Colonialism and nationalism are big words. So big that they may become meaningless abstractions. Through telling about his personal experiences with these overarching concepts, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o shows what possible meanings they can acquire. In the trilogy of memoirs he wrote – Dreams in a Time of War, In the House of the Interpreter and Birth of a Dream Weaver – Ngũgĩ charts the vicissitudes of life from his birth in 1938 in a peasant homestead in Limuru, Central Kenya to his admission to Leeds University in 1964.

The first book (2010) focuses on the childhood years of the author. The main ingredients are games and story-telling; Ngũgĩ’s siblings, the wives of his father and his mother’s decision to divorce; the tensions between colonial/missionary schools and local culture; and the start of the war for independence in Kenya in the 1950s.

In the House of the Interpreter (2012) tells about Ngũgĩ’s time at the prestigious Alliance High School as a teenager. In the meantime the war is a full-blown reality and the safety of the homestead is brutally destroyed as the village is razed to the ground, one his half-brothers killed, another brother fights in the forests, is then captured and detained, and his mother spends time in prison. Despite these troubling times, the young Ngũgĩ manages to pursue his education and is eventually admitted to Makerere University in Uganda.

This is where Birth of a Dream Weaver starts. Many young intellectuals from all over East Africa find themselves at Makerere in the early 1960s and already for this reason the book is an interesting read. The climate in which this important generation of African writers is formed is vividly described. We learn about Ngũgĩ’s first meetings with writers, like Peter Nazareth and Jonathan Kariara, and future politicians like Benjamin Mkapa (third President of Tanzania), and how he enters the realm of the important African literary magazines like Penpoint and Transition. Ngũgĩ receives an invitation for the famous First International Conference of Writers of English Expression in 1962, where he finds himself “among the big names of the time”: Ezekiel Mphahlele, Bloke Modisane, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Langston Hughes, etc. It is here that the debates take place that so much mark Ngũgĩ’s later career and his eventual choice to write in his native Gĩkũyũ.

Nobody is, of course, born a writer. Yet, already as a child in Dreams in a Time of War, Ngũgĩ’s love of performance and reading became apparent, and this has clearly not diminished in Birth of a Dream Weaver. The young James Ngugi, as he is then called, writes a play for the University interhall English competition, and thrills at the publication of his short story – The Fig Tree – in Penpoint in 1960. He describes how he takes a bus to Nairobi to personally deliver his first novel manuscript to the East African Literature Bureau, and the changes of its title from “Wrestling with God” to “The Black Messiah”, to be published in the end as The River Between. The first performance of his three-act play The Black Hermit is spelled out in rich detail, while in the meantime his second novel Weep not, Child is published. Although he does himself not quite understand why, he leaves his career as a journalist with Kenya’s largest newspaper The Daily Nation. He wants to weave dreams and be a writer.

All this is set against the background of friendly competition between the different Halls of Makerere University, the cockiness of the students shouting “Uncle!” at the Student Guild assemblies, not realizing they are referring to the French “Encore!” (154), and the encounters between students and staff at Makerere.

But this book would not be Ngũgĩ’s, if not politics played a major part in it. We learn about the differences in political history between Uganda and the settler colony of Kenya, and of the various resistance movements that confronted the colonial system. Of course, the so-called Mau Mau – “called by its rightful name, Land and Freedom Army” (ix) – receives ample attention, but as a Kenyan in Uganda Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o broadens the scope to include politics at a world level, discussing colonialism and racism in history.

For Ngũgĩ, politics is not a matter beyond himself and his activities; it directly impinges on him. Thus Birth of a dream weaver starts with the story of how Ngũgĩ’s prize-winning play ‘The Wound in the Heart” was refused to be performed at the Kampala National Theatre as in it it is suggested that a British officer had raped a woman during the war. “They have nothing against the play as a play, […] but they think a British officer could not do that!” (p. 4) is the explanation Ngũgĩ is offered. The author continues with narrating the Hola Massacre whereby eleven men were bludgeoned to death by British camp officers in 1959. People in Central Kenya know better than that ‘a British officer could not do that’. In the settler worldview, the lives of “the natives” are not worth mentioning, compared to animals at best.

Also in the dealings with the professors at Makerere University, race relations are a crucial factor. Some teachers indeed fulfil all the stereotypes of racist colonial attitudes, looking down on the students with patronizing condescension. Yet others prove inspiring for the young Ngũgĩ. Apart of the crucial role of his mother in pursuing his education, Ngũgĩ stresses the support of his fellow students and some of his teachers at Makerere University.

