Modern Classics range.

The old Heinemann African Writers' Series, which I've mentioned on Luis Bernardo Honwana's We Killed Mangy-Dog (http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=181), has a list of many books in the series with loads of names worth mentioning and I'll post them up when I have the book to hand.

And let's not forget Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52).

[saliotthomas]

There is in Dark star Safari by Paul Theroux a very interesting part about Nadine Gordimer.She is a very good friend of his. It's nice to spend some time in her intimacy as well as her explaination about her choices.This book is full of reference to African literature,starting with Mahfouz and his birth place.

I am half way through the Attack by Yasmina Khadra(Algeria) and i shall try to do a review about it.The book is fasinating so far,by far the best i read from a North african writer.I read a book from Tahar ben Jelloun,by far the most popular Morrocain writer but found it miserabilist and did not like it.My parent asured me that is early work is much better.I shall have to give it another chance(but i'm in not ruch)
http://www.taharbenjelloun.org/accueil.php

[Stewart]

There is in Dark star Safari by Paul Theroux a very interesting part about Nadine Gordimer.
I may be interested to one day get to it. As it is I have two Theroux travelogues (The Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express) which I will be travelling first.


I am half way through the Attack by Yasmina Khadra(Algeria) and i shall try to do a review about it.
Thanks. I have a copy of that on loan from the library. I had an aborted attempt at Khadra's The Swallows Of Kabul early last year. I don't remember why I set it aside (perhaps just reading block) as it wasn't the most difficult of reads.

[Heteronym]

I'm more familiar with the Portuguese-language African literature.The Angolan writer Jos? Eduardo Agualusa has written a book I've enjoyed a lot: The Book of Chameleons. It won the 2007 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. It's a funny little book, narrated by a chameleon, about a man who invents and sells new pasts for people who want to disappear.

I'd also recommend Mozambican author Mia Couto, who has an extensive ouevre ranging from poetry to short-fiction to novels. His writing is quite unique in that he constantly creates new words. I've always wanted to know how his translators negotiate that problem.

[abecedarian]

I'd also recommend Mozambican author Mia Couto, who has an extensive ouevre ranging from poetry to short-fiction to novels. His writing is quite unique in that he constantly creates new words. I've always wanted to know how his translators negotiate that problem.


I read Voices Made Night by Couto, and while I felt the stories were too bleak for my personal tastes, I was impressed by his poetic imagery.

[Stewart]

Was just out at lunch there and spotted the new AWS Classics series from Heinemann. Basically, it's a selection of eight books - I'm sure more will add to the range in time - of African novels from their well known African Writers Series. The new site can be found at African Writers (http://www.africanwriters.com/). Apart from the bewildering prices (I'll never understand book prices!) where a book half the size of another comes in more expensive, they look quite nice, coming in a classy black with a patterned edge, shot through with a stylised section of African art.


http://www.heinemann.co.uk/shared/covers/bigcovers/9780435913502.jpg



The initial titles are:


Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
No Longer At Ease, Chinua Achebe
So Long A Letter, B? Mariama
The Joys Of Motherhood, Buchi Emecheta
Maru, Bessie Head
When Rain Clouds Gather, Bessie Head
Season Of Migration To The North, Tayeb Salih
A Grain Of Wheat, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

I've already got Things Fall Apart and the Tayeb Salih novel in the Penguin Modern Classics range, but I think I'll be getting them again to ensure a complete set of these.

[abecedarian]

Snazzy cover! All those names seem so familiar that I had to double check my list..I read a different book for Botswanna so I missed Bessie Head, but thankfully that's fixable. I read The Wedding of Zein by Tayeb Salih and my eyes glazed over-not sure if that was the author's fault or mine..So Long a Letter sounds very familiar; I wonder if I read it and didn't get it written down..will have to see about that. The cover I saw of A Grain of Wheat just now at amazon looks highly familiar too.. I can't place the synopsis though. Perhaps I received it through interlibrary loan and didn't have time to read the book..and adding to the confusion is the fact I read another book by the same title for Japan. I'll definately have to read The Joys of Motherhood; it looks great.

You rescue any of these lovely books from the bookstore? You ok?;)

[Stewart]

I read a different book for Botswanna so I missed Bessie Head, but thankfully that's fixable.

From the bio, she was South African but wrote about Botswana, eventually dying there.


You rescue any of these lovely books from the bookstore?
Of course.


So Long A Letter, B? Mariama
When Rain Clouds Gather, Bessie Head

[abecedarian]

From the bio, she was South African but wrote about Botswana, eventually dying there.


Of course.


So Long A Letter, B? Mariama
When Rain Clouds Gather, Bessie Head




For the challenge, she might have counted for both places. In fact, for the person who issued the challenge, Botswana might hold more weight as that's where she spent most of her life... that definition was always somewhat vague for this whole process as it is so difficult to know where an author's citizenship lies. Sometimes it shouildn't matter.


I saw your post in Recent Purchases after I posted... glad to know we don't need to check your pulse;)

[Eric]

I am always eager to know what has been written within the past 20 years in any given country, plus the names of up-and-coming names new authors. It strikes me that Stewart's list lists the old guard:

Chinua Achebe (born 1930)
B? Mariama (born 1929)
Buchi Emecheta (born 1944)
Bessie Head (1937-1986)
Tayeb Salih (born 1929)
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (born 1938)

The youngest of these authors is now 64 (!) years old. Do any of you know of African authors that are under the age of 40? Because in our postcolonial times, we in Europe can surely not have abandoned younger African writers.

