Paperless, Buntu Siwisa (2023) | A Review by Beverley Jane Cornelius

When I first picked up Paperless by Buntu Siwisa (2023), I expected a story about paperless technology. But the word ‘paperless’ in the title refers to this novel’s focus on the plight of African migrants in Oxford, United Kingdom, in the early 2000s. To explore the migrant’s ambiguous sense of identity and need for community belonging, the novel presents both ‘paperless’ and ‘documented’ characters. Following the stories of Luzuko, Bongani, and Nomusa, the novel foregrounds the day-to-day difficulties of people who are far from home as they attempt to improve their lot in life.

Luzuko Goba, the protagonist of Siwisa’s novel, is a young, African student of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University. He is writing his doctoral thesis but is unsatisfied and unfulfilled in his work, aspiring also to publish a novel. This ambivalence about his work extends to and from other areas of his life: he does not have a defined sense of identity, and he yearns for a sense of belonging in a place where he can feel ‘at home’. This sense of longing is compounded by the recent deaths of both the grandmother who raised him and the father he never knew, a freedom fighter who was in exile, always absent from Luzuko’s life.

Luzuko half-heartedly attempts to assimilate into Oxford society, while paradoxically clinging to his Africanness. Adopting local lingo, for example, he talks of ‘heading out for a jar’ and at the pub ordering ‘pints’, ‘crisps’, and ‘pork scratchings’; and he is at pains to map out the area through which he moves, naming streets, buildings, and shops with an air of familiarity and intimacy; while associating almost exclusively with other African students at the university. This is not a cohesive group in which he can forge a sense of belonging, though: the African students in his orbit are each driven by their own personal ambitions and with them he finds little comfort or like-mindedness. Luzuko finds that “so many African students did not want to return to Africa” (Siwisa, 2023:137), a sentiment that sickens him as a choice he cannot understand. By way of explanation, the novel presents other perspectives. In juxtaposition to Luzuko’s experiences as a legal alien, the novel offers, also, those of ‘paperless’ characters. Alternative and alternating storylines introduce two characters, Bongani and Nomusa, who are both living and working in England illegally.

Bongani has arrived in the UK with a bundle of papers that is immediately rejected at Heathrow airport (whether the documents are authentic or not, is unclear). As he is being escorted to a holding area to await a deportation flight home, he takes advantage of an official’s carelessness and, left momentarily unattended, Bongani simply walks out of the airport to begin life in England as an illegal alien.

Nomusa lives a similarly precarious life having overstayed her visa. With the added responsibility of motherhood (she has a baby whose father is in prison) she hustles for cleaning and nursing jobs. Further complications ensue when Nomusa’s mother arrives to take the child home to South Africa but chooses, instead, to stay.

When Nomusa becomes embroiled in a friend’s problems, the migrant community’s tentative loyalties are reflected. Nomzamo (Bongani’s flatmate) is on the run, having escaped through a window during a police raid. Nomzamo blames Bongani’s carelessness for alerting the police, while Nomusa, in turn, distances herself from Namzamo. When Nomzamo asks Nomusa “what are we going to do now” (50), Nomusa tells her, “there is no we” (51). The cohesion of a group that Luzuko imagines will provide a sense of belonging is an entanglement that makes Nomusa vulnerable. She must carefully distance herself from her friends because, loneliness aside, she would “rather play this cat-and-mouse game for the next five years than leave this job” (51).

The three characters – Luzuko, Bongani, and Nomusa – cross paths at a house called ‘Sodom’ where a mutual friend hosts informal parties. By juxtaposing these three characters, Siwisa foregrounds themes of belonging and longing, the plight of the migrant, and the legacy of colonialism for Africans across the continent. With a vast cast of secondary characters – at least 14 African countries are represented: South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Sudan, Togo, Zambia, Lesotho, Tanzania, Namibia, Benin, Uganda, Congo, Burundi, and Liberia among them – Siwisa makes clear that, indeed, Africa is not a country, it is a continent; and that each country’s population suffers its unique historical repercussions.  When Luzuko is introduced to the transient community at ‘Sodom’ he feels an immediate sense of relief and recognition: “The cab slowed down at the unfenced yard of a modest, yellow-painted house. What seemed like a freshly started fire glowed from the front porch, lighting up a slightly unkempt yard. […] This was Sodom. A fading Mafikizolo song yielded to the throbbing beats of Glen Lewis. Soon a hail of Zulu and Xhosa voices erupted I smiled. I knew that I was home. At last” (164). He has found “another, illegal Oxford” (174) where he feels a deluded sense of belonging. But his new friends, including Bongani, do not understand why he wants to be with them. They point out that they have come to England to work for money and that they work hard for that money, while Luzuko sits “on [his] arse and receive[s] money for reading books. Just for reading books” (209). From their point of view, it is an easy life when “you don’t even have to struggle for papers. They organise papers for you” (209). Interrogating their varying backgrounds, they become aware that some have come from poverty and working-class backgrounds, some from the middle-class/bourgeoisie, foreshadowing a later conversation between Luzuko and Bongani. Months later, Bongani confesses that their discussions in Oxford have been the catalyst for his interest in history. He seeks understanding about the historical and socio-economic differences that have given each of them (Luzuko and Bongani) a more-privileged or less-privileged start to life. Siwisa thus shows that the African migrant is as varied and as multi-faceted as humanity.