It is precisely the sense for personal detail that makes this memoir so fascinating. Instead of blanket terms and rigid categories, we get the atmosphere of the late colonial world in East Africa through daily experiences in the interactions between people. The memoir’s three broad themes – the inequalities and injustices of colonialism, the growth of a generation of African intellectuals, carrying the haunting memory of colonial violence as well as the hopes and fears for the future, and Ngũgĩ’s own start as a writer – are cleverly woven together in beautiful prose. Perhaps this will finally convince the jury to award Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Birth of a Dream Weaver. A Writer’s Awakening (London: Harvill Secker, Pinguin Vintage, 2016). 238 pp (notes + 20 photographs). The book was originally published by The New Press, September 2016.

Birth of a dreamweaver will be published in a Dutch translation in Fall 2017 under the title: De geboorte van een dromenwever (Amsterdam University Press)

References
– Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Dreams in a time of war: a childhood memoir (2010).
– Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, In the house of the interpreter (2012).

Inge Brinkman, African Languages and Cultures, Ghent University
Contact: Inge.Brinkman@UGent.be

This book review was published in: Africa Book Link, Fall 2017: Eastern Africa

Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun is better described as a memory, in spite of its status as a notable work of prose. The simple yet depth-imbuing prose of its narration notwithstanding, the text reverberates with recollections of people, places and pulses of events. Steven Rose’s statement that “(m)emories are our most enduring characteristics”[1] plays out so well in the narration of the aging of the female protagonist, Morayo da Silva, a retired English professor living in San Francisco. Crisscrossing Morayo’s memory lane and her present realities in this lucid prose, Sarah Ladipo Manyika proves that memory defines who we are more closely than any other single aspect of our personhood. Seldom however would one consider the barrage of memories that accompanies aging and existence on what is considered the fringe of death as one that is filled with humour, excitement, and optimism. The same way we don’t expect a mule to bring ice cream to the sun, improbable gusto and uncommon emotions drip from the pages of this thought provoking text.

Written from the first person’s point of view of several characters all connected to the protagonist of the narrative, it thrives on the inner workings of the minds of the characters; their dreams, their imaginations, their loves and hatreds as well as their remembering. This is actually more prominent in the life of our seventy-five year old protagonist who the story centres around. Morayo’s life reads like a testament of the human will’s ability to triumph over the dreariest of circumstances even in old age. Her story however thrives on her memory of places she has been, the people she has met, and the books she has read. One aspect of Morayo’s memory that is noteworthy is her memory of her home country Nigeria. Prominent in this regard is her constant reference to Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. The city of Lagos has become a prominent feature in several post-millennial Nigerian novels due to its imposing presence in these texts not just as setting but sometimes also as a character in such texts. Lagos has featured in texts like Chris Abani’s Graceland, Sefi Atta Everything Good Will Come, Teju Cole’s Everyday is for the Thief, Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon and recently in the crime fiction, Easy Motion Tourist authored by Leye Adenle. What however sets Manyika’s narrative apart from these other texts about Lagos is the beautiful way Lagos features as a contrasting memory to San Franscisco where Morayo lives. For instance, in the opening chapter of the text the protagonist tells us that “when I open the folds of cloth I’m delighted to find the smell of Lagos markets still buried in the cotton-diesel fumes, hot palm oil, burning firewood. The smell evokes the flamboyance craziness of the megacity that was once mine in between my husband’s diplomatic postings.” (p. 4) Morayo’s vivid recollections here contrast sharply with her total forgetfulness at other times.

Apart from her memories with which she struggles at times, Morayo appears anxious about becoming senile. Determined to live life to the fullest, she prepares for her seventy-fifth birthday with several anxieties. Chief among Morayo’s anxieties over aging is her impending driving test which she is not sure to pass due to her failing sight. Communing with books and literary characters like Mrs. Dalloway and Sir Galahad, Morayo reveals more about herself; her idiosyncrasies and her extreme love for literary texts. She seems to place her literary characters on the same pedestal as actual humans and a reader who is not familiar with the texts she refers to might be lost at some point. Dripping with literary allusions, Manyika’s text invites the reader to roam in the wilderness of her literary adventures: English, Caribbean and African literature converge in the memory of Morayo, our aging but elegant protagonist.

We also perceive this aging protagonist’s character through other characters’ who the author bequeaths the gift of voice to. They sometimes illuminate Morayo’s opinions by shedding more light on her convictions and other times, their opinions differ sharply from her own and in a subtle way draw attention to her wrong judgments. Morayo’s divorced husband, Sunshine her young friend, Savage the homeless young woman she meets on the street, and the husband of one of the people she met at the old people’s home where she is recovering from a hip injury after an unexpected fall, all provide alternative versions of Morayo’s reality through their opinion of her.

One thing that however lights this narrative is Morayo’s enthusiasm, her will to remain bright and optimistic in the face of the complex emotions of aging in an individualistic society. Making the most of every acquaintance in San Francisco, she manages to court and value her memories as she learns to let go of uncontrollable circumstances. Morayo’s time in the hospital after a fall, her lost books and her impending inability to drive; seem to challenge her natural optimism. But making the most of these challenges, and even making few more friends in the process, Morayo appears poised to embrace her old age gracefully.

Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun is a delicate dramatization of the complexity of aging; the difficulties, the wrong perceptions, the misunderstandings as well as the pleasures, the joys and the possibilities embedded in it. The protagonist’s life also appears to embrace Taye Selasi’s concept of “Afropolitanism” in her popular essay Bye-Bye, Babar or What Is an Afropolitan? (2005)[2] . Being an Afropolitan, Morayo appears as “a citizen of the world”, made prominent so by what Selasi describes as “New York jargon, African ethics, and academic successes”. Packed with positive cross-cultural relations or meetings (the mailman is Chinese, the shopkeeper is Palestinian, her friend Sunshine is Indian, the homeless woman is white), Morayo seems to be a citizen of a world where diversity is strength rather than weakness. Since the narrative is woven around the life of a seventy-five year old African woman, there appears to be an age-bequeathed grace and balance in the analysis of these things. I see this narrative as an eye opener for anyone who is curious about life after retirement for single African women living in the USA.

Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun by Sarah Ladipo Manyika, 2016, Abuja/London: Cassava Republic, ISBN: 978-1-911115-04-5, 118pp.

[1] Steven Rose. The Making of Memory. London: Bantam Books, 1993

[2] Quoted in Rebecca Fasselt’s ““I’m not Afropolitan — I’m of the Continent”: A conversation with Yewande Omotoso” in The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 2015, Vol. 50(2) 231 –246.

Elizabeth Olubukola Olaoye

Niq Mhlongo’s recent collection of eleven arresting stories, Affluenza, is his fourth offering published by Kwela Books. The celebrated author of Dog Eat Dog (2004), After Tears (2007), and Way Back Home (2013), Mhlongo is known for his gritty take on the various maladies plaguing post-apartheid society. This comes to the fore most prominently in the titular story of the collection, an intoxicating study of the pathology of aspirant wealth. Mhlongo painstakingly catalogues his characters’ sartorial choices, their alcoholic poisons as well as the types of motorcars they drive. Remarking on the excesses of “Joburg people”, Fana – the protagonist of the story “Affluenza” – notes with a healthy serving of scorn that “Almost every black person pretends to be rich while staying in a rented room” (p.138). Yet, this contempt for others’ improvident habits soon turns inwards as he remembers, “Didn’t he just pay for the ladies’ expensive drinks with his credit card when he already skipped two instalments on his car? Who was he to judge?” (p.138)

Throughout the collection Mhlongo provides us with a cross-section of contemporary (and up and coming) middle class black South Africa. It is a study in the foibles and challenges of the newly minted black bourgeoisie and, as such, many of the stories’ ensemble of characters find themselves hanging in the balance, uncertain and at risk –  thus representing members of an aspirant culture, who in having gained a little, are haunted by the possibility that they now have something to lose. Scams, theft, accidents, and brutality seem to follow in the footsteps of money – where both haves and have nots seem to suffer the consequences that arise from the precarious divisions driven by the acquisition of wealth. Mhlongo is a social commentator, providing a new, raw voice to speak in unapologetic terms about this prickly territory. He extends an unflinching authorial gaze and, in the process, considers various unlikeable characters who lie (“The Baby Shower”), conceal (“Catching the Sun”), adulterate, impregnate and betray (see “My Name is Peaches”) and who deny paternity as a means of soothing a fragile male ego (“Goliwood Drama”). In “The Baby Shower”, a father and husband recounts how his wife after repeated miscarriages, steals a relative’s infant and passes the child off as her own. Grotesque accidents whether by train, car or beast, a farm invasion (“The Warning Sign”) and a criminal trial litter the collection. It indicates a society under siege – where bodily risk and death lurk across every page. In “Passport and Dreadlocks” – a story that considers belonging, identity, and the hustle for a better life – the character, Two-Boy, is brutally relieved of his passport as well as his dreadlocks. For him, it is a fait accompli that “People steal anything nowadays here in Jozi” (p.145). It is also a world in which sex and death are intimately connected, whether through foolishness (with its intimation of HIV in “The Dark End of the Street”), or unbridled desires, seen most clearly in the ending of “Affluenza”, where the promise of nubile flesh leads to imminent threat to life.

However, the overriding weakness of the collection is the unnecessary inclusion of twists and revelations at the end of many respective narrative arcs that read as gimmicky at best, and tawdry at worst. This overreliance on tragedy and spectacle cheapened the affective power of what otherwise would be a refreshingly unvarnished portrayal of contemporary South African society. The quieter, more nuanced stories with a subtler (anti-)climax work far better on the level of content and form. The weakest stories by far are “The Gumboot Dancer” and “Betrayal in the Wilderness”, for slightly different reasons. The dialogue in the former is completely unconvincing, too practiced where talking heads argue over tolerance and homophobia; whereas, the latter story’s leopard attack on a European tourist feels too obvious as part of some forced ecopolitical commentary.