[Heteronym]

Eric, have you ever heard of the Angolan writer Ondjaki?

[Eric]

No, Heteronym. Five minutes ago, I'd never heard of him. But I can Google:

Angolan author Ondjaki to launch his latest book in UK Sociolingo’s Africa (http://sociolingo.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/angolan-author-ondjaki-to-launch-his-latest-book-in-uk/)

Ondjaki (http://www.mertin-litag.de/authors_htm/Ondjaki.htm)

ondjaki (http://www.kazukuta.com/ondjaki/ondjaki.html)

His "The Whistler" is evidently translated by ther South African journalist Richard Bartlett;

The Whistler - Ondjaki (http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/poafrica/ondjaki.htm)

[Heteronym]

Now you know an African writer under the age of 40 :D

[Mirabell]

I am reading a novel by Fatou Diome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatou_Diome), who has turned 40 this year or will turn 40 (I fail to find the month on the web). Female senegalese writer,


speaking of which. it makes me deeply uneasy that we have a section "african literature" instead of one on nigerian, senegalese, etc. literature.

[Stewart]

I am reading a novel by Fatou Diome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatou_Diome), who has turned 40 this year or will turn 40 (I fail to find the month on the web). Female senegalese writer,
I have one by her too. It's called The Belly Of The Atlantic.


speaking of which. it makes me deeply uneasy that we have a section "african literature" instead of one on nigerian, senegalese, etc. literature.
That's only because nobody has thought to start one.

[Mirabell]

I have one by her too. It's called The Belly Of The Atlantic.




Got that one too, now. Ordered both at the same time, apparently took one longer than the other...

[Bjorn]

Here's a list (http://emeagwali.com/media/africa/100-best-african-books-of-the-20th-century.html) of the 100 best African books of the 20th century, as compiled (http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa100BestBooks.htm) at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (which has apparently since ceased to exist) in 2002.

The top 12:


Chinua ACHEBE - Things Fall Apart (Nigeria, 1958)
Meshack ASARE - Sosu's Call (Ghana, 1997)
Mariama B? - So Long A Letter (Senegal, 1980)
Mia COUTO - Terra Sonambula (Mozambique, 1992)
Tsitsi DANGAREMBGA - Nervous Conditions (Zimbabwe, 1988)
Cheikh Anta DIOP - Ant?riorit? Des Civilisations N?gres (Senegal, 1967)
Assia DJEBAR - L'Amour La Fantasia (Algeria, 1985)
Naguib MAHFOUZ - The Cairo Trilogy (Egypt, 1956)
Thomas Mokopu MOFOLO - Chaka (Lesotho, 1925)
NGUGI wa Thiong'o - A Grain Of Wheat (Kenya, 1967)
L?opold S?dar SENGHOR - Oeuvre Po?tique (Senegal, 1990)
Wole SOYINKA - Ake: The Years of Childhood (Nigeria, 1981)

[Heteronym]

I knew Mia Couto's Sleepwalking Land was on the first twelve, but I had no idea it was so high up on the list.

[Jan Mbali]

One of South Africa's greatest writers has just died, Ezekial Mphahlele. As the cutting below indicates, he is widely known for Down Second Avenue - one of our 5 best literary works in my opinion. His descritpions of schooling are powerful - I used it it as a potent source in teaching the sociology of education, from the hidden curriculum to labelling theory. But he has a large body of work, including poetry, essays and criticism, which I should know more about.
**********************************
Mphahlele died Monday evening at a hospital near his home in Lebowakgomo, in northern South Africa, said Raks Seakhoa, a close family friend.
The cause of death was not given, but Seakhoa said in an interview on Tuesday that the writer had been in poor health for some time.
Mphahlele is best known for "Down Second Avenue," an autobiography published in 1959 that describes his early years in rural northern South Africa and later in a bustling Pretoria black township. The book ends with the writer's exile from apartheid South Africa in 1957.
Mphahlele lived in Kenya, Zambia, France and the United States, earning a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Denver.
He returned to South Africa in the 1970s.
With the end of apartheid, the writer emerged as an eloquent proponent of the need to nurture the arts to feed a culture traumatized by colonization and oppression.
Achmat Dangor _ another South African writer whose resume includes anti-apartheid campaigning and censure by the former white government _ told The Associated Press that Mphahlele was "a remarkable person, wise, creative and fearless. His writing and its ethical roots inspired so many of us."
Seakhoa said a memorial service would be held Thursday or Friday, and that Mphahlele would be cremated in northern South Africa on Saturday.
Mphahlele and his wife, Rebecca Nnana Mochedibane, who died in 2004, had five children. Mphahlele is survived by four of his children.

[Bjorn]

Let?s Name Africa?s Best Books of the Decade - and SA?s Top Ten | Read SA (http://readsa.book.co.za/blog/2009/11/23/lets-name-africas-best-books-of-the-decade-and-sas-top-ten)

[Stiffelio]

I knew Mia Couto's Sleepwalking Land was on the first twelve, but I had no idea it was so high up on the list.

They ordered the top 12 twelve alphabetically by author. At any rate, I don't give much credibility to a list which snubs the two South African Nobel Prize winners, and is compiled in Zimbabwe. Something smells fishy!

[Bjorn]

They ordered the top 12 twelve alphabetically by author. At any rate, I don't give much credibility to a list which snubs the two South African Nobel Prize winners, and is compiled in Zimbabwe. Something smells fishy!
They didn't snub them. Both Coetzee and Gordimer are on the list (http://emeagwali.com/media/africa/100-best-african-books-of-the-20th-century.html).