The novel is also a commentary on various forms of writing. Luzuko is a doctoral candidate writing a thesis, while also producing political pamphlets and speeches for his Togolese mentor and, at the same time, struggling to write a novel. In the final paragraphs of Paperless, Luzuko decides to start his novel afresh. He wants to start his story “from the beginning” (304); and the words he recites as his starting point for the novel (of which he is the author), are also the opening lines of the novel, Paperless, (in which he features as a character): “I was on my way to see Ian Smith. For twenty pounds, I was going to see the last white prime minister of Zimbabwe” (1, 304).

This metafiction underscores the autobiographical elements of the novel. While Paperless proclaims itself a novel on the title page, it could be deemed auto-fiction inspired by the author’s own experiences. Like his character, Luzuko, Siwisa completed a D.Phil. in Politics and International Relations at Oxford University and, while there, befriended South Africans who were in England to work and who, paperless, constantly worried about deportation. There were stark differences between the friends because although they “shared the same culture and language” what separated them was “the difference between [their] destinies” (Eeley 2004 n.p.). In keeping with the autobiographical elements of the novel, Luzuko’s storyline is narrated in the first-person and is therefore relatively subjective, while Bongani’s and Nomusa’s respective stories are told in third-person narration, giving a more objective account of their experiences.

The metafictional elements in Paperless extend to literary critique. Dela gives his opinion about why Luzuko’s fiction is failing: “You write to yourself, for yourself, and you’re far too expository. You want to explain everything” (101). Luzuko then becomes self-critical seeing that his work is “often unnecessarily expository [that] chunks of dialogue digressed, [becoming] long winded [and that] themes shouted over loudhailers, hanging over the storylines” (136). This commentary mirrors Siwisa’s own writing challenges: an earlier manuscript, he acknowledges, “went on and on about a whole lot of things” and he was advised to “instead focus on a core theme” (vi). Paperless does focus on the core theme of the African migrant in England, yet some of Siwisa’s own criticism applies. The novel is at times burdened with the sheer number of characters. Though they serve the necessary function of depicting diversity and variety of experience, the multitudes at times deflect attention – and empathy – away from the more important characters.

Thematically, Paperless pays homage not only to the struggling migrant, but also to literature and the power of narrative. At least twenty-nine authors are mentioned in the novel’s pages including, for example: Dambudzo Marechera, Wole Soyinka, James Baldwin, Ali Mazrui, Salman Rushdie, Jack Kerouac, Lewis Nkosi, Masize Kunene, and Robert Frost. Stressing the importance of literary creation, Luzuko’s mentor says that the writer is inspired because “you write to communicate to the people, to the reader. In any medium, in any form that suits your message best, you write” (100).

And it is through reading and writing that Luzuko again encounters Bongani towards the end of the novel. Having been finally deported, Bongani is subsequently put in prison in South Africa (for a crime he denies, a point not clarified) and, prompted by earlier conversations with Luzuko, is now immersed in South African history books. His reading exposes to him how inequalities result from historical events and, therefore, how someone like Luzuko, for example, is destined to have more opportunity than someone like himself, Bongani. The different paths their ancestors chose, affected their lives in the narrative present. In clandestine and hurried phone conversations, Bongani discusses with Luzuko the pros and cons of “changing faces through migrations” (281).

This discussion lies at the heart of Paperless. The way Bongani sees it, if you ‘change faces’, you can start afresh but, as Luzuko has experienced it, this is also where the longing for identity, belonging, and home begins. And while they are having their long-distance intellectual, abstract discussions, their friend, Nomusa, is yet again enacting a ‘change of face’. To elude Social Services and the police, she is moving on to a new place, this time disguised in a burka: a cab arrives for her in the half-light of dawn and “carrying [the baby] in her car seat, Nomusa head[s] stealthily down the stairs, covered from head to toe in black” (264).

Focusing on Luzuko, Bongani, and Nomusa, Paperless examines the realities of what it is to live and strive restricted or freed by the necessity of documentation. The novel foregrounds the starkly different experiences of the ‘paperless’ and the ‘documented’, raising questions about the (un)fairness of boundaries that dictate on which side of structured borders individuals must remain or through which they may move. If identity is “shifty, fluid, [and] flexible” (124), the novel raises the questions: what would a paperless humanity look like; what could a paperless humanity achieve?