The most compelling story in the collection, “Four Blocks Away”, is also its most understated. This is where Mhlongo’s merit as a writer shines. The story concerns a gumboot dancer on a cultural exchange programme in the United States who visits Washington DC on the eve of Barack Obama’s inauguration. After a talk and performance at Howard University, the protagonist meets up with a female friend named Siri. A night of beer drinking and marijuana smoking leads to the promise of sex, but Siri adamant that our gumboot dancer purchases condoms first, thereby expresses the following refrain, “No glove, no love” (p.40). No condoms can be found in the lobby, but the dancer is directed to a pharmacy four blocks away. Nothing deters the protagonist from this potential conquest, who summarily embarks barefoot in a bathrobe down the street with an “erection that projected ahead of [him] like a stolen rhino horn” (p.41). Funny and clever, delicately inscribing America’s problematic race relations into the plotline, the story works as compelling satire of both North America and South African societies. The humorous incongruity of a barefoot, bath-robed South African trying to convince a pair of American cops who stop him for supposed public indecency (but really, because he is an unfamiliar black man) to allow him to buys a pack of condoms outside the local CVS pharmacy four blocks down the road from the Hilton Hotel where a young blonde awaits him is delightfully narrated. Yet, despite this levity, the story’s account of the man’s willful and indomitable desire to reach climax is thwarted at the end, ending in anticlimax. It is this lack of consummation, the void, the dashed hopes, and frustrated sexual desire which gives the story its strength. The gumboot dancer’s quest for condoms in the middle of the night in deep winter in a foreign country, with a run in with the police, has all come to naught. In some ways, this sans-embellished emptiness, an affective void, speaks more clearly and forcefully to the collection’s title, than many of the more sensationally violent and brutal stories that accompany it in this complex and diverse volume.

Mhlongo, Niq. Affluenza. Cape Town: Kwela Books, 2016, ISBN 9780795706967, 192pp.

Kirby Mania
This review was published in: Africa Book Link, Spring 2017

La Corne de l’Afrique, une région aussi diverse que distincte, reste jusqu’à présent sous-représentée dans les ouvrages scientifiques consacrés aux littératures africaines. Une contribution visant à explorer les multiples expressions littéraires issues des quatre États actuels qui constituent la Corne (à savoir l’Éthiopie, la Somalie, l’Érythrée et la Djibouti) et de la diaspora en Europe (principalement en Italie), et ceci dans un volume de grande ampleur thématique, est donc plus que bienvenue. Comme l’indique le sous-titre, ce livre nous présente des regards croisés. Il s’agit de regards extérieurs, provenant de propos des historiens, chercheurs, journalistes, mais aussi de regards venus de l’intérieur du métier littéraire, jetés par des écrivains situés aussi bien dans la Corne de l’Afrique qu’ailleurs. Ainsi, la notion de pluralité fonctionne comme pierre angulaire dans le développement des thèses différentes explorées dans ce vaste projet. Ne vous attendez donc pas à un survol introductoire qui effectue un trajet linéaire, traversant des périodes historiques successives et incluant d’une façon balancée tous les espaces culturels de la Corne. Il s’agit plutôt d’un florilège, composé des meilleures contributions scientifiques récentes, qui constituent ensemble une introduction élaborée qui comprend les multiples traditions littéraires de la Corne et de la diaspora d’une manière aussi polymorphe que l’apparence des littératures de la Corne elle-même.

Les auteurs de l’avant-propos, Olivier Favier et Anna Proto Pisani, soulignent avant tout leur perspective transnationale et multidisciplinaire en explorant les relations littéraires qu’entretiennent l’Europe et la Corne, et les États de la Corne entre eux. La migration transcontinentale comme phénomène actuel déclenché pour la plus grande partie dès l’époque coloniale, et par conséquent la notion de l’exil, fonctionnent ainsi à la fois comme lien géographique, culturel et historique. Un deuxième point de départ concerne la conceptualisation de l’auteur comme intermédiaire intellectuel qui diffuse les idées de sa communauté d’origine à travers des frontières aussi bien politiques que mentales. La prise de parole des auteurs, et surtout des écrivains femmes, est vu comme un engagement qui dépasse les soucis individuels, mais devient un militantisme au service des causes collectives. Cet ouvrage veut comprendre la transformation du discours littéraire qu’entreprennent des textes dans leur trajet de la Corne jusqu’à la diaspora dans toute son envergure. La structure du livre suit cette démarche.