[Daniel del Real]

They didn't snub them. Both Coetzee and Gordimer are on the list (http://emeagwali.com/media/africa/100-best-african-books-of-the-20th-century.html).

However, I think Coetzee is misrepresented with only Life & Times of Michael K. He should be mentioned at least twice, either with Waiting for the Barbarians or Disgrace.
About Gordimer is funny they listed the only novel I've read from her, a book I couldn't finish because I thought it was tedious.

[Stiffelio]

However, I think Coetzee is misrepresented with only Life & Times of Michael K. He should be mentioned at least twice, either with Waiting for the Barbarians or Disgrace.
About Gordimer is funny they listed the only novel I've read from her, a book I couldn't finish because I thought it was tedious.

I agree about Coetzee: they should have listed Waiting for the Barbarians. As for Gordiner, she has al least two or three novels worthy of consideration for the top of the top. But some other South Africans are inexplicably missing. Where's Breyten Breytenbach? Where's Alan Paton and his Cry, the Beloved Country. Instead, the list is littered with writers known only to the burocrats who compiled it, probably under the premise that each country had to be democratically present.

[Bjorn]

The East African: - Magazine|The top 25 African writers (http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/magazine/-/434746/1018306/-/124m8b0z/-/)

And before the usual scorn directed towards lists, I'll just mention that it's a pretty interesting article as well. But here's the actual list, according to the journalist:

1. Brian Chikwava (Zimbabwe)
2. Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe)
3. Chimamanda Adichie- (Nigeria/US)
4. Chris Abani (Nigeria)
5. Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Kenya/US)
6. Helon Habila (Nigeria/US)
7. Uwen Akpan (Nigeria)
8. Nuruddin Farah (Somalia/South Africa)
9. Doreen Baingana (Uganda/Kenya)
10. JM Coetzee (South Africa)
11. Niq Mhlongo (South Africa)
12. Zukiswa Wanner (South Africa)
13. Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe/Switzerland)
14. Segun Afolabi (Nigeria)
15. Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
16. Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
17. Unity Dow (Botswana)
18. Zakes Mda (South Africa)
19. Aher Arop Bol (Sudan)
20. Leila Abouzeid (Morocco)
21. Buchi Emecheta (Nigeria/Britain)
22. M.G. Vassanji (Kenya/Canada/Tanzania)
23. Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali (South Africa)
24. Athol Fugard (South Africa)
25. Ben Okri (Nigeria)

[Amoxcalli]

They either only list living writers, or they forgot Mahfouz, who is without doubt one of the best, if not the best writers of the African continent (and undoubtedly one of the most prolific too. My god this man wrote a lot). I couldn't really tell from the article.

I could tell I'm horribly under-read when it comes to African literature though.

[Eric]

How much African literature is there? You will have read my posting somewhere that a man from Sierra Leone who is writer-in-residence in Sweden pointed out that 70% of his country was illiterate and that those who do read literature, tend to read authors from the West.

When you add up all the populations, Europe has about 810 million people and Africa 1,000 million. Development has obviously been at different rates in the two continents. And there has been imperialism, colonialism, the theft of raw materials, etc. But there are quite a lot of well-known European authors, whereas there are not very many from Africa, even in postcolonialist times.

Looking at the part of this website devoted to African literature specifically, we haven't examined an enormous number of authors beyond Ngugi, Coetzee, Soyinka, Achebe and maybe a dozen more. Some of these work as lecturers in America and so on, and may not necessarily be in touch with their home countries as much as they could be.

So there is a fundamental question that has to be asked: to what extent does Africa have a literary tradition in the same way that Europe, Asia, and North America have? And how do we go about finding interesting authors? We need databases, and so on. Does anyone here know where to find them? Africa has about 53 or 54 countries, according to what I've read. Is there even a list with authors from each country, ones we can read and appreciate?

Years ago, there was a series of African authors published in Britain. Orange covers, if I remember rightly. Has this series continued? Does anyone here know? Does Germany or France have a series of literary translations from Africa, colonialist and postcolonialist, assuming many works are written nowadays in English, Portuguese and French?

Maybe those of you who were at the Gothenburg Book Fair and listened to some of the African authors could throw some light on all of this.

[Heteronym]

It is only natural; if your mobile phone is going to be made from coltan from the Democratic Republic of Congo, if your bling is coming from Zimbabwe?s mines, and if your car is soon going to be running on African fossil fuel, then you need to comprehend Africa ? its ways and peoples.

This is just nonsense. If I read African literature, it's because I feel like it, the same way tomorrow I can feel like reading a novel from an Ecuadorian novelist. Because in the age of globalisation, I can read whatever I want whenever I feel like it. I don't need socio-economical excuses to read anything.

All I got from this article was: there is a new generation of African writers, they don't write like their predecessors, who were too engag? anyway, they only matter because the white world has heard of them, and they all write in English.

[Eric]

The Gothenburg Book Fair - African Literature

I wasn't there, but I've studied the programme, and Africa was this year's theme.

For African literature to progress, there must be a systematic promotion of the right authors within Africa itself as well at all the universities in the West, where they have a lecturer or two from Africa.

At the moment, it seems to me, that African literature is a little thin on the ground outside of a few very flourishing literatures, such as those of South Africa in various languages, plus those of Nigeria and Kenya. And several French-speaking countries (Togo, Cameroon, Congo), and where Portuguese is spoken. It does strike you that the colonialist languages English, French and Portuguese have been the link between the Gothenburg Book Fair and the various writers of Africa. The local languages do not seem to have been a major factor at Gothenburg.