Though the novel deals with serious matters and there are intellectually challenging conversations among the characters, the tone of the narrative remains energetic, light, and humorous. This may be because of the energy of the young (and young-at-heart) characters, who all retain the will to push forward with their aspirations. Amidst the chaos and turmoil of their lives there is beauty: “[t]he beauty was in the mess. It had always been in the clutter and jumble of it all” (300). There is a hopefulness in their optimism despite the sometimes-dire circumstances, which makes this book a worthwhile read.

Buntu Siwisa (2023) Paperless | Jacana | ISBN 978-1-4314-3401-5
Beverley Jane Cornelius is a lecturer at University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), Durban, South Africa.

References
Eeley, Stephen. 2004. “Buntu Siwisa: In Conversation with Stephen Eeley”. https://www.oxfordmuse.com/?q=node/94 [Accessed 4 January 2025].
Siwisa, Buntu. 2023. Paperless. Auckland Park: Jacana Media.
University of Johannesburg. Website. Staff Members. https://www.uj.ac.za/members/buntu-siwisa/ [Accessed 4 January 2025].

This book review was published in Africa Book Link, Spring 2025

Nthikeng Mohlele – Revolutionaries’ House. A novel | A Review by Gitte Postel

After having written six  acclaimed novels about love, existential fear, politics and music, this year the South African writer Nthikeng Mohlele published Revolutionaries’ House. Here he takes on the ambitious task to unravel the complicated workings of power by presenting the reader with one long internal monologue of the novel’s protagonist. Winston, a former wealthy businessman and successful politician, has angrily but voluntarily chosen the life of a vagabond. Hiding under his bridge he slowly and chaotically tries to make sense of his past. Early in the novel he eloquently presents the reader with a glimpse of how he perceives Johannesburg and his place in it:  ‘Everything seems either wrong or woefully inadequate in this metropolis: the violent clash of sonic terrors, suspiciously clean air, a grave shortage of human beings who still remember what it is to be human – so much so that the premature and often gratuitous dying around me reminds me that there is, in fact, a life to be lived, erratic dying to be dodged, imagination to be unleashed. An elixir against dreadful routines and angst, imagination has unpredictable ways of setting me free, sometimes too free, that I have to pinch myself and remind myself that I am dirty and poor.’ But apart from this telling description Mr Winston seems to have a very limited perspective of the world around him: he notices his cardboard bed, the clouds in the sky, the graffiti images of Mandela in the streets, his drug addicted and lovemaking neighbours, the pile of unopened letters his ex-wife wrote and brought him and the greasy dishes and lipstick stained coffee cups he washes to stay alive. After he escaped the city, the city escapes him. His memories are vivid and present, but they too are characterized by a remarkable limited, self-absorbed perspective.

In this often opaque novel, the characters’ names serve as welcome pillars of meaning. Winstons real name, or at least the name his ex-wife uses on the last page, is Caesar Mulaudzi, which translates as Emperor Ruler. At some point, people have started calling him Mr. Winston after his late and beloved dog who, in turn, was named after Winston Smith, George Orwell’s 1984 hero. According to Caesar, Smith stands for ‘Bravery. Fortitude. Conscience. Persecuted but rebellious.’ So all in all, Mohlele’s protagonist is a ruler, a rebel with a cause, a victim and a dog at once, which exactly sums up why he is where he is now. His wife expected him to become president, to save the country that is going downhill at a tremendous rate because the government ‘has abused the people for three decades now’. But while Caesar was -ineffectively- warning his fellow rulers in Revolutionaries’ House that South Africa was on a crossroads ‘between history and morality’, he himself started sleeping with his wife’s sister. Torn between feelings of responsibility, repulsion and self-loathing he finally leaves both his marriage and his political life. When his body subsequently falls victim to an endless series of inexplicable ailments, Caesar draws the conclusion that he is ‘a victim of power, of indifference’ and turns his back to the world. All he has left is his mind, ‘with all its varied light bulbs and sirens, its spikes and chains, fluid temperament and formlessness.’

The storm in his head is all politics at first. Incoherent memories of corruption, betrayal, disillusion. All sorts of enemies. But as soon as his anger and frustration subside, his mind drifts from politics to women. The first four chapters all bear a woman’s name as a title. Caesar’s first true love, Alessandra Pedreira (meaning: Mankind Defender), was a ‘goddess with admirable political instincts’ who worked for the United Nations. She was the one who warned Caesar that South Africa was taking a wrong turn. She left him heartbroken. Monica (Truth), is the pragmatic one, the one who knows how to live with ambiguities. She runs a few farms to fill schoolchildren’s bellies: ‘Real and regular protein on plates. Not slogans, not platitudes, not promises.’ But she also seduced Caesar while he was still married to her sister Naomi, draining from him his last bit of self-esteem. Meera (Saint) is the hard-working, self-sacrificing manager of the shelter for homeless people Caesar is sent to after the police picked him up under his bridge. Caesar thinks she killed herself because he sexually rejected her. Finally, after being stabbed in the streets for his dishwasher’s salary, Caesar is nursed back to health by yet another strong and attractive woman: Mmalerato (Mother of Love). The real power lies with women, Mohlele seems to suggest, and not because, as Caesar seems to think, they reduce men to powerless victims, but because they provide mankind with the things that really matter: guidance, life, shelter, care.