Dans une première partie, Didier Morin, spécialiste des langues et littératures de la Corne, fournit une introduction historique. À cause de l’ampleur de cette entreprise, vu la grande diversité culturelle, thématique et typologique que manifestent les littératures de la Corne, ce chapitre semble devenir trop dense pour faciliter une lecture confortable par les non-initiés. Surtout les passages qui expliquent les technicités des traditions poétiques semblent parfois abstraits. Les explorations théoriques du dynamisme entre la scripturalité et l’oralité risquent de sauter du coq-à-l’âne. L’abondance de termes en orthographe phonétique et d’extraits non-traduits en anglais et en italien intensifie encore le degré de complexité. Tout de même, les éclaircissements profonds de la situation linguistique, de la configuration politique, des fonctions sociales de la poésie et des performances à travers le temps et de la genèse de « la Corne de l’Afrique » comme dénomination d’une catégorie culturelle bien définie restent indispensables pour soutenir les thèses élaborées dans les chapitres suivants. Surtout l’attention consacrée aux transpositions culturelles, religieuses et linguistiques, c’est-à-dire aux influences postérieures des traditions anciennes, permet d’apprécier plus profondément les voix exilées, porteuses de sentiments nostalgiques et schizophrènes selon Morin, comme l’on peut le signaler chez de célèbres exilés comme Nuruddin Farah, Ayaan Hirsi Ali ou Waris Dirie.

Les chapitres qui constituent la deuxième partie explorent ces « voix de la diaspora » en grand détail. William Souny commence par examiner d’une façon très claire l’essentialisme somalien de la « nation de poètes », une conception quasi mythique qu’on peut retracer jusqu’au fameux orientaliste Richard Burton. Souny identifie des expressions de soomaalinnimo (somalité) traversant des frontières nationales, de diverses modes de communication (y compris internet), des agendas politiques divergents et finalement la division entre les sexes. À titre d’illustration du raisonnement étendu d’une voix exilée, Madelena Gonzalez explore les différents niveaux narratologiques dans ce qu’elle appelle une « esthétique du doute » dans la trilogie Du sang au soleil de Nuruddin Farah. Élaborant sur les modèles théoriques établis par des chercheurs de signature postmoderniste et postcolonialiste, Gonzalez cherche à démontrer comment cette esthétique aliénante sert comme outil de résistance à l’autorité monolithique, élément si caractérisant des dictatures comme la Somalie de Siyaad Barre. Bernard Urbani, ensuite, nous présente sa lecture d’une autre trilogie, celle de l’écrivain djiboutien Abdourahman Ali Waberi. S’inscrivant dans une littérature-monde, l’œuvre de Waberi remet en question les vérités nationalistes et les identités plurielles par l’usage de références intertextuelles, de réflexions mystificatrices et de l’adoption de la langue de l’Autre, notamment le français. Ce nouvel espace littéraire qui révise la nation et la langue comme éléments définitoires est exploré dans un excellent essai par Daniele Comberiati, dans lequel il tente de trouver une place pour les concepts de maison, patrie et nation au sein de la littérature italienne postcoloniale. Comberiati complexifie des assertions courantes concernant la littérature italienne contemporaine en se reposant fortement sur les idées postcolonialistes de, entre autres, Homi Bhabha, et en soutenant une ré-conceptualisation de la littérature à base d’une taxonomie basée sur des contrastes générationnels. Les processus littéraires en cours dans cet espace postcolonial sont bien concrétisés grâce aux témoignages fournis par Simone Brioni dans un prochain chapitre. Sa contribution parle de trois œuvres artistiques dont deux documentaires auxquels Brioni lui-même a collaboré comme co-auteure.

Une grande partie, c’est-à-dire trois chapitres successifs, est consacrée à une discussion profonde du roman et de la performance Regina di fiori e di perle (Reine de fleurs et de perles) de l’écrivaine italo-éthiopienne Gabriella Ghermandi. Les deux premiers chapitres se penchent respectivement sur la version écrite du roman et sa transformation sur scène. Anna Proto Pisani et Paola Ranzini, les auteures correspondantes des deux études, présentent un exposé exhaustif et fortement plausible sur cet ouvrage intriguant de Ghermandi. Elles mettent vigoureusement en valeur la prolixité méthodologique propagée à travers le livre entier, ce qui reflète la continuité littéraire qui relie langue, culture et société. Un troisième chapitre présente des extraits du roman en traduction. Regina di fiori e di perle, l’histoire d’une fille ayant comme devoir la transmission du passé éthiopien en Italie à travers des histoires, sert comme parfaite illustration de la conceptualisation de la littérature que ce livre nous présente. Les tensions entre l’exil, la migration et la tradition y sont explorés dans un discours qui, dans ses préoccupations éthiques et esthétiques, allie la terre d’origine et le pays d’accueil, la tradition et la modernité, la narration écrite et orale… Les extraits tirés de l’œuvre de Ghermandi, et aussi du recueil de récits Fra-intendimenti de Kaha Mohamed Aden avec les multiples exemples entrelacés à travers les chapitres, enrichissent la rencontre du lecteur avec la complexité et la profondeur des textes littéraires.

