Items

• Writing in West Africa: A Chance to Adapt and to Experiment

  [Excerpt]: "Visitors to West Africa have often remarked that whereas in French territories Africans speak either immaculate French or none at all, in British West Africa many speak some form of broken or pidgin English. Mostly this is attributed to the fact that the French built far fewer schools than the British, but provided a thorough secondary education. At the same time it was their avowed policy to assimilate Africans to French culture. Since they claimed that West Africa was not really a colony but "France Outre-Mer", Africans were considered as underprivileged only as long as they did not have a French education... On the other hand Nigeria made a very late start. There was nothing at all before Mr. Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard, which was published in 1952. Even then it took years before literature in Nigeria got off the ground. But the past few years have seen a literary activity here that equals anything in French West Africa. There are at least four novelists of interest: Achebe, Ekwensi, Nzekwu and Babatunde Jones (the last unpublished); there are lively poets: Okara, Soyinka, Clark and Okigbo--the first two represented on the previous page. There are the playwrights: Soyinka, Clark, Yetunde Esan. The place is full of literary criticism and controversy; there are literary journals, clubs and associations." ...
• Uprooting the malignat fictions

  [Excerpt]: "The critical work represented in the selected essays of the South African novelist J. M. Coetzee and the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe is of a new and superior order, mobilizing the best creative and criticla energies of two writers as committed to their craft as they are to exposing what Achebe calls the 'monster of racist habit.' In both cases the critique of a 'white' culture (whether European, American, or South African)--its assu,ptions, blind spots, abuses of language, logic or humanity--is based on a scrupulous examination of evidence, as it emerges within early travel writing, anecdotes, or the work of individual authors who appear to be transmittig the 'truth' of a continent and its indigenous peoples, but are often perpetuating Western conceptual grids... [Achebe's] collection begins with his analysis of Conrad and ends with a tribute to James Baldwin. Along the way there are speeches on broad topics, such as 'The Truth of Fiction' and 'Thoughts on the African Novel,' a personal tribute to Christopher Okigbo, and passing reflections on the present needs of his own society..."
• These tarnished Olympics

  [Excerpt]: "If anyone does not believe the repercussions of apartheid stretch far and wide, they should be present at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, where it has tarnished the Games as they have never been before. One only had to see last week a departing team from Afria waiting with their baggage for transport to the airport...Everywhere was a feeling of sadness and futility... This was a seminar organised by the United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid and held in Havana, attended by 200 delegates including the crucial nucleus of leading African sports officials and SAN-ROC. It was at this stage that Dennis Brutus, the president of SAN-ROC, a professor of English in the African Studies Department at the Northwest University of Illinois, threw his own acknowledged ability and experience and that of SAN-ROC unequivocally behind the African protest. Brutus, an exiled coloured South African, who was imprisoned in South Africa as a result of his views on apartheid, was portrayed in oarts of the British and foreign Press last week as a somewhat sinister figure. Yet, it is he who turned to de Broglio in Havana to say: 'If they (the African countries) are prepared to go through all this--which is much more than we would ever ask--who are we to quarrel? We're with them.'"
• The Times Diary: Poetic Justice

  [Full text]: "The prosaic difficulties of a troubled world have complicated work on an international reference book on poets who write in English. With a preface by the Poet Laureate, C. Day Lewis, Contemporary Poets of the English Language is the first book on the subject for more than 10 years and the only one to include non-white poets from Asia and Africa: it will be published in October by The St. James Press of Chicago and London. Its American editor-in-chief, Mrs. Rosalie Murphy, says she ran into many problems. In Nigeria, the questionnaire sent to Wole Soyinka was not passed on to him in prison, where he has been for two years; while the entry on Christopher Okigbo had to be dropped after Mrs. Murphy had confirmed a report that he had been killed in the civil war. Then there were many black South African poets who have escaped from or otherwise left the country and still move from place to place: Bloke Modisane, believed to have left South Africa on foot in 1950, was traced to London. Minor racial complications occurred in this country, too. Most poets from Wales put down "Welsh" as their nationality, although some admitted to "Anglo-Welsh." Most Scots preferred "British," while some northern Irish put "British-Irish." In America, nearly all Negroes called themselves "Black," although LeRoi Jones added exotically "African-American-Ancient Egyptian."
• Mr Hain aims for Springboks' Achilles heel

  [Excerpt]: "SUPPORT has snowballed beyond our wildest dreams,' says Peter hain, 19-year-old chairman of the Stop the Seventy Tour Committee formed recently to co-ordinate opposition, to next year's visit to Britain of the South African cricket team but now in the thick of the furore over the current Springbok rugger tour... It was through Denis Brutus, black South African president of SANROC (the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee) that Hain met 22-year old Hugh Geach, a Reading University student in Soil Science who is now honorary secretary of STST. Brutus is one of the few activists now hounding the Springboks with first-hand knowledge of het grim realities of Apartheid..."
• Inside track

  [Full text]: "A REPORT from South Africa yesterday that a new non-white sports committee has been formed to work together with the existing white South African Olympic and National Games Association (SAONGA) towards the country's fight for re-entry to the Olympics, was received with surprise and disappointment by anti-apartheid leaders in Britain. Denis Brutus, president of the South African Non-racial Open Comittee for Olympic Sports (SANROC) characterised the move as a blow to black South Africans who want multi-racial sport. There are two black sports groups in South Africa--those who agree with SAONGA president Frank Braun's proposals for organised separate black and white sports activities; and those who will not negotiate on any basis other than multi-racial sport. 'I am afraid,' says Brutus, 'that this means that the first group have agreed to co-operate with Mr Braun on what amounts to an apartheid platform.' Indeed, two members of the black group seeking multi-racial sport have been interrogated by special branch officers, adds Brutus. SANROC are retaliating by lifting their own restrictions on protests against individual athletes and officials as opposed to white South African teams."
• In Two Nigerian Villages