And love. At some point Caesar finally seems to come to his senses. He tries to go home. Unable to find his ex-wife Naomi (Beauty) – a music teacher who turns out to have left South Africa, although she never stopped loving Caesar – he rents a hotel room from Monica’s money and spends his time lying in bed naked, smoking and brooding about his next move. No answer presents itself. This last chapter of the book, that in an ideal world should have been dedicated to Naomi, is instead, and aptly, named ‘Nothingness’.

The nothingness lingers for a long time after having finished this novel. Caesar, his life story seems to tell us, was not a victim of the power of others, he was a victim of his own lack of power, of his inability to choose and to act. Obviously, the story is meant to be an allegory in which Caesars personal story of failure, moral decay and inertia stands for the downfall of ANC rule in South Africa, but it does not really seem to work out. Or does it maybe work out too well? Although Mohlele is a very skilled writer, producing beautiful sentences and creating interesting scenes, the novel as a whole suffers the same shortcomings as Caesar Mulaudzi and the South African government. It is at the same time too laboured and too shallow. The chaos in Caesar’s mind remains chaotic and obscure for the reader, Caesar’s focus shift from politics to women seems artificial and his many ponderations about power are, though at times intriguing, often unclear and unfinished. Add to this the complexity of too many storylines and an unfathomable chronology, and it is not surprising that the reader ends up in a vacuum, from which it takes a lot of effort to make sense of it all. Revolutionary House is a beautifully written novel with an important theme, that however fails to live up to its promising start and collapses under its own ambitions. Which of course, could also be said of South African politics these last thirty years.

Dr. Gitte Postel (Literary translator)

This review was published in Africa Book Link, Winter 2024

Ndima Ndima, a Zimbabwean eco-story | A Review by Tendai Mangena

Ndima Ndima is Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Mapepa’s debut novel, published by Catalyst Press in 2023. The narrative unfolds through at least three interconnected sub-narratives. The first sub-narrative delves into the experiences of Zuva and her family in Harare, exploring the intricate (dis)harmony between nature and humanity. A second narrative thread traces Zuva’s past, encompassing her relationship with her late parents, her involvement in the liberation war, the power struggle with her siblings, and her subsequent reclaiming of authority in the present. The ultimate subplot chronicles the growth of Zuva’s four daughters, with a particular focus on Nyenyedzi, whom Zuva designates as the heir to her Chieftainship.

Throughout the story, Zuva emerges as a formidable woman in her neighbourhood and a respected Chief in her place of birth. Possessing the ability to communicate with spiritual entities, she stands as the sole individual that Selina, a water-dwelling creature, a mermaid, created in the image of the Nigerian Mama water, heeds.

The term ‘Ndima’ in Shona, the language predominantly spoken in Zimbabwe, traditionally refers to a piece of land utilized for agricultural purposes. However, in Tsitsi Mapepa’s novel, this word takes on a new dimension, symbolizing an imagined traditional dance enacted during a rainmaking ritual. This dance serves as a remedy for the severe drought that evokes the historical drought of 1992. The rainmaking ritual, deeply rooted in indigenous practices, becomes a means of addressing the challenges posed by a ravaging climate crisis. The narrative explores indigenous beliefs, connecting the drought to the tragic events of the war, with speculation that the high death toll during the war conflict is a contributing factor to the current crisis.

Despite the title’s association with the ritual dance, the novel’s central theme revolves around land. It is worth noting that, it does not emphasize the political aspects of land, as often portrayed in stories following the contested land reappropriation of the 2000s, a significant factor in the Zimbabwean crisis. Instead, the focus shifts to the protagonist, Zuva, and her profound connection with the land upon which her family erected their second home. The land, distinguished by its fertile red soil and environment teeming with snakes, holds significant importance within the narrative. Mapepa skillfully explores the intricate relationship between humans and nature, highlighting both its nurturing aspects and the inherent threats to survival for both parties through the portrayal of the land.

In that way, the novel intricately weaves ecological themes into its fabric. The uneasy coexistence between humans and the natural habitat, particularly snakes, unfolds as a recurring conflict. The snakes pose a threat to Zuva’s family and neighbors, prompting a violent response of killing them to ensure human safety. In a parallel struggle, humans contend with pests such as lice and rats, leading to retaliatory violence. For example, the rats are flushed down the toilet, depicting a dynamic of predator and prey. Amidst these conflicts, instances of harmonious coexistence with other aspects of nature also emerge.

