literature
Item set
- Title
- literature
- Description
- A collection of news items related to literature.
Items
-
Second Crop A. Moore reviews "African Writing Today," an anthology edited by Ezekiel Mphahlele. Excerpt: "In a field where the number of anthologies threatens to outstrip the output of original work, where the same stories and poems tend to crop up again and again, and where collection of texts is too often offered as a substitute for critical evaluation, the appearance of a new anthology seems to present a suitable occasion for demanding the purpose of it all... At the other end of Africa, Ama Ata Aidoo of Ghana discovers her [compassion] by feeling for the thread of their speech as it strives to catch hold of meaning in a dark stream of events..." -
One man's map It is becoming unusual for reference books to be content simply to dispense information: often nowadays they are also intended to stimulate. Harry Blamires, in his introduction to A Guide to Twentieth Century Literature in English, discloses that he and his two fellow compilers have been free with their opinions, in the belief, it seems, that an unopinionated guide might put readers to sleep. Yet a book like this, encyclopedic in form, is more likely to be consulted than read, and it might be felt that utility rather than readability ought to have been teh primary concern...As the survey approaches the present, its drawing o the literary map--at least of the British one--becomes very crude indeed. A. N. Wilson is in, but not William Boyd, Malcom Bradmury is there but not David Lodge... Is Okot p'Bitek Uganda's sole literary contender? The editor has attempted the impossible with too little assistance and, struggling to be both authoritative and diverting, has ended up with a book which will satisfy few readers. -
Mr Okot p'bitek: Poet and commentator on African culture [Excerpt, Obituary] "Mr Okot p'Bitek, Uganda's best known poet and a trenchant commentator upon contemporary culture in Africa, died on July 19. He was born in 1931 at Gulu in Acholiland Uganda, the son of a teacher...As a result his first major English language work, Song of Lawino (1966) blended modern satirical ironies into a verse form approximating to traditional Acholi poetry, a technique achieved by the author translating his own work into English from its vernacular. The related Song of Ocol, followed in 1970, with Song of Prisoner and Song of Malaya jointly winning the 1972 Kenyatta Prize for Literature. Okot's commitment to Acholi poetry and music is partly explained in the Horn of My Love (1974), a miscellany of poems in two languages with accompanying commentary..." -
Literature: Critics in each other's bad books Alastair Niven reviews the growth of African literature in recent years [excerpt]: "More than 10 years ago Eldred Jones, a leading critic of African literature, compared the flowering of creative writing then evident in Africa to the brilliant burst of imaginative energy in English literature between 1590 and 1610... Even works which seem to honour African history with some straightforwardness, like Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1958), have hinted at interior weaknesses in the local personality which have been forewarnings of dissensions to come in the heyday of colonialism and of corruptions after independence... Ten years ago people argued whether Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter could be considered an African novel. Now they battle over the aesthetic criteria for evaluating literature which does not need to look to Europe for its legitimacy. Elizabethan England was ride with critical disputes and pamphleteering wars. The literature of Africa will not suffer if the same happens here." -
Literature as Symptom [Excerpt]: "It is not only the Russians whose literature, as last week's front-page article argued, is liable to be dissected for its bearing on social and political conditions. To a certain extent this happens anywhere--the Russians themselves, for instance, often do the same thing for that of capitalist countries, sometimes with very misleading results--and it is a useful enough pastieme so long as it is not allowed to determine aesthetic judgments...Even then, if white writers are excluded from consideration, as they tacitly were throughout the conference, the basis for any kind of critical generalization is still slight. Perhaps that is why both Mr. Donatus Nwoga's paper on the short story and Mr. Mphahlele's own on the novel consisted largely of lengthy quotations from a handful of writers. Even Mr. Ulli Beier, of Ibadan, who is the outstanding critic in this field, confined himself virutally to the writings of the Nigerians Christopher Okigbo and J. P. Clark and the South African poet Dennis Brutus, saying that he had not seen more than six or seven poems by such other promising writers as Wole Soyinka and Gabriel Okara. We are certainly far from being able to speak of African literature as a whole..." -
Literary impact on world scene [Excerpt]: "Nigerian literature, as known abroad, has found itself in the forefront of African literature in English. This is partly a result of sheer volume, in that Nigeria with its huge population has more internationally known writers than any other country in independent Africa. It is partly a result of being early in the field, and in many parts of the world African writing was first discovered in the books of Chinua Achebe and Cyprian Ekwensi... Wole Soyinka, novelist and playwright, has published work in Yoruba and in English. Achebe has never felt able to write creatively in Ibo and has written in English. A further point to note about the Ibo group of writers is that although their ethnic origins are Ibo, their experience was often national and before the political crisis so was much of their writing..." -