  [Excerpt]: "Gabriel Okara's short first book, The Voice, is a morality tale rather than a novel and its characters have the flatness of symbols... Mr. Okara writes in a simple, folklore style ("Thus Okolo remembered the spoken words that form this policeman's mouth came out") and this proves an effective vehicle for his tale. He is dealing, gropingly, with a real problem for the educated African, who is not merely caught between the various forces of traditionand despotism which he describes but has been deprived by success of his most obvious political hope..."
• Boycott threat to Games

  [Full Text]: "A mass boycott of the British Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh next July has been threatened by the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa and the South African Non-Racial Committee for Olympic Sport if the South African cricket tour of England is not called off. The Supreme Council for Sport in Africa which includes 36 countries in its membership has cabled the British Government stating that African countries will withdraw from the Edinburgh games in protest at what they regard as racism in cricket. Mr. Denis Brutus, the chairman of Sanroc, said in London last night: "At a recent meeting of the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa which was held in Cairo our representatives had never seen such militancy expressed on the question of the visit of the South African cricketers. We in Sanroc are now proposing to cable all member countries of the Commonwealth Games Federation asking them to boycott the games. The latest development in the controversy over the cricket tour indicates to us that many very prominent people in Britain are giving their support to the M.C.C. We feel so strongly about this blatant racism that we regretfully have to fight back," he said. The chairman of the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa is Mr. Abraham Ordia, a member of the Nigerian National Olympic Committee and the secretary is Mr. Jean-Claude Ganga from Brazzaville. It was, at first, the Kenyan Minister for Sport who suggested that no sportsman from his country would run in Edinburgh against anyone who had competed in the all-white South African games last year. He has been given the full support of black Africa and it is felt that Asian and West Indian members of the Commonwealth will soon follow suit. Mr. Brutus said: "I hope that even at this late date it is not too late for a change of mind in Britain. But the most recent developments suggest the South Africans will still play here with far-reaching effects upon international sport."
• Apartheid and Sport: The Logic of Denis Howell's Approach

  "If the Minister for Sport, Mr. Denis Howell, has his way we will be deprived next year of the opportunity of seeing the South African cricket team in action. Choosing his words with care, Mr. Howell said in a television interview at the week-end: 'I personally don't think the South African team should come. I Have no time for sport based on racial considerations. Their sport certainly is, and the selection of their team certainly is." ...By this I mean far more than the cancellation of the New Zealand rugby tour in 1964, or the fiasco over the MCC tour last year. I could take the story back as far as 1956, when the International Table Tennis Federation excluded from membership the all-white official South African Table-Tennis Association in favour of an unofficial group whose rules allowed ping-pong across the colour line. But it is best to begin with 1962, when the "South African non-racial Open Committee for Olympic Sports"--Sanroc--was formed. This group worked originally inside the Republic but it has since exiled itself to London since its president, Denis Brutus, left his home country in 1966 after a 22-month term served mostly on Robben Island..."
• And Story

  [Excerpt]: "There is one story in Mr. Richard Rive's selection which stings the tongue with the real taste of experience. Ironically enough, in this selection of modern English prose from Africa, it is a story translated from the Portuguese. We are not told by whom... What differences can be discerned between teh handling of the language by native English speakers like Jack Cope and by writers approaching it from another culture, with another music in their ears, like Achebe and Kariara? What popular idoms or dialects of English exist in Africa, and have any of these writers been able to come to terms with them? ... Again, there is none of the experimental prose now appearing in west Africa in the work of writers like Ibrahim Tahir, Gabriel Okara, and Babatunde Jones. All these are incomparably more interesting and liberating than most of what is offered here, with its conventional plots and undistinguished writing..."
• Vorster answers prison criticisms

  "The IRC inspection was made by Dr. Georg Hoffman in May 1964.
• If Arthur Ashe were African. . .

  "Certain member countries have moved for the expulsion of the South African body as at present constituted but their efforts have failed because of the superior voting strengths of the national tennis federations that are prepared to defend the position."
• When only whites can play

  "There is to be complete separation between whites and non-whites."
• How readers reacted to Parkinson's article on the MCC Council

  "Question of sincerity"
• The big Red plot mystery

  "Mr Wilfred Wooller is a big noise in cricket."
• Inside track

  "A 13-Black nation boycott of the British Commonwealth Games, threatened by Africa's Supreme Council if the Springbok cricket tour goes ahead, has drawn a cool reaction from a sample of Commonwealth nations."
• Dissenters kept back

  "Opponents of the South African Government are no longer allowed to leave the country permanently if they want to, writes Benjamin Pogrund."
• Springbok stays the same colour

  "The man crunch, as far as non-whites are concerned is that they will not be able to represent their country as Sprinboks in any sport."
• Vorster puts up 'no exit' sign

  "Th South African Government can now stop political opponents from writes Benjamin Pogrund.
• Tennis Everyone?

  "It is not the first request of its kind, and in the past, it has always been refused."
• Diary

  "A researcher from the programme recently contacted the Nigerian-born writer, Ben Okri, to arrange an interview about his Booker shortlisted novel The Famished Road."