La troisième partie du livre concerne les « regards européens » sur la Corne. Olivier Favier étudie l’image familière et stéréotypée de la Corne comme un enfer éternel à travers quatre écrivains-reporteurs européens qui, chacun de sa propre manière, ont dépeint ce coin de l’Afrique dans leur écriture. Une entreprise avec beaucoup de potentiel qui manque néanmoins d’esprit synthétisant cultivé dans les chapitres précédents. Le dernier chapitre reproduit le témoignage du journaliste Léonard Vincent sur le fait d’écrire sur l’Érythrée, un pays quasi totalitaire qui interdit toute entreprise journaliste libre. De cette raison, Vincent parle de « trafiquer dans l’inconnu ». Son regard, comme celui de Brioni, provient de l’intérieur du processus littéraire.

En tournant la dernière page, le lecteur a parcouru une grande partie de l’univers des littératures de la Corne. Tout l’éventail de genres pratiqués, de personnes impliquées et de traditions soutenues a été dévoilé dans une narration aussi hybride que la conceptualisation de l’objet d’étude. La remise en question des catégories préétablies qui définissent trop souvent nos idées préconçues sur la littérature en générale, et de la Corne de l’Afrique en particulier, reste sans doute le plus grand accomplissement de cette étude. Cependant, à certains moments, le livre comme entité unique risque de s’égarer dans cette configuration fluide. Certains chapitres contribuent peu aux thèses élaborées dans l’avant-propos. Ceci ne veut certainement pas dire qu’ils sont superflus. Il s’agit avant tout d’une sélection inévitablement arbitraire d’essais, de textes littéraires et de témoignages provenant du vaste champ littéraire de la Corne. Grâce à cette ampleur, Les littératures de la Corne de l’Afrique est un instrument convenable pour les dilettantes et étudiants désireux de découvrir les littératures peu connues de cette région. À condition peut-être que le lecteur soit prêt à adopter une perspective sur la littérature aussi hybride que celle exemplifiée ingénieusement par les auteurs.

Paola Ranzini (dir.), Les littératures de la Corne de l’Afrique. Regards croisés (Paris : Éditions Karthala 2016). ISBN 9782811114893 ; Disponible sur www.karthala.com ;
308 p.

Ewout Decoorne

Recent years have seen a renewed scholarly interest in utopian and/or dystopian literary writing more generally. With regard to postcolonial and, most specifically, African literature, Keith Booker was one of the first to comment on the fact that “while “[p]ostcolonial writers, actively engaged in the construction of cultural identities for their new societies, often include strong utopian elements in their work … actual experience in the postcolonial world has been anything but utopian” (1995: 58). As he argued, “[i]t thus may not be entirely surprising that recent postcolonial literature has taken a powerfully dystopian turn”. Likewise, Ralph Pordzik, observed an “unexpected new departure” (my translation) for dystopian fiction since the beginning of the 1990s (2002: 10). According to Booker, “[t]his phenomenon is particularly pro­nounced in African fiction” (1995: 58). In the same vein, Abiola Irele noted that “the postcolonial condition has determined a strong dystopian current” in 21st century African novels, the objective of which is “a new discourse of dissidence […] aimed at uncovering the pa­tho­­logies of gov­ern­­­ance that have con­tri­buted so massively to the tragic unfolding of the post­co­lo­nial con­di­tion in Africa” (2009: 10).

The volume co-edited by Clarissa Vierke and Katharina Greven addresses a trend in Swahili literature and, most specifically, Swahili novels since the 1990s, which are often referred to as “new” or “experimental novels” and many of which resonate with aspects of utopian and/or dystopian writing. Dunia Yao, the 2006 novel by Said Ahmed Mohamed evoked in the volume’s title, represents, as the editors say, an “important example of the trend”, being set in a constructed, distant future world and offering “views on nightmarish sceneries of devastation and chaos”. However, the specific focus on utopia/dystopia in Swahili fiction, as indicated by the title of the book, is not shared by all authors who have contributed to the volume. This may partly be explained by the fact that the volume is based on a colloquium (Bayreuth, 2012) in honour of Said Ahmed Mohamed, to whom the book is also dedicated. His work appears to be identified with both the new, experimental novels and the dystopian trend in recent Swahili fiction to such a degree that any topic related to his work more generally might have seemed to naturally fall within the range of the focus of the book. The editors of the volume recognise Said Ahmed Mohamed as  “the most versatile contemporary Swahili writer” (p. 20) who, under the name of Said Khamis, was Professor of Literatures in African Languages at the University of Bayreuth in Germany for many years.

The volume is divided in three parts, preceded by an introduction. In the introduction, the editors highlight the current dystopian trend in contemporary Swahili fiction and delineate the aims of the book. Most specifically, the volume is concerned with the aesthetic as well as the sociocritical dimension of the new, experimental Swahili novels.