Writers living permanently in America can help draw the attention of the West to those writers still living in the country itself. But the very fact they have moved to a better job and a quieter, sometimes safer, life in the West means that there are fewer people staying behind to nurture the literature back home in Africa.

Kenya seems to have a dynamic literary movement centred around the magazine Kwani. These writers include Wambui Mwangi, Binyavanga Wainaina, Shailja Patel and Billy Kahora. These four are committed writers, and the Gothenburg programme speaks of confiscation, limited publishing opportunities, oppression of women, and so on. Kenya is no paradise for writers, from what you read. I'm sure it's no coincidence that Ngugi wa Thiong'o has lived for so long in the USA. Little needs to be said about Zimbabwe and freedom of speech, let alone writing. But the author Petina Gappah was there.

Portuguese Africa was represented at Gothenburg by Mia Couto (Mozambique), Paulina Chiziane (Mozambique), Miguel Gullander (Swedish-Portuguese), and Ondjaki (Angola). While Nigeria also had several authors present including Tolu Ogunlesi, Biyi Bandele and Helon Habila.

There were writers from French-speaking Africa: Alain Mabanckou (Congo), Ousmane Diarra (Mali) and Fatou Ke?ta (C?te D'Ivoire).

From Sudan, not exactly the cradle of democracy in Africa, came Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein who describes the way women are treated in Sudan, e.g. forty lashes for wearing trousers, plus female circumcision.

South Africa was represented by Geraldine Whiskey Monama, Mpho Tutu, Kopano Matlwa, and Nadine Gordimer.

When you look closely at the biographies of the various African authors in the programme for the Gothenburg Book Fair, which I have now obtained, many of them indeed live abroad, e.g. Chris Abani (Nigeria / University of California), Chenjerai Hove (Zimbabwe / Miami), Edem Awumey (Togo / Qu?bec), Steeves Sassene (Cameroun / Stockholm), Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Somalia / USA).

Is this the beginning of an African literary Renaissance, or will all the good writers end up teaching American literature at American universities? Or simply writing justified polemics in more journalistic terms? Because fighting for your rights is often a little different to writing novels and poetry, where the style counts, although the two do overlap in the case of committed literature.

[Stiffelio]

The absence of Nadine Gordimer on The East African Magazine list is insulting. Not only is she a Nobel Prize recipient, but the doyenne of African literature is still very much active, both writing and helping to promote young African writers.

[Heteronym]

Eric, are you sure Paulina Chiziane represented Nigeria? I ask that because she's a Mozambican writer who writes in Portuguese

[Daniel del Real]

Is this list only representing African writers in English language? They are missing a lot of important African writers in Portuguese and French.
What about Mia Couto, Ondaki or Pepetela; Boubacar Boris Diop and Khorouma.

[peter_d]

Part of the problem might be that there is just no good way of distributing literature here in Kenya. I have yet to come across the first good bookshop in Nairobi. Here?s the average content of the booktores I have seen so far:

On your left hand you got the fiction section: 3 or 4 rows of 20 to 30 books with colorful shiny titles screaming at you. Authors: Danielle Steel, John Grisham, Dean Koontz, Tess Gerritsen, Stieg Larsson, miss twilight saga (forgot her name) and a few others. If you are lucky you might find the occasional Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul, or J.M. Coetzee.

In front of you, you will find one shelf with Africana: a lot of photobooks on lions and giraffes, Lonely Planets and other travel guides, and some non fiction about African Politics. Below that, there is a shelf with (auto)biographies of Barack Obama, Barack Obama and Barack Obama. Below that you will find a shelf of analysis about Barack Obama, mainly about how Kenyan he is. Below that there is a small section with a few African authors (finally): Achebe, Soyinka, Ngugi (only 2 titles) and apparently the most popular one Ben Okri.
Then you look at your right. 4 or 5 huge tables, covered with piles of books meters high, complemented with giant cabinets full of books: HOW TO GET RICH SIMPLY & QUICKLY? HELP YOURSELF TO HELP YOURSELF. TEN STEPS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM. THE PATH TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM. SEVEN STEPS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM. FINANCIAL FREEDOM AT ONCE. FINANCIAL FREEDOM WITHIN A YEAR. THE SELFMADE BILLIONAIRE. DISCOVER THE GENIUS WITHIN YOURSELF. CHANGE YOUR LIFE WITH THE SEVEN STEPS TO GENIUS and I could go on for a while.
Beyond that you might find a rather large section on religion. Mainly stuff written by American looking pastors. But those titles are sometimes mixed with the self help and getting rich stuff.

Ok, I might be slightly exaggerating. But it's really not much here. How can local writers be discovered if there is no stage for them to display their books? It seems that the best way to get the literature you are looking for is to go to the International Airport and make friends with the cabin crew of Indian Airways. They will get you the books from Delhi, for the price of a fastfood meal.

[Eric]

If we're going to put the boot in, as did Stiffelio in #31, when he suggested that maybe Nadine Gordimer could have been added, I also note that the Curse of Apartheid, affecting the mostly (but not all) White authors writing in Afrikaans, continues to hold sway.

Because of apartheid, as I have said in these threads many times before, Afrikaans literature is snubbed and ignored. It is, and I can read Afrikaans so I know, a perfectly sophisticated, European-style literature which has a lot more than merely a few token anti-apartheid authors such as Brink and Breytenbach. There are novels, poetry, short-stories, essays, plays. During the last few decades, especially in post-apartheid times, there has been something of a revival.

