A History of Twentieth-Century African Literatures.

Reviewed by Bemard Nganga Universite Marien Ngouabi 

In his introduction to this book, Oyekan Owomoyela defines modern African literatures as essentially a twentieth-century phenomenon. While he agrees on the continuity between traditional oral literature and modern literature, he underscores the differences between the two. He also stipulates that coverage is limited to sub-Saharan Africa, which is seen here as a cultural entity. Such is the background against which Owomoyela presents the thirteen essays of the volume, which focus on the historical dimension of the growth of African literature.

English-language fiction in West Africa is the concern of J. A. Peters in the first essay. The author mentions three waves of writers which extend from 1952 to 1965, from 1965 to 1972, and from 1976 to 1988. Among the themes developed, Peters cites colonialism and its conflict with traditional cultures, the opposition between tradition and modernity, disillusionment, and war. He concludes his essay with a survey of the critical activity that has been carried out so far.

A. A. Elder's essay on English-language fiction from East Africa falls into two main parts, one dealing with general subjects and the other with the production of individual countries. Elder first recalls the Conference of African Writers of English Expression (Kampala, 1962) and the East African Writers' Conference (Nairobi, 1971), two landmarks that served as catalysts for a number of young writers. She mentions the publishing opportunities then available: student journals such as Penpoint and literary journals such as Transition. Elder also sketches the most important themes dealt with: the Emergency period in the 1950s, traditional culture, tribalism, as well as the land issue and its implications.

In his essay on English-language fiction from South Africa, J. F. Povey deals with the short story and the novel written over the last forty years. About the novel he notes the difficulty in discriminating between factual and artistic truth and relates to this fact the dilemma writers of all races face when addressing the race issue which lends its uniqueness to South African literature. Povey, however, admits that attitudes toward the racial problem can only be contrasting between whites and blacks, since the former "remain to some degree outsiders in the struggle" (89).

T. Knipp starts his study of the English-language poetry by recalling that this genre has been practiced for more than 100 years. He then indicates that contemporary poets belong to two generations - the ironist one, with a predominance of Nigerian poets, and the disillusioned one. According to Knipp, their poetry derives its imagery from two basic myths: the historical myth in which Africa is depicted in pastoral images, and the psychological myth involving the Westernized African in a cyclical journey that takes him from his traditional village to the West and back to Africa. Knipp finally concentrates on the South African poets who belong to two generations whose appellations are self-explanatory: the Sharpeville and the Soweto generations.

J. N. Amankulor begins his analysis of English-language drama and theater by underscoring the two components of contemporary African theater: the indigenous component and the Western tradition. The latter dates back to the colonial days when government- and church-sponsored theaters were built with a view to presenting European civilization favorably. Amankulor notes that the achievement of independence coincided with the emergence of playwrights who declared themselves independent of the schools, churches, and even the BBC, which contributed much to the development of contemporary African theater. He contends that playwrights of the 1970s and the 1980s are more concerned with the sociopolitical problems of independent Africa.

Dealing with French-language fiction, S. Woodward traces its origin back to the publication of A. M. Diagne's Les trois volontes de Malic (1920). She distinguishes two periods - one from 1920 to 1953, the other one from 1953 to the present. After S. Anozie, she applies the term new realism to a number of novels that go beyond anti-colonialism and Negritude, such as Ouologuem's Le devoir de violence. Woodward rites anticolonialism and the affirmation of African identity as the main themes developed in the Francophone novel. She also addresses the problem of the publishing opportunities from the early days to the present. Woodward is optimistic about the future of the Francophone novel, a feeling which she justifies, curiously, by the success of Senghor's poetry.

French-language poetry is E. Makward's concern in the next essay, which the author starts by mentioning the Paris beginnings with the Legitime Defense and L'etudiant noir groups. Makward specifies that Negritude as an ideology and movement started with the first issue of Presence Africaine (1947) and Senghor's Anthologie de la nouvelle poesie negre et malgache (1948). Post-Negritude poetry is associated with Nouvelle somme de poesie du monde noir (1966), a volume of verse that brought together such different poets as D. Diop, E. Maunick, U. Tam'Si, and H. Lopes. To Makward, the future of Francophone poetry rests on the continuation of the Negritude themes and more attempts at borrowing from traditional African verbal forms.

A. Ricard's essay on French-language drama and theater opens with an historical survey. The first part stresses the determining role of the Ecole William Ponty. In the second part, Ricard indicates the three main genres this theater deals with: village drama, urban drama, and historical and political drama. The last part of Ricard's essay deals with the factors which have been favorable and negative to the development of this theater. Two of the negative aspects are lack of qualified professional actors and lack of confrontation between theory and practice. Ricard regrets that "the history of African theater in French has so far been the history of an artistic failure" (237).