The harmonious interaction between nature and humans, for instance, involves humans benefiting from the moon’s light at night, trees providing shade on hot days, and the earth’s soil supplying iron to pregnant women. Mwedzi, Zuva’s husband recounts folktales that illustrate animals talking and interacting with humans. This aligns with Ngugi wa Thiongo’s (1998) perspective that:

Humans are undeniably part of nature. In that sense, they are no different from animals and plants, all reliant on the same environment of earth, air, water, and sun… orature takes that as a given. Thus, in orature narratives, humans, birds, and plants interact freely, often assuming each other’s forms, including language.

This ecological focus of the narrative explores human agency in the climate crisis, exemplified by Zuva’s actions to combat troublesome snakes in her neighborhood. She burns the grass to start a fire, boiling water that she uses to ‘burn’ the snakes to death. The smoke from the fire dissipates into the air, forming a thick grey blanket (3).

The interaction between humans and nature is further realised in the novel’s structure and characterization that expose an ecological preoccupation. One significant narrative strategy involves including a mermaid (half female and half fish), an aquatic feature through which Mapepa explores the concern with possibilities of harmonious interaction between humans and nature. Human character names that evoke celestial bodies like Zuva (sun), Nyeredzi (star), Mwedzi (moon) and others that refer to diverse climatic features Gwenga (desert), and Dutu (storm), as well as street names and toponyms like Chakohwa (harvest), are influenced by the environment. The first chapter, named ‘Sunset Street,’ is set during the autumn of 1990, with seasons defining settings throughout the narrative that concludes in the spring of 2003.

In Mapepa’s novel, natural threats complement human threats, such as murder along the river, past violence from the liberation war, evoked in the narrative through references to Abigail and Mwedzi’s ‘deep hollowed’ scars from the war. Traumas of the war, suicides, and the presence of thugs threatening everyone, with women facing specific challenges like attempted rape, further contribute to the intricate narrative of ‘crisis’ and human agency.

Mapepa’s novel addresses a seldom-explored theme in the Zimbabwean literary canon, diverging from the prevalent focus on the Zimbabwean crisis that often overlooks the climate change crisis.

Tsitsi Mapepa, Ndima Ndima (El Paso: Catalyst Press 2023)

References
Ngugi, wa Thiong’o. 1998. Penpoints, Gunpoints, and Dreams: Towards a Critical Theory of the Arts and the State in Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

***

Tendai Mangena, British Academy Global Professor of African Studies, School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, University of Leeds (T.Mangena@leeds.ac.uk)

This review was published in Africa Book Link’s newsletter Spring 2024

Kariba | A Review by Inge Brinkman

This graphic novel starts with a dreamy text and image that refers to rumuko; the mythical ritual of the river snake Nyaminyami dying and being reborn again. After this introduction, the story begins with two men, Tongai and Rock, whose adventures on the Zambezi river to hunt for a treasure lead them to the entrance of the ancient hidden kingdom of Rhutapa. To their bewilderment they find a baby girl, and Tongai becomes the foster father of this girl. At the age of eleven, the girl, who is now called Siku, starts having visions of a giant snake and discovers that she has special powers. She can be under water for long periods of time and has command over large animals, for example. Tongai goes to consult the spirit medium Maalila on this, who indicates that Siku must die in order to complete the rumuko ritual. Tongai refuses, stating that he would prefer to kill Nyaminyami instead.

Nyaminyami lives in the Kariba lake where currently a dam is being constructed. Tongai leaves for the dam and together with engineer Dr. Keigwin tries to destroy Nyaminyami. But they fail and Tongai is taken into the water during an enormous storm. Siku wants to go look for him, and meets with Amadeo, the son of a female Italian engineer working at the dam construction. Together they end up in the hands of a group of pirates, led by Rock with whom the story started out with. After a pretty wild escape from the pirates, Siku and Amadeo meet with Shonga villagers who will be forcibly moved from their ancestral lands because of the dam construction. Through the advice of their chief, Siku meets Maalila and she is informed that she is the daughter of Nyaminyami. She refuses to act on this: she just wants to find her father Tongai.

Only at the end of the narrative does Siku see the larger responsibility she has to take. At this point, Dr. Keigwin uses the magical power of the woman Mulozi in his attempt to finally kill Nyaminyami. All starts falling apart and everybody tries to flee from the enormous floods caused by this attempt to destroy Nyaminyami. But Siku and Amadeo make it to the entrance of Rhutapa, and while Rock and Amadeo keep the entrance open, Siku fulfils her task. The water finally calms down and all are rescued as the rumuko has been carried out. Her foster father Tongai – who returned from the waters alive – thinks that Siku has paid for Nyaminyami’s continued existence with her own death, but Siku returns from the water through the call of Italian songs and the watch of Amadeo’s father, now a strong and resourceful young woman.

