The Ordeal of the African Writer.

The Ordeal of the African Writer by Charles R. Larson Zed Books Ltd., distributed by Palgrave, New York, 2001. viii + 168pp. $55.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

The now-familiar claim made by Amadou Hampate Ba, that "in Africa, when an old person dies, it is the same thing as a library burning," rejoins in many ways the central concerns of this book. Indeed, the very "ordeal" of the African writer was announced by the transition to what Wole Soyinka described as "talking with paper" (p. 29) as a result of the unfortunate legacy of colonial and imperial violence.

Larson explores a range of subjects relating to the world of publishing African writers: the socioeconomic (literacy, choice of language, distribution, publication) and sociopolitical circumstances of literary production ranging from governmental interference during the early years of nation-building politics to the more pernicious and disquieting mechanisms of extrajudicial recriminations that have characterized the postcolonial landscape. A useful component of this book emerges from the responses Larson solicited from a significant number of writers and publishers to questionnaires he prepared on these very questions. Inevitably, then, this discussion also touches upon one of the pressing issues in African literature today, namely the visibility of its authors in courses offered in American and European colleges and universities. While Larson concedes that there has been some breakthrough, he signals that "obstacles have hardly changed in the last half century, which is only to say that becoming a writer in Africa involves overcoming challenges and negotiating pitfalls rarely encountered by writers in the West" (p. vii).

The first chapter focuses on the Nigerian author Amos Tutuola, and it serves as a point of entry to the book's broader concerns. The controversy surrounding Tutuola's work is crucial to an understanding of African literary historiography given that his writings emerged as a site at which the demands and exigencies of the local were to be juxtaposed with outside reception in the global market--for in the transition from the oral to the written, questions pertaining to authenticity, constituency, and legitimacy were immediately raised. The chapter on Tutuola navigates between biographical information and textual analysis, but the chapter's central concern is with Tutuola's status as an early commentator on African culture, and therefore the tenuous links between the "internal and external" (p. 10) cultural and political forces. To this end, Larson's privileging of Tutuola in this book coincides with renewed interest in an earlier generation of African writers.

Larson documents early signs of print culture available in small-scale printings of what came to be known as Onitsha Market Literature as a response to increasingly literate audiences. The chapter then offers a brief survey of the complex and complicated question of language for African literature. A cursory overview of the central debates allows Larson to argue that "there is a crying need for African literature written in the indigenous languages, in virtually every country across the continent" (p. 39), yet he undermines his position later as he articulates a less forceful position: "The legacy of colonialism cannot be obliterated by a reversion to African languages" (p. 43) and "The choice of language is one of expediency, or pragmatism, but above all it reflects the writer's desire to reach the largest possible audience" (p. 44). Part of the "ordeal of the African writer" results precisely from the linguistic challenges raised by colonial contact as many writers confront the fact that they often have no choice as to which language they write in. Furthermore, as we witness the dismantling of colonial territorial boundaries and the emergence of micronationalisms in Africa and elsewhere in the world, local languages have become all the more important in the face of global English and the hegemonic potential of francophonie.

For those African authors who actually make it into the global marketplace, complex and corrupt "accounting procedures" (p. 22) generally await them at the hands of publishers in the former colonial centers of London and Paris. The novelty of Larson's focus is to avoid the pitfalls of an overly localized exploration of the problem, a move that would result in a reductive and generalizing model implying that Africa was some kind of undifferentiated space. Rather, Larson is careful to adopt a supranational perspective that is respectful of linguistic differences and therefore more inclusive in nature. This allows for a better understanding of the diverse range of issues with which African writers such as Cyprius Ekwensi (Nigeria), Veronique Tadjo (Ivory Coast), Walter Sisulu (Zimbabwe / South Africa), and Yvonne Vera (Zimbabwe) are confronted.

In chapter 4, Larson considers African book markets, from book fairs to special series produced by certain publishers, and highlights the manner in which weak African economies invariably produce weak consumer forces in the book industry. Here Kenya serves as a case study, but parallel findings would be evidenced in most areas of Africa where censorship and other forms of state intervention in the cultural domain have yielded oppressive environments for those engaged in the production of culture. This penultimate chapter paves the way nicely for a discussion of postcolonial atrocities, most notably the hanging of Nigerian writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995. Indeed, as Larson points out, the indissociability of African writing from active political commitment accounts for the dissident status of so many writers, as the competing governmental elite have chosen to silence dissenting voices through recourse to the most violent mechanisms. In turn, the oppressive circumstances of postcoloniality have generated particularly troublesome narratives in which, somewhat paradoxically, fiction has become the only device left with which to document these dehumanizing spaces.

The "ordeal of the African writer" is of genuine concern. Many writers have been forced into exile, and while these writers continue to denounce morally bankrupt regimes in their home countries and subject them to the scrutiny of outsiders, they often remain relatively unknown domestically. Furthermore, as Larson shows, "many African writers ... cut off from their roots, have experienced a diminishing of their productivity" (p. 145). Naturally, this predicament also reproduces the very coordinates with which Larson began his book in terms of the debate concerning Tutuola's legitimacy and authenticity as commentator.

After conducting such focused research on the question of publishing African literature, Larson devotes his conclusion to the provision of a kind of blueprint with which to remedy the problem. In turn, he acknowledges that the "crisis in African writing is genuine," but displaces the responsibility onto the readers for our collective "lack of resolution in dealing with it" (p. 155). This is a challenge to us, one that contains the possibility for renewed dialogue and productive exchange.

While African writers are faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges, to foreground book publication as the primary indicator of cultural well-being would be to profoundly misunderstand African contributions to the arts in general. Indeed, there are multiple examples of dynamic cultural production if one considers the work of journalists, cartoonists, musicians, visual and performance artists, and so on. These contain the tremendous potentialities and promises of transnational dialogue with diasporic communities, factors that are all the more encouraging given that after Wole Soyinka, Naguib Mahfouz, and Nadine Gordimer, a fourth Nobel laureate from Africa has been added to this distinguished list in the South African writer J. M. Coetzee. When one considers the burgeoning number of formidable African writers achieving global recognition, such as Assia Djebar, Emmanuel Dongala, Nurredin Farah, Ahmadou Kourouma, Thierno Monenembo, Ben Okri, and Abdourahman Waberi, the continent is perhaps no longer being silenced so much as it is insufficiently heard.