English as an acquired language for black Africans should have its literary quality contextualised, in order to best reflect the inherent cultural dynamics of the African life to the audience living outside of the African tradition. This suggestion is not in any way aimed at asserting that African English literature is not of great worth as with that of other nationalities. In fact the contrary is true, as demonstrated by many literary texts that emerged out of Africa.
There are often expectations that African English literature should be judged on the same scale as that of the Eurocentric English literary texts. This expectation, or more appropriately, a tradition of evaluation as it had become, is not only absurd but detrimental to the identity of the African life. It entrenches a tradition of subjugation and perpetuates the marginalisation of the African people and their expressions in the art of story telling.
As one has learned through historical texts, English was a foreign culture to black Africans on the level of language and culture, until they came into contact with the Europeans. Like with any other established cultures, English has many traditions and customs that go back many years, in the same way that the African culture has its own heritage. With the English history came a system of life that regulated the way the English organised their lives. And with that system, came standards and protocols with which people in that society abided by, thus the society’s progress could be evaluated on an established measure of merit. As with artistic disciplines, English literature was established too, to a set of principles and guidelines. As the English culture evolved like any learned tradition, newer ways of doing things emerged only to prompt people to react to the new changes. Thus the tradition of evaluating literary texts would also go through changes, especially when newer forms of expressions emerged. These new writings invariably affected how people approached literary texts, with some rejecting the new texts, while others embraced them. Africa and other parts of the world went through what may be similar changes to the English culture, even though the actual details around these changes were different due to differences in the fundamentals such as ideology, governance, heritage and so on.
As one reads literary texts, there seems to be no solid recognition of African English literature and its governing principle other than the customary Eurocentric English standards that were inherited from, or perhaps more fittingly, imposed on Africa during colonial times. The socio-economic circumstances of colonial times did not permit an establishment of a thriving African economic system with all its arts and culture arm to stand on its own and regulate its own activities. One would not dwell on the past by reflecting the extent in which this economic and human rights condition affected the African life to this day. Such atrocities are well documented in many sources. What is key to this discussion is the view that the Eurocentric English tradition had been imposed on the African English literature without careful regard of the long standing African culture found in everything that is African English literature. There may be an argument from other quarters as one indicated earlier, that English was a foreign language in Africa and that by adopting English, the African ought to abide by the standards that regulate the English language. But one would argue by saying that English, like many other languages, was born out of an environment that had its own tradition and ideologies. One may go as far back as the pre-speech era to illustrate this point, where human beings, in spite of being the most powerful and progressive species in the world, could only communicate through signs and sounds we may deem unintelligible today. And just like English developed into a powerhouse it is today, through the infusion of words from latin and other languages, it would only be fair for African English literature to have its own set standard of evaluation and criticism. How the African writes in the English language is different to how the English writes the language. There’s an inherent culture that cannot be separated from the language that the African uses when he or she tells stories of his or her people. Thus the two forms of literature above should be dealt with as separate entities at most times.
Simply put, there is little chance that the two forms of literature discussed here may resemble identical traditional elements, except in a case of an individual who is born and raised in the English environment. It can also happen in a situation whereby an individual studies an English cultural aspect or its whole over time, and then writes texts in the context of that cultural aspect. There are of course very interesting writers like Dambudzo Marechera, whose writings transcended cultural contexts in many ways. He displayed elements of many cultures in his narratives, a feature one may attribute to possible extensive reading habits.
Much like the African Christianity movement that grew to become an independent body with fixed rules and rituals in spite of being born from orthodox Christianity, African literature should be afforded it autonomy too. The trend to always compare African English literary texts to Eurocentric English ones should cease. One is not saying that these parallels should not drawn; they should simply not favour Eurocentric English texts over African English literary texts. There has to be instances where for example, Professor Njabulo S. Ndebele's masterpiece,
Fools and other Stories, serves as a benchmark to which Eurocentric English literary texts may be evaluated, so that the cultural dynamics of a people in command of a language are studied and appreciated in fitting contexts. African Christian-initiated churches gained popularity over the years largely due to the fusion of African values and traditions with Christianity as researchers have indicated. The observation and ultimate respect for traditional values and teaching may have well been the reason why even those people who were not decided on the concept of religion began to believe in the supernatural being.
