Items

• Voice of the poets

  "In Africa, the indigenous population have been most widely subject to these two langauges, Negritude for French-speaking Africans is a literary attitude which English-speaking Africans are apt to denigrate. But the problem of writing poetry is different for a Nigerian as opposed to a Canadian. He is aware of other languages and English may not be the language he was brought up to think in. The African Waring may still be writing in translation... [poetry excerpt] In this satirical piece young Frank Aid-Imoukhuede is so free in English he can write pigeon, know it, and have a go at western morality in a way wholly different from young David Elworthy having a go at upper-class afternoon tea in New Zealand. African poetry it seems to me must be (and is) fascinated by language... African poets like Wole Soyinka or Christopher Okigbo are entrancing and entranced by language. Either they write of people or ideas. There is no yearn for the exposition of landscape to bolster nationality. Their aim is to write like...how would this sentence go on?...Like T. S. Eliot? He may well stand for this sort of expatriate poetry."
• Praise poet in Paris

  Sheila Mason reviews a collection of poetry, translated by Melvin Dixon, of Leopold Sedar Senghor. Mason writes, "From Senegal's indpendence, in 1960, until 1980 when he relinquished the Presidency of his nation, Leopold Sedar Senghor dominated the West African political and cultural scene as Maecenas, political philosopher and literary theorist and, not least, as a practising poet. Since his elevation in retirement to the Academie Francaise in 1983 and his move to Paris, the turmoil of his continent's political fortunes have so dimmed this renown that reappraisals of his writing now seem overdue. Melvin Dixon's English rendition of the definitive body of his poetry will, it is to be hoped, encourage this process." Mason traces the history of the negritude movement and Senghor's involvement. She also criticizes some of the translation by Melvin Dixon, but ultimately praises the collection: "Thus, while inadvertent infelicities occasionally muffle the poetry's African voice, nevertheless Melvin Dixon achieves that rarest of feats in the translation of poetry: he recreates Leopold Senghor in our own tongue, exhibiting with unflagging good faith his universality as a poet of love, of nature, of war and, rarest of modern accomplishments, of praise.
• Leading source for Negro art

  [Excerpt]: "In 1974 Nigeria is to stage the second World Festival of Negro Arts. Announcing this officially in Lagos recently, Chief Enahoro, Federal Commissioner of Information and Labour, who is also to be the Comissioners for the festival said it would be 'the greatest concourse of black peoples from different continents and countries in the entire history of the blakc man.' ... Nigeria's literary talents have achieved a much greater pre-eminence, and are now widely appreciated, both inside and outside Africa. Two authors in particular, Soyinka and Achebe, have received special acclaim, and both were deeply disturbed by the recent conflict and became politically involved..."
• Haitian High Drama

  Moore writes, "Lamine Diakhate's poetry glows with good will and the right political sentiments; it is also something of a technical tour-de-force, for the writer has isolated the tendency of the language towards sonorous emptiness and caried it to the extremes... All the familiar properties of the negritude a la Senegal are here; the nostalgia of the exile, the Ancients with their gnomic wisdom, the long horizons, the rejection of life and the here-and-now in favour of the dim and distant. But the poet fails to handle them with the distinction or originality which alone could make the rehash excusable. A new vocabulary is in desperate need of the younger African poets now writing in French."
• Europe Looks Outwards--II: Keeping it Dark: "Negritude" in a Changing World

  In this article, Gerald Moore considers the history and creation of the negritude movement of black, French-speaking writers. He cites several African poets as instrumental to the development of the movement.
• PUBLISHING LOCALLY OR FROM LONDON

  [Excerpt]: "The Commonwealth Education Conference, held in Delhi in January of this year, was the first conference to be held at ministerial level where the provision of books was a main item on the agenda. It was clear throughout that the 'less developed' countries regarded the provision of books in the English language as of the utmost importance... More and more Africans are being appointed as local managers of these [publishing] houses, as for instance Chief Solaru (O.U.P.), Christopher Okigbo (Cambridge) or Chief Fagunwa (Heinemann), all established in Ibadan; also a new publishing house has recently been set up in Lagos... But there is also an increasing amount of high-quality creative writing in English--especially in West Africa, where British publishers have acquired some welcome new authors. Thus Heinemann (in their 'African Writers Series') publish the impressive Chinua Achebe; Cyprian Ekwensi is issued by Hutchinson; while Amos Tutuola is now an established name in Faber and Faber's list..."
• French Heritage

  "M. Senghor for one, talks and thinks like a French intellectual, which he is."