This graphic novel has a lot to offer. The style is aesthetically well-developed in warm and bright colours in the images as well as dreamy language use. There is much beauty and variation in the images, a good example being that Siku’s visions are rendered in rounded panels with stunning under-water landscapes. At the same time, the characters are offered space for more down-to-earth jocular interaction (Latin-speaking pirates for example!) with expressive facial and bodily features, and graphic depictions of the dramatic events. The same delicate balance holds for the plotline: it is mythical and reflective, but also dynamic and full of action.

Under the surface lie many significant details that add to the layers of the novel. The characters’ names, for example, have been chosen with care. Thus the references to Nyaminyami as the river god, Maalila as a spirit medium, and Keigwin – who sees only potential in the dam construction – are historical, while Siku means ‘day’ in Tsonga; Murogi ‘witch’, and Rock – together with Amadeo – effectively holds up the Kariba rock that forms the entrance to Nyaminyami’s dwelling place. The ritual called rumuko is related to the Tsonga and Shona word for resurrection or morning prayer. Such details render this a rich and compelling narrative that speaks not only to a youthful audience, but can also draw in experienced readers.

On the one hand I greatly appreciated the nuance in the book. There are clear heroes and villains, but no character is entirely faultless or entirely inhuman. Even Dr. Keigwin allows for his adversaries to be rescued at the end of the book: ‘Alright, damnit! We’ll take as many as we can, but hurry!’ Also, the development of Siku as a character is noteworthy. It is already mighty interesting to have two very different young protagonists who form the main motors of the plot. And especially Siku’s growth in the story invites for reflection. She at first feels fear and just wishes to be ‘normal’, while she only considers her immediate environment. Yet in the end she stands tall as an impressive young female hero and has found herself. Obviously I have some reservations here, female heroism often seems to stem from women’s fulfilment of societal expectations in the realm of ‘sacrifice’. This is not restricted to this graphic novel, but can also be found, for example, in the work of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (The River Between, This Time Tomorrow, Petals of Blood, Matigari) where rather some female characters drown in a river or lake in order to fulfil their revolutionary potential.

Furthermore, the nuance can also be seen as ambivalence. Why is Siku teaming up with the son of the Italian engineer? Is this to say that engineers working on a colonial mega-project could also be nice, caring mothers with a ‘pure heart’ (p. 219), and their sons could have similar eyes to the chosen one, Siku? Siku concludes the book as follows (p. 223):

When I was gone, I realized what I was scared of. But now I know that if we are going to keep the past, to keep it from dying, we also have to accept the future. Maalila has a lot to teach me, but he couldn’t accept that.

Chief Chisaba, if we want to stay here, we cannot destroy this dam! But we don’t need to accept everything it brings, either. We need to work together, to find a new way. that is why Maalila must teach me, that is why I will go to school. I am not here to destroy the old ways, but to make them true again.

Help one another! The river’s power flows through everything – through the Shonga and through the dam. Through you. That power will feed us.

At the end of the book the Shonga people still have to move from their ancestral lands and the dam is built. This is historically correct: in the 1950s the Kariba-dam was built on the border of what were then called North- and South-Rhodesia. A large number of people were indeed moved from their land and this is still a politically charged subject in Zimbabwean politics.

In the afterword (p. 225), the authors stress that ‘This is not the story of the Tonga, or the many others whose lives were uprooted and homes destroyed. Nor is it an account of the ongoing trials of those who continue to live on the banks of the river and the dam. Least of all is it a polemic against dams in general. This is a work of fantasy, and it is our intention that it be read not against History (itself contested), but alongside it, as one interprets a dream after waking: not checking its correspondence to one’s life, but how its features, in their relationships with one another, may be seen to have meaning.’

I am also not against ‘dams in general’ and the authors certainly took care to have the historical references right. Again, this is not limited to the broader framework (the Kariba Dam construction, Salisbury, etc.), but also in the details such as Italian engineers being crucial indeed during the construction. But the building of the Kariba Dam led to the loss of more than 80 workers’ lives, some of their bodies still plastered into the dam walls. It meant the forced removals of over 55,000 Tonga people, with colonial police killing at least 8 people who tried to resist. The construction meant the loss of thousands of animal lives, some 7,000 of whom were rescued during Operation Noah. It meant ‘unprecedented destruction’ (Hughes 2007: 823). Of course, this is not to say that this should have been mentioned in the book. But to then state that in the end the river’s power ‘will feed us’ as Siku does (p. 223), seems sour, and to refer to the possible meaning of the ‘features of fantasy’, as the authors do (p. 225), too limited in terms of authorial intention.

Just a final note: at first I could not read the book. People with good eyesight can skip this remark, but when enlarging the pages of this graphic novel in its E-book format, the letter font remained the same size, rendering the book illegible to me. It is only a technical issue, the intended audience of this work has much younger eyes than me, and the publishing house immediately sent me a pdf-version of the book that I could read, so no problem, but I still feel it is worth mentioning.