R. G. Hamilton devotes his essay to the Portuguese-language literature to which Africanists have traditionally paid little attention. From a poetry of cultural revindication, Lusophone verse became a poetry of protest and combat with the emergence, notably in Cape Verde, of the antievasionist group, which addresses the chronic socioeconomic problems of the archipelago. To Hamilton, Lusophone fiction is unique insofar as it has been largely influenced by Portugal's neo-realism and Brazilian cultural and literary movements. As to the history of drama in Portuguese, he notes that social realist theater did not emerge before 1974. Hamilton observes that in the 1980s literary production developed against many adverse circumstances, which is one of the paradoxes of this literature, which, in Gerald Moser's words, was "the first written, the last discovered" (240).

The opening remark of R. Cancel's essay on African-language literatures bears on the considerable lack of scholarship concerning them. The different literatures Cancel discusses are those written in Yoruba, Xhosa, Somali, Swahili, and Bemba. One common feature of these African-language literatures, he says, is the confluence of the didactic oral tale and the colonial missionary criteria for publication. Cancel is greatly concerned with the attitudes of governments toward the question of the African languages. He has no doubt about the relevance of the literatures written in African languages and their role in Africa's future.

The next essay is the only one which is written by two critics, C. B. Davies and E. S. Fido, as if they set out to corroborate their own statement that "major volumes of criticism on African women writers by single authors tend to be by men, while women critics tend to produce collaborative efforts" (339). Most of the themes they discuss center on the notion of struggle which generates various kinds of conflicts at all levels - social, cultural, and political. As to the specific situation of the women writers, one wonders whether Davies and Fido are not being excessive in claiming special critical canons and special publishers for them.

O. Owomoyela addresses the vexed question of language in African literatures, which are unique in that they are written in foreign tongues. He aptly notes that African writers resort to a number of devices to give, as it were, an African flavor to their writing. The use of proverbs and the literal translation of African idioms into European languages are two such devices. The critic ends his essay on an optimistic note: Owomoyela points out that it is possible for African authors to write in African languages and to win international fame, as evidenced by Ngugi's experiments and N. Mahfouz's case.

In the closing essay, entitled "Publishing in Africa: The Crisis and the Challenge," H. M. Zell stresses the current "book famine in Africa" resulting from the unprecedented crisis that the continent faces. The challenge, he explains, lies in promoting African-language literatures and encouraging local publishers to publish books by and about Africans. One way of accepting this challenge, Zell says, is to support such self-help initiatives as the African Books Collective in order to meet the demand of all sorts of book buyers the world over. He reviews the history of literary publishing in Africa from Mbari Publications, established in Nigeria in 1961, to the founding of the Nouvelles Editions Africaines in 1972. Zell recalls that there were many literary magazines in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but most of them have been irregular or have disappeared. Some of the reasons for this are lack of editorial vision, inadequate marketing, and insufficient income. In this specific field, he contends that the South African situation, which is flourishing, is an exception.

A History of Twentieth-Century African Literatures is, on the whole, a well-written and well-organized book, which does not mean that it has no shortcomings. It is regrettable that book titles and even names are misspelled: A. Paton wrote Too Late the Phalarope, not Phalerope, and J. Cope's novel is The Dawn Comes Twice, not The Dawn Came Twice. The Zairean female poet Faik-Nzuji becomes Faik-Nzuju. Nationality adjectives are dealt with carelessly: Zairean is sometimes spelled Zairian, whereas Beninois is not translated into Beninese in a volume in which all the contributors have translated everything else. The index strikes this reader as selective: Faik-Nzuji, for instance, does not appear in it, and although Tutuola, Achebe, and Soyinka are mentioned on page 49, no reference to that page is to be seen in the index. Moreover, an unfortunate typographical error has led to an incomprehensible passage which reads: "A number of the women writing in Kenya seem, like woman Rebeka Njau (b. 1932) has had a distinguished career as headmistress of the Nairobi Girls School from 1964" (316). Meticulous care must be taken to reproduce a quotation exactly; therefore the authors who have quoted from Ruth Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa should have made sure that one of the kinds of poetry typically delivered or sung by women is "mocking verses," not "making verses" (313). Where historical events are concerned, one should not be approximate: There has never been such a gathering as the Kampala Conference on African Literature (149); actually it was styled, as Achebe puts it in Morning Yet On Creation Day, "A Conference of African Writers of English Expression." What is more, it took place in 1962, not 1964. This and the previous examples are but minor blemishes which may be found in almost any book of substantial length, and they do not impair the exceptional quality of this volume. In an altogether different register I noted that, throughout the book, the word black is capitalized, whereas white is not. This is all the more striking when the two words are placed side by side, as in the phrase "the white-Black divisions of Kenya" (93). Whether this is a way for the authors to show their sympathy for the black race or whether this practice corresponds to an ideological preoccupation, I do not know.

In conclusion, A History of Twentieth-Century African Literatures is an outstanding work of scholarship, and its publication is a milestone in the development of the study of African literatures in general. Reading this book will undoubtedly prove to be a very rewarding experience to specialists and non-specialists alike.