But there are bigots on this Earth who, when they were discriminated against, shouted very loudly and quite justifiably. But now they are themselves in the majority, and many more different sorts of Africans draw up literature lists, there is the same sort of ethnic discrimination of the Afrikaans language and culture. Very sad. Two wrongs don't make a right.

*

Yes, Heteronym, you are absolutely right. I was doing what I don't like doing - writing a list of names of authors I haven't read - but I thought that to list those who were in Gothenburg may trigger off responses from people who've read them. Anyway, Paulina Chiziane is from Mozambique and was billed as such in the catalogue. I put her one sentence too late and will edit the posting now. Another author I missed out was Miguel Gullander, billed as a Swedish-Portuguese writer. The talk was called "One language - many literatures. Portuguese in Africa".

But as I've said, these are all just names to me. I hope there are people here who have read several works by those whose names I have simply bunged down indiscriminately, so that we can get opinions about their works from people who have actually read them. Comments on them would serve as introductions for the rest of us by people with informed opinions.

[Amoxcalli]

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Somalia / USA).

Hirsi Ali is a political activist. As far as I know, she's never written any fiction. I've only ever heard of her columns, which were quite good, apparently (she wrote for a newspaper I didn't read).

[Eric]

I note Peter D's comments in #34 on Kenyan literature; he is in situ in Nairobi. Tomorrow I'm going to buy a copy of the Swedish literary magazine 10-tal, which has a theme issue on Kenyan literature, and no doubt a few stories and interviews. Then some of the Kenyan names mentioned in conjunction with the Gothenburg Book Fair will mean more to me. I hope there are no tips on getting rich in this theme issue... On the other hand, such information might be quite useful...

As for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, she is a non-fiction author, from a country in such meltdown that they probably don't have time for literature. Nor were her experiences in Holland particularly positive. They more or less accused her of being an illegal immigrant, or fiddling her immigration details, and then made her pay for her own protection for some time, when she was, like Salman Rushdie, under permanent threat from Islamic activists (aka would-be murderers). So maybe she's not writing postmodernist novels right now...

[Amorphous]

At the moment, it seems to me, that African literature is a little thin on the ground outside of a few very flourishing literatures, such as those of South Africa in various languages, plus those of Nigeria and Kenya. And several French-speaking countries (Togo, Cameroon, Congo), and where Portuguese is spoken. It does strike you that the colonialist languages English, French and Portuguese have been the link between the Gothenburg Book Fair and the various writers of Africa. The local languages do not seem to have been a major factor at Gothenburg.
As I understand it, literature is mainly written in the colonial languages. I am by no means an expert on the literatures of Africa, but it makes a lot of sense. In most countries on the continent there are a lot of different languages and inhabitants are frequently only at home with the language of their population group and the colonial language (and possibly Swahili in parts of eastern Africa). If they study more languages it is often other world languages and not the local ones.

Writers like Ngugi wa Thiong'o are more of an exception than the rule. However, even he started out writing in English and only later switched to Gikuyu. Furthermore, Gikuyu is the third biggest language in Kenya, after English and Swahili, spoken by about a fifth of the population. And there are more than 50 other languages spoken in Kenya. In short, writing in the local language can be quite limiting.


Writers living permanently in America can help draw the attention of the West to those writers still living in the country itself. But the very fact they have moved to a better job and a quieter, sometimes safer, life in the West means that there are fewer people staying behind to nurture the literature back home in Africa.

[...]

Is this the beginning of an African literary Renaissance, or will all the good writers end up teaching American literature at American universities? Or simply writing justified polemics in more journalistic terms? Because fighting for your rights is often a little different to writing novels and poetry, where the style counts, although the two do overlap in the case of committed literature.
As I see it, this is where the discussion on "African literature" really breaks down. As you noted there are several countries with solid literary traditions and, I would add, decent institutions of higher education. I see no real reason for such nations to have a literary life fundamentally different from other non-African countries that share these properties.

Others are not so fortunate and a lot - if not most - aspiring to higher education will pursue it abroad. Of those, a fair number will stay abroad for quite some time and higher education is not uncommon among decent writers. However, living abroad does not really cut you off from your home country and you are not reduced to just reporting what is happening there.

I, at least, think that writers like Alain Mabanckou can and will have impact on the literature of their countries to a further extent than just as reporters of it to the west.

[Eric]

Amorphous, I am certainly no expert and do not intend becoming one. I think you would have to devote a whole literary lifetime to all the countries of the African continent. Obviously, the colonial languages are the ones whereby writers will get a leg up into becoming known outside of their own country, which may be one where literally hundreds of languages and dialects are spoken. Even South Africa has eleven (!) official languages, now that the White apartheid generated domination of apartheid is over, when only English and Afrikaans counted.

But literatures have to be grown and nurtured in an atmosphere of economic stability, peace and education, as well as one of relative unity of language. Swahili, Gikuyu or English, it doesn't matter which, but it's got to be a language that is big and accepted enough for there to be universities where the language is taught, spoken, written, listened to, and read.

I have just translated a novel out of a European language, Estonian, that was looked down upon by the colonial powers for centuries, but is now the national language and an official language within the EU. And there are only one million speakers. But in Europe, the National Language & Culture Enlightenment came back in the 1850s. Africa is still at the stage where colonial languages hold sway.

Amorphous says:


As I see it, this is where the discussion on "African literature" really breaks down. As you noted there are several countries with solid literary traditions and, I would add, decent institutions of higher education. I see no real reason for such nations to have a literary life fundamentally different from other non-African countries that share these properties.
So let's hear some details. I gave a talk at a postcolonial conference in Leiden, Holland, about a decade ago. My talk was on the postcolonial literature of Estonia, and to my regret, they didn't include it in the post-conference volume. It was clearly too European. And no one at the conference wanted to recognise the Baltic countries as being in a postcolonial state relative to imperialist Russia. The focus was mainly on Africa.