So this is an attractive book, and it invites to reflect on power, responsibility, ecology, disaster, internal conflict, etc., but the historical references in combination with the books conclusions tend to euphemise a past of colonial violence.

Daniel and James Clarke, Kariba (El Paso: Catalyst Press 2023)

References
Hughes, David McDermott, (2006) ‘Whites and Water: How Euro-Africans Made Nature at Kariba Dam’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 32:4, 823-838

***

Inge Brinkman, Professor African Studies,Ghent University (Inge.Brinkman@UGent.be)

This review is published in Africa Book Link’s newsletter Spring 2024

The History of Man – Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (Penguin Random House South Africa, 2020) | A Review by Gitte Postel

The Catalyst Press book cover states that Ndlovu’s novel The History of Man is ‘set in a southern African country that is never named’. This is true, neither Rhodesia nor Zimbabwe is ever mentioned. But every other place in this novel can easily be located in what is now Zimbabwe: the Matopos hills in the south, where protagonist Emil Coetzee spends his happy childhood, and, some fifty kilometres further north, the city that he initially hates: Bulawayo, here consistently denoted by its nickname The City of Kings. The ceasefire date mentioned on the first page, 21-12-1979, the date which marks the end of the ‘bush war’ in which Emil Coetzee has come to play such a gruesome role, is exactly the day that was the beginning of the end of white minority rule in Zimbabwe.

Still, it does not really matter where and when this story takes place. This is not a book about Zimbabwean history, not even about British colonial history. It is the story of a man who happens to live in and love a country which he deep down feels is not really his to love – and the tragic events that leads to. As most great novelist do, Ndlovu works with big abstract notions – the limitations of linear history, the complexity of identity formation, the relationship between the individual and the state – and turns them into a single man’s story, which, in turn, sheds its light on the bigger things. Emil is part of the dynamics of British (post-)colonialism, even though he is not British – Coetzee is an Afrikaans name – which makes him somehow more suspect, but also less colonial. Or, in other words, it makes him, more than anything else, an ambiguous character, and I think that is exactly what he is meant to be. Emil’s first and last love is the savannah. But in between, in the period where he has lost touch with the elephant grass, he does not seem to be able to choose who or what he is.

This is Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu’s second novel, and it turned out to be the second of a trilogy. The first one, the acclaimed The Theory of Flight, explores, like The History of Man, how circumstances can change the experience of the self, in relation to others and to the state. But where The Theory of Flight is set in a post-colonial state and is multifaceted – it consists of several interconnected stories of a broad range of people and harbours a touch of magic realism – The History of Man is a story of one man in a colonial setting, and it is told in a collected, rational, (almost) linear fashion. In her third novel, The Quality of Mercy, released in 2022, Ndlovu tries to bridge these two worlds. Here, a black policeman who also played a minor role in The History of Man, researches the disappearance and possible death of Emil Coetzee.

At first sight, the thing Ndlovu tries to capture in The History of Man seems to be how an innocent and happy and sensitive boy can grow into a cruel man, a man who turned his back on everything he loved and lost any sense of who he is. That is also more or less what is stated in the first chapter, titled ‘Prologue’: ‘His story, if it were ever told, would have to be told chronologically, in a linear fashion, with a definite beginning, middle and end – none of that starting-in-the-middle-or-end modern nonsense. It would have to be told in that fashion because that was the only way to make any sense of the dark, grey, concrete room with his naked light bulb (…) and the man with the blood on his hands.’

Notwithstanding the deceiving title of this first chapter, this is not Ndlovu talking, it is Emil, or to be more precise: the narrator, giving voice to Emil’s thoughts. This narrator seems to comply with Emil’s wishes: his story is chronologically told – except that the Prologue, like a stuck-out tongue, is almost literally repeated in the second last chapter. But the outcome of this narration is not what Emil hoped or expected: his story still does not make sense. In the end, it turns out to be a series of seemingly unrelated events. There are moments where he feels love, and there are moments when he feels loss. There is the series of choices he made. All the important events of his life are being narrated, but that does not help to create meaning or a meaningful identity.

Especially in South African literature, a white middle-aged male protagonist whose controlling of the narrative or gaze in a novel reveals his own blind spot, has been a recurrent feature. Mehring in Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist (1974), may be one of the most famous, but another example is only a few years old: Francois Smith’s Gustav van Aardt in Die Kleinste Ramp Denkbaar (2020). What Mehring and Van Aardt have in common is that they don’t intend to look beyond their gaze, even though they vaguely recognise that something is amiss. It is only in their uncoordinated search for something else that they sort of stumble upon a deeper truth. Emil Coetzee, however, is very much aware of his own choices. He is also very much aware of his own shortcomings. He knows he is as much driven by fear as he is by love, and that his fear, especially his fear for being homeless, is the stronger force. He knows he teams up with the bullies at school because it will keep him from being bullied. He knows he is not really able to love his own son, because his softness reminds him too much of his own father, who Emil once caught wearing women’s clothes. He knows that betraying his best friend several times because of this friend’s ‘weakness’, made him, Emil, the weaker man. The only thing Emil has ever been proud of is that he created the Organization of Domestic Affairs, an institute set to recording the lives of African people. With it he tried, in his own words, to make African citizens less vulnerable by giving them a history.