In brief [Full Text]: "An international symposium held in Lagos last month addressed the theme of African Literature before and after the 1986 Nobel Prize, which was won by Wole Soyinka; it was meant to celebrate Europe's recognition of that strand of African literature which is written in European languages. Significantly, not one griot or towncrier from the oral tradition had been invited; not one representative of African literatures in African langauges participated. Many participants criticized the Eurocentrism of the Nobel theme. While Gabriel Okara (a Nigerian novelist and poet of the generation which began to publish at the time of independence in the early 1960s) saw the Nobel award as a 'recognition of African literature in the global context'. Zulu Sofola, a Nigerian playwright of the next generation, viewed it with reservations: 'If the award was given to Soyinka as a ticket to enable us to enter into the club of Western writers, then it is not useful to us.' A third interpretation was offered by William Conton, a novelist from Sierra Leone, who thought of it as 'a recognition of an African writer, who writes according to the concept of literary excellence of a group of Europeans.' In his address to the Conference, the Nigerian president, Ibrahim Babangida, stressed the need to preserve African literature in native language as the use of foreign languages tends, he said, to obscure the character of these works. G. G. Darah of Nigeria, citing the example of his researches into the oral literature of the Urhobo, declared that the corpus of the African spoken tradition is vaster than that of Europhone literature, and that its preoccupations are more relevant to the majority of Africans today; the Nigerian poet and polemicist, Chinweizu, argued that the Nobel was irrelevant to African culture: Europhone African literature--barely a century old--should take second place to Afrophone African literature, which is at least 5,000 years old. Eurocentrics attempted to curb the tide of Afrocentrism with vague pleas for cultural 'universalism'; or with claims that a return of the sources of African civilization would be 'naive romanticism' but at the end of the five-day conerence it was clear that the indigenous agenda had won. A resolution honouring Cheikh Anta Diop, whose studies in Egyptology recovered for African heritage the achievements of the Egypt of the pharoahs, was moved from the floor and added to the official communique." -
Full Analysis of the War Awaited [Excerpt]: "How far are the Nigerians writing about their own crisis and civil war? It is now over two years since the war ended, yet the published material by Nigerians themselves is still very sparse. This is understandable on severa grounds: first, although many were prepared during the war to join the propaganda effort on both sides, in the post-war mood of reconciliation there has been a natural desire to bury the past... But I cannot conclude without nothing the impact of the war on creative writing. Nigeria's writers, not initially very obviously politically committed, became caught up in the turbulence of events. For example, the poet Christopher Okigbo joined the Biafran army and was killed: the dramatist Wole Soyinka, who had earlier been deeply affected by the political crisis, was detained in a federal jail for much of the war..." -
Chinua Achebe "Chinua Achebe, Nigerian, b. 1930, writer." -
At the crossroads of cultures [Excerpt]: Nadine Gorimer reviews Chinua Achebe's collection of essays Morning Yet on Creation Day. "Named by Christianized parents after Queen Victoria's beloved; master of the colonial master's tongue, splendidly appropriating it to interpret his country's and people's past; bold user of freedom won by Africa against white domination; Albert Chinualumogu became Chinua Achebe is himself the definitive African experience... Alternatively, there are writers who regard the category "African writer" (with its concomitant, African critic?) as a patronizing relegation to literary provincialism. Achebe quotes Nigeria's finest poet, Christopher Okigbo: "There is no African literature. There is good writing and bad writing--that's all." ..." -
African fiction: a sense of urgency [Excerpt]: "One of NIgeria's most distinguished poets, Christopher Okigbo (sadly killed in action during the Biafran war) declared firmly: 'There is no African literature. There is good writing and bad writing--that's all.' It's an admirable statement, but not the whole story. His friend and fellow Ibo, the novelist Chinua Achebe, leaned perhaps too far the other way: 'It is clear to me that an Africna creative writer who tries to avoid the big social and political issues of contemporary Africa will end up being completely irrelevant.' ..." -
African Exports [Excerpt]: "Today the African novelist is established, not only in profusion among O and A level syllabuses within Africa but also in numerous English literature courses in the Western world... Complementing today's easy availability of the work of African authors (Heinemann's excellent 'African Writers Series' has nearly 150 titles to its credit), Evans Brothers have begun publishing a 'Modern African Writers' series... Each volume adopts a similar pattern, with a brief biographical introduction followed by a critical analysis resting on an exploration of the writer's major works. Thus the aim is fulfiled of telling us something about the present state of criticism in African literature as well as about the work of its principal exponents. 'Schools' are rigorously excluded. Short but useful bibliographies (including lists of critical works as well) and indexes (that for the Okigbo volume, compiled by Valerie Chandler, is a model of its kind) compete the books..."