But while I was there, I did buy an interesting book called The Novel and the Politics of Nation Building in East Africa by Tirop Peter Simatei:

http://www.breitinger.org/images/bass_55s.jpg (http://www.breitinger.org/images/bass_55b.jpg)

And this drew my attention to the Bayreuth African Studies. Simatei himself worked at the Department of Literature at Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya.

The existence of that Bayreuth series and institution was a revelation to me. It still exists:

Bayreuth African Studies (BASS) (http://www.breitinger.org/)

Institute of African Studies (http://www.ias.uni-bayreuth.de/en/index.html)

So in a city better known for opera and Wagner there is a flourishing department devoted to African Studies, including this series of books concentrating on African literature, started by the German Africanist Eckhard Breitinger. The series consists of 80 books.

*

I bought a Swedish literary magazine called 10-tal this afternoon. I have mentioned it earlier. It was a Kenya issue and was being well promoted. A whole small stand was full of copies. So maybe Ngugi is going to win the Nobel. I've only leafed throught it so far. And it has a no nonsense approach to Kenya itself, as Peter D here, who is in Nairobi, has had. I shall read it at leisure.

[Amorphous]

Definitely agree about the required lifetime!
For myself, I am going to remain a dilettant on the subject.

What I tried to say - admittedly not very clearly - is that the colonial languages are not necessarily used for literature in order to make it readable outside of country or continent borders. It is often the most expedient way to make it available to readers in the country. It just is not very practical to write in Burji or similar sized languages (my apologies to any authors feeling differently about that particular language) if you want to be read at all. As I understand it, this is a common problem at least in large parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.


A shame about your talk, though unfortunately I think that kind of reasoning is rather common. All too often comparisons are deemed worthless because one country or area is in Africa while another is not, and all too often comparisons are made for no other reason than that two countries or areas happen to both be in Africa.

As for literature, I think it enough to note that Egypt does not seem to have much in common with Equatorial Guinea and the conditions for literary life in Botswana seem very different from those in Burundi.


And I am looking forward to reading the latest 10-tal this weekend, as well.

[Eric]

(7th October 2010; 11:40 Swedish time)

Obviously, I don't yet know who's going to win the Nobel this year. But I rather hope it's Ngugi. Because that would put the spotlight on the plight of Kenya, not only the literature but the whole national and continental situation.

I too have no aspirations to go to become as knowledgeable about African literature as the people at Bayreuth who have written a wealth of books for anyone interested. But I did buy that Kenya theme issue of 10-tal a couple of days ago. And I thought it would be interesting to compare Peter D's brief comments in #34 with what Madeleine Grive, the editor of 10-tal found out when she went to Kenya in person.

First a quote from the 1986 introduction to "Decolonising the Mind - The politics of language in African literature" by Ngugi was Thiong'o.



The study of African realities has far too long been seen in terms of tribes. Whatever happens in Kenya, Uganda, Malawi is because of Tribe A versus Tribe B. Whatever erupts in Zaire, Nigeria, Liberia, Zambia is because of the traditional enmity between Tribe D and Tribe C. (...) Even the literature is evaluated in terms of the 'tribal' origins of the authors and the 'tribal' composition of the characters in a given novel or play.

Ngugi blames this all on neo-colonialism:


Imperialism is the rule of consolidated financial capital and since 1884 this monopolistic parasitic capital has affected and continues to affect the lives even of the peasants even in the remotest corners of our countries.

And so on. So basically, the plight of Africa is the fault of European imperialists who are ruining Africa.

This sort of argument was popular in the 1980s. But scroll forward to 2010. What do we read in 10-tal? We read that most of the authors are committed writers, struggling against the injustices of Kenya. But Kenya has been independent for decades now. Is European capitalism still wholly to blame for doing sneaky and injust deals with the developing countries? Is the desperate chaos that turns writers into propagandists for decency wholly to blame on the White bastards over in Europe? Of course not.

Has Kenya got rid of the tribal tensions? There were riots in 2008 where people were hacking at one another with machetes and similar knives. In the issue of 10-tal, Billy Kahora, the leading light in the Kwani? publication (the title evidently means "so what?") is still talking of "ethno-nationalism".

"The are many nations, some call them tribes within the nation we call Kenya and when they talk of different units and organise to commit violence against other people outside their "tribe" they can be called nothing other than nations. And as these are based on ethnicity I cannot find a better word to describe it than ethno-nationalism."
Hello, hello, haven't we heard about this problem before? In, for instance, Ngugi's 1986 book? Almost 25 years after Ngugi accused Westerners of focusing too much on tribal aspects, Billy Kahora is doing just that.

Will Kenyans never learn to put away tribal differences and form one nation? Because until they do, arms will get hacked off, as you can see graphically on page 39 of this issue of 10-tal.

It's no good pretending: even without the White colonial masters in their ridiculous shorts and pith helmets, Africa in general and Kenya in particular seems to be in a huge chaotic mess, where the only kind of literature that can appear is obviously part of the struggle for decency. But any author with the talents of Virginia Woolf or Wallace Stevens will move permanently to Europe or the USA.

[Eric]

Just because Ngugi didn't win, and because I have just bought that Kenyan theme issue, I thought I would continue to read Ngugi and what he said. But first, just out of interest, what do think of this text about national and continental liberation from an East European literary website:


It is often asked, why study European and Euro-American literature? What is the connection between European and Euro-American?