The African English literature movement has over the years produced fine works, one such notable creation being Dr. Mongane Wally Serote’s
To Every Birth it’s Blood. There’s huge unlikelihood that any other author, especially a non-black one, would have written the story narrated by Dr. Serote in this important novel in as beautiful manner as Dr. Serote for a number of seasons. Firstly, Dr. Serote is an individual with a set of ideas about what constitutes story telling, apart from his extensive studies he’d pursued. He had a clear reason why he wrote his debut novel. Secondly, he's a black man who was very unfortunate to have lived during South Africa’s turbulent times of oppression. But unlike many of his contemporaries that were swallowed by despair, he channelled his creative energies in telling African stories through the literary vehicles. To this day, one finds it hard to note another novel similar in tone and style to Dr. Serote’s debut work, except for Professor Ndebele’s masterpiece;
Fools and other Stories. However, Professor Ndebele’s creation, even though it’s a collection of short stories, is something very intense yet so simple. Thus one would not even attempt to pit the two works against each other, because of their respective beauty and command.
Both these novels serve as a huge pool resource for South African township heritage that may be used in serious studies to help students dissect the many layers of the people that lived in and around the eighties. The language use alone, demonstrates how the characters in those books owned English and gave it that African identity, perhaps not in the same way as the Nigerian nationals gave birth to the variation of Pidgin English that is spoken in Nigeria. Such developments reflect the infusion of a language into an established culture, a development language preservers are not happy about for a number of reasons.
To illustrate this point with one example out of the many one may present, I would reproduce Professor Ndebele’s text from his story,
Uncle, below:
“I don’t see why brother Mandla keeps saying to Uncle: ‘Just hold it there for a while!’ because it’s not Uncle he has drawn there. I want to say so. I’m not sure. But I say it.”
The above excerpt comes from a boy protagonist of the aforementioned story. Here, those who are familiar with the African life would immediately see that the word,
“brother”, is used as a title that precedes a reference made to a name of someone older than the speaker. The boy refers to
Mandla as
brother Mandla in the same way that a Mosotho would say:
“Abuti Mandla”, or uMxhosa wold say:
“Ubhuti Mandla” and so on. To the Eurocentric English audience, the above use of the word
“brother” may carry different connotations. One of which may denote one's biological male sibling, while another meaning among others may denote solidarity like people in the civil rights movements usually referred to each other thus:
“brothers and sisters”. But Professor Ndebele’s use of this simple word in the context of this book carries an aesthetic about the English language that an African audience of someone well in tune with the African culture would appreciate.
Such aesthetics come from a fusion of English into African life by virtue that the story is being told in English. And like things that fuse, a new identity emerges, thus African literary texts need to be celebrated on a much bigger scale. And for once stop being made to play second fiddle to traditional Eurocentric English literature of Joseph Conrad and his contemporaries, who were very brilliant in the use of English.
One may go as far as bringing Letlapa Mphahlele’s
Child of this Soil into this discussion, but this may be unfair for a simple reason that Mphahlele’s book is considered to be non-fiction. But his impressive narratives would help illustrate the point one is making about the inherent culture in African English literary texts, which should not be overlooked, or worst, stripped off its significance due to being expected to level up to the Eurocentric English standards.
UNISA, one of the long distance mega universities in the world, has attempted to address a need to expose African English literary texts to a wide audience of its students through prescribing several fiction books authored by African writers. One concedes not being in the know of how long this intervention has been in place for, and how many other tertiary institutions have been doing it. What is crucial is that something is being done to address this phenomenon of under-celebrating the brilliance of African voices through literature.
African traditions are as important as any other nationalities’ and should be afforded such respect. Thus literary texts serve a crucial role in making our world a better place when they engage the reader to ponder and possibly try to change some parts of their lives or their communities through attitudes, behaviour and so on.
That is why one is also very appreciative of the great works of the so-called “new generation of writers” such as Phaswane Mpe, Sello Duiker (May their respective souls rest in peace) and Nic Mhlongo among others. Their story telling techniques, style and themes go a long way in bringing new challenges to the reader through their frankness and bravery. Duiker tackles homosexuality and homelessness beautifully in
The Quite Violence of Dreams and
Thirteen Cents, among other subjects; while Mpe highlights the ills of xenophobia, HIV/AIDS and so on in his refreshing creation,
Welcome to Our Hillbrow. Mhlongo on the other hand, through his
Dog eat Dog book, reflects the rawness of some form of life lead by a young student.
Like some commentators mused, it would be interesting to see the shape of literature that the post apartheid writers would form through their text. Perhaps they would also continue reflecting the stories of their communities as honest as possible, at the same time reflecting the change in language that has happened since the brilliant days of legendary writers, some of which are mentioned above. Africa should work hard in claiming its rightful place in the world and literature is but one of those powerful vehicles to help her through.
Deon-Simphiwe Skade