The first part of the volume is entitled “A ‘new’ trend: perspectives of literary history” and comprises three chapters. Lutz Diegner’s focus is on the overall achievement of Said Ahmed Mohamed as a “committed writer”, an “opulent rhetorician” and a “valiant artist” (p. 32), which he discusses with close reference to all of this writer’s eight novels published at the time the colloquium was held. Mikhail D. Gromov is concerned with the new Swahili novel and its distinctive features more generally, which, according to him, include “the traits inherent to dystopia as a literary genre” (68). Most specifically, he examines the ways in which the new Swahili novel in Kenya intertextually relates to but also differs from its counterpart and predecessor in Tanzania as well as works in Swahili by earlier Kenyan writers. He argues that one of the distinct features of Kenyan Swahili novels is that they “seem to stress more the dystopian nature of present-day political reality, rather than to give a general philosophical overview and perspective of human existence” (p. 68). The chapter by Clarissa Vierke is the only one in this section which specifically and coherently relates to the overall topic of the volume. Against the backdrop of “nightmarish” representations of cityscapes in 21st-century African literature more generally (p. 75), she explores Said Ahmed Mohamed’s 2001 novel Babu Alipofufuka as an example of the employment of “the unhomely city” as a literary figuration in more recent Swahili dystopian literature. Tracing this figuration back to earlier Swahili texts she claims that “[b]oth dystopia as a narrative pattern as well as the ‘unhomely’ city are part of a Swahili intellectual history” (p. 88).

The second part presents “Readings of the novel beyond realism” and also comprises three chapters. Elena Bertoncini more generally discusses postmodern characteristics in Swahili fiction and drama “instead of discussing fictional dystopias” (p. 105), wanting to avoid overlaps with what either she or others have said elsewhere. She points out that the works she examines “employ a postmodernist approach to draw a nightmarish future of destruction for African societies” (p. 105) and notes that “utopia/dystopia and heterotopia” are among “the features associated with postmodernism”, which she exemplifies with regard to at least some of the texts she discusses (p. 107). Alena Rettová’s chapter is concerned with “departures from literary realism” in more recent Swahili fiction as well as their philosophical, ethical, political and economic implications (p. 113). While her discussion of mimesis on the one hand and magical realism on the other has a strong theoretical orientation relevant beyond the Swahili context, her analysis focuses, most specifically, on Said Ahmed Mohamed’s Baba Alipofufuka.

Peter Simatei, in turn, explicitly relates the association of Baba Alipofufuka with magical realism to what he calls the novel’s “utopian/dystopian impulses”. He argues that the novel “construct[s] a dystopia that Tanzania and other African countries have, or would become, as a result of unfettered globalisation”, and “imagines the utopic foundations of such a world” (p. 147).

The third part of the volume – the only whose title explicitly relates to the topic of utopia/utopia – is headed “Utopia as socially committed narrative” and comprises four chapters. Abdilatif Abdalla and Geoffrey Kitula King’ei, whose chapters are written in Swahili and for information on which I have had to rely on the editors’ introduction, both “concentrate on realist writing, to expand the view on the novel beyond the ‘new’ trend, offering a base for comparison but also to challenge the neat dichotomy between realist and magic-realist writing” (p. 18). Abdilatif Abdalla highlights “the sociopolitical dimension of the realist Swahili novel”. He suggests that its ability to “offer a panoramic view of society […] is an important means to change it” (p. 18). Geoffrey Kitula King’ei, in turn, examines “the utopian aspect in Said Ahmed Mohamed”, stressing the responsibility of writers “to critically react to social dismay” in but also beyond their own society (p. 18). Most specifically, he analyses Said Ahmed Mohamed’s “particular use of language and imagery” in ‘Sikate Tamaa (p. 19), an anthology of poetry.

Magdalina N. Wafula’s chapter relates the concepts of utopia and dystopia to the theme of generational conflict in Said Ahmed Mohamed’s Dunia Yao. She concludes that “[b]y envisioning a utopian past and contrasting it with the dystopian present, the [novel’s] ‘implied author’ attempts to come to terms with the marked differences between the colonial, postcolonial and postmodern realities in most […] African countries” (p. 198). Her chapter also contains a longer section on magical realism with regard to Dunia Yao, which, as she suggests, “has been utilized to depict the utopia/dystopia dichotomy manifested in the generational conflicts” in the novel (p. 206). Ken Walibora Waliaula, whose chapter also focuses on Dunia Yao, takes up the riddle posed by the novel’s title, “Their World”, asking which and whose world is meant and whether there is “an antithesis to this dunia yao” (p. 211). His analysis is playfully staged as “unravelling the mystery of Dunia Yao” (p. 224). He concludes that the household of Ndi, the novel’s protagonist, should be perceived “as a national allegory of a nation imagining itself as ‘developing’, whether it is Zanzibar, where the author was born, or any other African country” (p. 224). In his final sentence, he suggests that in a sense, Dunia Yao might even “be said to be the autobiography of Mohamed, his world and our world” (p. 225). In a way, this seems a fitting conclusion to this volume as a whole, whose first chapter represents an “Appraisal of Said Ahmed Mohamed’s novels” and all of whose chapters – as the editors highlight in the introduction – “focus on at least one of his writings”, or even exclusively on one or more of his works (p. 20).