A) We have the same bio-geographic roots: the people of Euro-America are Europeans who, a few decades ago, were brutally uprooted from the European continent.

B) We have shared the same past of humiliation and exploitation under slavery, and colonialism: we have also shared the glorious past of struggle, and fight against the same force.

C) Equally important we have the same aspirations for the total liberation of all white people, in the world.

Apart from that, European peoples of the Diaspora have contributed much to America?s culture and political growth.

[Eric]

Please read the quote from my last posting (reproduced again below) carefully. I will reveal what the connection is to African literature, in due course. There is one. It is relevant to the debate about nationality, ethnicity, literary and political values, and so on.



It is often asked, why study European and Euro-American literature? What is the connection between European and Euro-American?

A) We have the same bio-geographic roots: the people of Euro-America are Europeans who, a few decades ago, were brutally uprooted from the European continent.

B) We have shared the same past of humiliation and exploitation under slavery, and colonialism: we have also shared the glorious past of struggle, and fight against the same force.

C) Equally important we have the same aspirations for the total liberation of all white people, in the world.

Apart from that, European peoples of the Diaspora have contributed much to America?s culture and political growth.

[waalkwriter]

I'd tread carefully Eric. It is one step, and not a very big one at that, from what you are saying to conclusions that the black races and Africans are simply inferior. I don't think you are being fair, nor are you acknowledging/understanding the effect of colonization, or cultural genocide and of self-internalized inferiority. You're not allowing for other external factors such as poverty, inexperience in leadership, relatively new political structures and nations, and the lack of many historical national cultures uniting many of these nations.

There problems are in many ways related to Europe, and the rest to the landscape itself and its history.

[Eric]

Of course it was a trick, Waalkwriter. You know me by now. I doctored a text written by an African about Africa and America, because I was especially interested in the the way that the concept "bio-geographic roots" was used, which indeed sounds like a Nazi propaganda mag.

So I changed the names of continents, and obviously the word "black" to "white" in point C), just to see what it would sound like.

My point is, when liberating nations or continents, or races, or genders, or people with specific sexual proclivities, you should not go to the other extreme. I cannot understand why it is OK to say that black races have common roots, while if you say the same thing about white races, this is regarded as shockingly racist.

The self-internalized inferiority of Africans cannot be allowed to go on for decades. The many now-independent nations of Africa must now elect honest leaders who will not become corrupt (like Mugabe did). As simple as that. When the text below was written, in the early 1980s, Africans were, for the most, under the colonial yoke, or had just escaped it by a few years. Now all African nations are free to manage their own destiny, despite obvious things such as debt to metropolitan countries, which can keep a stranglehold on their economies.

Here is the original text (who do you think wrote it?):



It is often asked, why study Caribbean and Afro-American literature? What is the connection between African and the West Indian and Afro-American?

A) We have the same bio-geographic roots: the people of the West Indies and Afro-America are Africans who, a few hundred years ago, were brutally uprooted from the African continent.

B) We have shared the same past of humiliation and exploitation under slavery, and colonialism: we have also shared the glorious past of struggle, and fight against the same force.

C) Equally important we have the same aspirations for the total liberation of all black people, in the world.

Apart from that, African peoples of the Diaspora have contributed much to America’s culture and political growth.

[Eric]

Still waiting for a reply from Waalkwriter about why it's OK for a black to talk about "bio-geographic roots" and all the other stuff about humiliation and slavery, when if a white uses such terminology they are regarded as a fascist.

The original quote is from Ngugi wa Thiong'o's book "Decolonising the Mind - The Politics of Language in African Literature" where he makes a good analysis of the status of small suppressed languages and colonialism, but has a na?ve belief that that very European theory Marxism is a cure for all ills. The book was written in the early 1980s, and I'd love to know Ngugi's current views on Marxism and Communism after working for so many years in the USA.

So, like that other excoriating critic of the West, Salman Rushdie, he certainly has a right to attack Western values (and won't be sent to a labour camp), but has to remember that it is Western values that have paid Ngugi's university lecturer's salary and given police protection to Rushdie.

[Mirabell]

Still waiting for a reply from Waalkwriter about why it's OK for a black to talk about "bio-geographic roots" and all the other stuff about humiliation and slavery, when if a white uses such terminology they are regarded as a fascist.

The original quote is from Ngugi wa Thiong'o's book "Decolonising the Mind - The Politics of Language in African Literature" where he makes a good analysis of the status of small suppressed languages and colonialism, but has a na?ve belief that that very European theory Marxism is a cure for all ills. The book was written in the early 1980s, and I'd love to know Ngugi's current views on Marxism and Communism after working for so many years in the USA.

So, like that other excoriating critic of the West, Salman Rushdie, he certainly has a right to attack Western values (and won't be sent to a labour camp), but has to remember that it is Western values that have paid Ngugi's university lecturer's salary and given police protection to Rushdie.


I won't try and debate your loony points, but "that very European theory Marxism" isn't as much Marxism in Ngũgĩ's theory as it Fanonism, on the evidence of the two books of essays by Ngũgĩ I read. I mentioned them in my review Ngugi wa Thiong’o: Weep not, Child shigekuni. (http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2010/10/09/ngugi-wa-thiongo-weep-not-child/) as well as the fact that Ngũgĩ's analysis of the Kenyan status quo and solutions to it were 'Marxist' before he was actually exposed to Marxism. There's a reason for the fact that Fanon's work, his brand of Marxism, resonated so well with young African novelists in the 1970s. Because the insights and solutions applied so well. Also, if you need a reason for why the two formulations are different, you might want to read the whole book you cite. It is expounded upon in both books I read so I would be surprised if it wasn't in your book. Next time, do more than quote-hunting and get back to us with all the nice things you learned.

