Ongoing Dialogues in African Literature...continued by Yakubu Saaka and Leonard Podis
Related Links: • Faculty Observations Home Page • Yakubu Saaka's Home Page • Leonard Podis' Home Page		1 | 2 | 3 So what is the idea behind this formidably titled work that we are planning? Our main idea is that many of the most important themes that emerge in African literature can be conceived of as dialogues. These dialogues include discussion about the identity of the literature itself: what are its qualities, who writes it, for whom, and for what purpose? Many scholars (including Oberlin alumnus Bernth Lindfors '59) have asserted that contemporary African literature may be said to begin in earnest with the writing of Chinua Achebe, whose Things Fall Apart (1958) was an attempt to remind Africans that their past was not "one long night of savagery" from which the European imperialists delivered them. Thus from its beginning, this literary tradition was already in dialogue with Western literary traditions. In particular, Achebe (who has said that, as a child, he identified with the white heroes of European novels about Africa), was incensed by the depiction of Africans in works such as Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. In "An Image of Africa," Achebe calls Conrad a "bloody racist" for portraying Africans as mindless savages who congregate menacingly in the bushes, waiting to cause trouble for the narrator, Marlow, and the other Europeans. These are Africans who are not fully human ("No, they were not inhuman" Marlow ventures), who have no admirable goals, aspirations, or highly organized social systems. Indeed, as Achebe notes, they are given no voice ("Catch ’im . . . eat 'im" is one of the few utterances spoken by a Congolese in the book). In Things Fall Apart, Achebe provided a window onto an African culture that was highly organized, fully supported by a well-developed system of morals, philosophies, and religious views, and populated with men who were every bit as concerned with making their way up the social ladder as was any Belgian businessman depicted in Heart of Darkness (and men who, like the Europeans, were also subject to human flaws: hence Achebe’s concern to avoid glamorizing the African past as a "Technicolor Idyll"). With the appearance of Things Fall Apart, the dialogues within the world of contemporary African literature multiply. For example, while Achebe quite reasonably took Conrad's famous novella to task for its questionable depiction of Africans, other writers, notably women, found fault with Achebe's own depiction of women. Thus, one of the first novels published by an African woman, Efuru, by Flora Nwapa, set out to correct Achebe's vision of an Ibo society in which women were mere appendages and role players in a world dominated by men. Efuru, a strong and remarkable woman, is at the center of the novel, which recounts her efforts to lead a productive and meaningful life in the face of hardships, illness, and the infidelities and misprisions of her male partners. As a woman whose "hands make money," she is far more engaged in the public sphere than are the women who occupy Things Fall Apart, who plait their hair, pound fufu for their husbands, and bear up stoically under the beatings administered to them. Throughout the book, we will identify and analyze a series of such conversations. The chapter titles speak to the range of the literary dialogues we will examine: Proverbs: "Palm Oil with which Words are Eaten" or "Nonsense Talk?"; Reflections of African Spirituality; The Dream of an Education, or, Be Careful What You Wish For; "A Debt May Get Moldy but It Never Decays:" The Motif of Debt and Repayment; Expatriatism: Idealists, Exiles and Refugees; The Distortion or Perversion of Cultural Traditions for Personal Reasons; and Neocolonialism: Capitalism, Exploitation, and Corruption. Now, with this ambitious outline before us, the question that haunts us, of course, is, how long will this project take to complete? With one of us threatening to retire in the very near future (unless, that is, our pension funds continue to be depleted by the weak economy), it is anyone's guess. However, in our more optimistic moments we believe that we can write large chunks of the book this coming summer when, rumor has it, we faculty members shall all be blissfully free to pursue our scholarship. Go to page: 1 | 2 | 3
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