As a scholar with a strong research interest in African-language literatures I emphatically welcome book-length studies as well as edited volumes on topics in literary criticism on creative writing in specific African languages and I am, therefore, most delighted to see the publication of this volume. I have a minor issue with the fact that the editors substantiate the relevance of its thematic focus by claiming that African-language literatures have not “been described in terms of their utopian/dystopian perspectives” (p. 8). On the one hand, this may well be true, especially in view of the fact that research on this topic in African literatures more generally (i.e., including literature in the former colonial languages) has likewise been rare. On the other hand, as research on African-language literatures might very well be produced in an African language, scholars would, in my opinion, be well advised to avoid claims like this. Apart from inadvertently marginalising literary criticism conducted in African languages such claims seem to imply that research on a topic in literature in one specific African language is not a valid enough project in itself but somehow requires to be made more widely relevant with reference to literatures in other, or even all, African languages. In fact, the volume itself, with two of ten chapters written in Swahili, serves as an excellent reminder of the fact that literary research produced in the same African language as the object of study is not always the exception and may even be a preferred option, co-existing with research in internationally more accessible languages such as English or French.

English- or French-language literary criticism on literatures in African languages obviously plays a significant role in increasing the latters’ international visibility and enhancing their accessibility as well as the possibility of comparative analyses. While access to literary criticism of works written in a particular African language does not, of course, render it unnecessary to read those works for oneself, preferably even in the original language, it may afford international literary scholars a more balanced and sophisticated view of African literature and the numerous and extremely diverse literary traditions assembled under its umbrella. As English- and French-language criticism on African-language literatures implies a (most welcome) invitation to wider, international scholarly readerships, an edited volume should clearly indicate which language/s it is written in, regardless of how natural, legitimate and desirable literary criticism in African languages in principle is. While the publishers’ website does specify that the book comprises contributions written in English as well as Swahili neither the book’s title nor its back blurb indicate this fact. Once again, this is, of course, a very minor issue. Also, the “Overview of the content” section in the editors’ introduction does include a few sentences on the two chapters written in Swahili. Additionally, it might have been helpful to provide English-language abstracts of these chapters to allow readers not familiar with the Swahili language a more detailed insight into the two authors’ lines of argument.

All in all, the volume represents an important and valuable contribution to a growing body of book-length critical studies of topics in Swahili literary discourse. By focusing on more recent developments in Swahili literary history, it provides a fascinating perspective on aspects of, as well as critical discourse on, the aesthetics and sociocritical concerns of contemporary Swahili literature. This makes it relevant not only to scholars of Swahili literature but of African literatures more generally. To international scholars primarily interested in utopia/dystopia research, the volume may be of more limited interest, as not all chapters (including some of the otherwise most profound ones) specifically address this topic or do so only indirectly or in passing (Diegner, Rettová, Abdalla, Waliaula). Some chapters approach it from a much wider perspective, as only one among several aspects of the “new” or postmodern Swahili novel/literature (Gromov, Bertoncini). The chapters which do explicitly focus on specific aspects of Swahili literature in relation to the utopia/dystopia theme vary in terms of theoretical foundation and analytical depth. Even so, however, the volume fills a major gap, drawing attention to the perhaps obvious, but sometimes underestimated fact that African-language literatures partake of and creatively interact with global discourses and paradigms in multiple ways. In this respect, it enhances future comparative research.

Works cited:

Booker, M. Keith, 1995: “African literature and the world system: dystopian fiction, collective experience, and the postcolonial condition”. In: Research in African Literatures 26, 4, 58-75.

Irele, F. Abiola, 2009: “Introduction: perspectives on the African novel”. In: F. Abiola Irele (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to the African Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-14.

Pordzik, Ralph, 2002: “Utopischer und post-utopischer Diskurs in den neuen englisch­spra­chi­gen Literaturen”. In: Ralph Pordzik and Hans Ulrich Seeber (eds.): Utopie und Dystopie in den neuen englischen Literaturen. Heidelberg: Winter, 9-26.

Clarissa Vierke and Katharina Greven (Eds.), Dunia Yao. Utopia/Dystopia in Swahili Fiction, Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe, 2016, ISBN: 978-3-89645-736-3, 232 pp.

This book review was published in: Africa Book Link, Winter 2016-2017