[Eric]

That's all very elegant, Mirabell, and I know you like to get one up on me in a kind of competitive way. But Fanon was only an African by race, if we start using racial categories. He was in an unfortunate position that he didn't perhaps belong anywhere, and the glue binding him to his country of birth, with Algeria, with Vichy France and so on was that European colonialist language French. He was born in the French West Ind?es and died in Washington. I read some of his "Wretched of the Earth" back in about 1973-74, but don't unfortunately remember anything much.

I still find it a pity that people from the Americas read a European theorist and then try to apply their readings on the continent of Africa. Ngugi's book is very clever. But he seems to oscillate between his own findings on Africa, and an uncomfortably agit-prop way of presenting Marxism.

I shall read the parts of the book I've not yet read, because I have seen that Ngugi, like so few in either the English-speaking world or the former British colonies, does provide an analysis of the symbiosis of language and identity. I do, after all, translate from a language that has been suppressed and despised for centuries by different colonialist oppressors. So I understand a lot of Ngugi's arguments.

But I am getting rather impatient with Africa, as it shows no real sign of enjoying a literary renaissance - and that is because of huge illiteracy. Do the Black governments, now that they can't keep blaming everything on the European colonialists, have any strategy for reducing illiteracy? Because without literary, you cannot have literature. The anti-colonialist struggle has been won to a large extent in Africa.

Yet, I cannot see any emerging literary forces that are really nurtured in Africa and drift over to Europe and the USA. Just several token individuals. It would be sadly ironic if what we read over here in Europe remains written by the South African English-speakers, the Afrikaners (mostly white), plus a few token Black authors who in effect live in Europe or North America. That would show that Africa is continuing to fail as a continent, and that all the good people run away to countries where things are better organised.

My quote-hunting was to expose the illogicality of praising Black people and authors because of their ethnic origins, while berating Whites when they do the very same. If I started going on about the bio-geographic relations that Britons have to Germans, people would think I had joined the neo-Nazis. Yet when Ngugi does it, it's wonderful, because Blacks (whatever that means exactly) have been oppressed and been robbed of their languages. Black Power is OK. White Power is racist. And Whites have oppressed Whites, as we have seen all too clearly in Eastern & Central Europe during the fifty years of Russian colonialism.

Mirabell, have you looked at the Bayreuth website? Not for Wagner, but for those 80 books on African literature.

[Mirabell]

I still find it a pity that people from the Americas read a European theorist and then try to apply their readings on the continent of Africa..

Do specify who you are talking about, it seems , hey, could be my mistake, but the way I hear it, it seems to come from a place I can't politely mention here.
Point is, if you're talking about Ngũgĩ, you are incorrect, since he applied instinctively a Fanonist reading to his world without really having engaged with Fanonism yet. Go to his earliest stories and they all whisper the same thing.

And Fanon was born in the colonies and lived a great deal of his life there, he wrote in the colonies (though not exclusively) about the colonies (though not exclusively). this is not external by any stretch of the imagination, sorry. try again.


But I am getting rather impatient with Africa

You are right. How dare these "clever" black people not conform to your expectation, on your timetable, while you're still profiting from a still existing advanced form of imperialism. how dare they.

[Eric]

I bought a book today entitled Dreams, Miracles and Jazz - New Adventures in African Writing, edited by Helen Mabila and Kadija Sesay. This was occasioned by the fact that the Nigerian-born writer, now resident of Sierra Leone, Brian James, read half of his true story about liberation thugs, high on drugs and ready to commit atrocities, and how they actually treated him and his family. James is putting together a collection of stories, and if the quality of this one is anything to go by, it should be good.

The reading took place in the English Bookshop in Uppsala, Sweden, the city where James has been a guest for several months. At this event, part of the celebrations to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the English Bookshop in Uppsala, the Bangladeshi poet Anisur Rahman, also a guest of the city, read several of his poems in English translation.

I've not yet had a chance to get a good look at the Dreams, Miracles anthology, but was published by Picador Africa (located in South Africa) in 2008. It contains 28 stories, written in English, from all over Africa, though most often from Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, or South Africa.

[peter_d]

That sounds very interesting Eric. Not surprisingly, there's nowhere I can find this book here in Nairobi. Please update me when you have read some of the stories. If you think it's good, I think I´ll order it online. (Notice how much I trust your judgement)... ;)

[Eric]

Read about a second-hand bookshop in Johannesburg:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/andrewharding/2011/02/i_know_where_all_of.html

[destined2b]

I'm more familiar with the Portuguese-language African literature.The Angolan writer Jos? Eduardo Agualusa is an African American Author (http://www.thewellfedblackwriter.com) who has written a book I've enjoyed a lot: The Book of Chameleons. It won the 2007 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. It's a funny little book, narrated by a chameleon, about a man who invents and sells new pasts for people who want to disappear.

I'd also recommend Mozambican author Mia Couto, who has an extensive ouevre ranging from poetry to short-fiction to novels. His writing is quite unique in that he constantly creates new words. I've always wanted to know how his translators negotiate that problem.

The premise is great, and it would be interesting to read a book told from a different point of view. Would you happen to know if it is available in English?

[mesnalty]

The premise is great, and it would be interesting to read a book told from a different point of view. Would you happen to know if it is available in English?

I read it in English last year, so yes.