Ndlovu, or the narrator, does not elaborate on why Emil is so proud of this accomplishment, or even why he feels the urge to do it. This seems to be the one flaw in this novel: for an intelligent man like Emil, his pride does not seem to make much sense. We, as readers, of course know that African citizens already had a history, a fact which is underlined throughout the book by using the name The City of Kings, a referral to the founding of Bulawayo by Ndebele King Lobengula in 1840. We know Emil Coetzee – and all the British colonial institutes that did the same thing – did not give Africans a history, only incorporated them in colonial history. His life’s work does not make them less, but more vulnerable. To Emil, however, his work is what gives his own life purpose, and it is the only thing he does not question. On a subconscious level he probably thinks it will make him less vulnerable. But one cannot help feeling that he should have known that he was wrong.

Problems arise when the bush war starts, and the colonial government becomes extremely interested in the data Emil has collected. Emil does not believe in the war, but he cannot escape being sucked into it, because he does believe in the state. When the war and the state as he knows it come to an end, he is completely lost. His story is a circular one after all: it ends where it started, at the savannah. But now there is no love, and also no fear, there is just the feeling that he has lost all humanity.

The only demerit I can find in this novel, is that the creative freedom with which Ndlovu gave room to her ideas in Theory of flight (2028), is a little lost here: she very clearly wants to make a point. Or rather: ten points. Which she does. And while doing so, Emil becomes a little less convincing as a character, at least in the last section of the novel. Nevertheless: Ndlovu convincingly pictures the absurdity and pettiness and uselessness of colonial power, its means and its moral foundations, and the psychological motivations for excessive violence within the state, while at the same time presenting us with an absorbing and intriguing, very human story. An impressive accomplishment.

Gitte Postel
Literary translator & journalist

The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa (Bloomsbury, 2022), Stephen Buoro | A Review by Christopher Hebert

Stephen Buoro’s first novel, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa, chronicles Andy Aziza’s coming-of-age in contemporary Nigeria. Blending poetry and prose, Buoro endows his titular character with a vivid voice and personality while also tackling issues of religion, race, and migration. Furthermore, Buoro’s novel is infused with a wide range of influences and references, to include mathematics, theoretical constructs like “anifuturism,” and Western culture in the form of books and films. This makes for a highly intertextual narrative, and one that particularly reinforces the lasting impact Western media has on people across the globe. While Buoro marshals all of his interests to create a beautifully textured world, he is still able to treat each of his characters with remarkable depth and sympathy.

At the core of The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa is the relationship Andy has with his mother. The two have many disagreements, some of which relate to Andy’s obsession with Western television shows, and consequently, blonde, white women: “A fifteen-year-old African genius poet altar boy who loves blondes is not a criminal, not a racist, not a sell-out. But a sweet, cool, pitiful African boy” (Buoro 4). Andy struggles with the generational gap between himself and his mother, but he also has a deep sense of compassion for his mother’s situation, especially because his father is not around. Andy and his mother live in Kontagora, a town dominated by Muslim Hausas who fear the possibility of their home becoming “over-Christianised” (Buoro 31). An attack on their church leaves Andy’s mother disabled and confined to a wheelchair. In the aftermath of tragedy they attempt to rebuild their relationship, and it is their journey together through a mysterious past and an unstable present that shapes much of the novel.

One of the most interesting elements of the novel is Andy’s fledgling romance with Eileen, the blonde niece of Father McMahon, the community’s local missionary. Buoro unpacks issues of race and difference through Andy and Eileen’s romance—Andy is enamored with Eileen’s platinum blonde hair and her Englishness, but he feels increasingly Othered by the way she treats him, as she asks him questions like: “What happens when water touches your hair” and subscribes to many of the sexual stereotypes surrounding African men (Buoro 188). Eileen’s treatment of Andy leads him to question his own identity and how he is perceived by others, but their relationship also raises some fascinating questions when it comes to the sharing of cultural knowledge, including language. For example, after showing off her Hausa skills in public, Eileen takes Andy to the library of her hotel, which is filled with Nok sculptures and works by Hausa authors. She reveals that she has been studying the Hausa language, and that she even plans on translating some Hausa stories into English, as “Dad knows a couple of editors in London” (Buoro 191). Andy is impressed with her, and responds: “That’s really great, innit?” (191). His use of the word “innit” causes Eileen to start laughing, and she tells him not to say it again. In this moment, Buoro interrogates the unequal dynamic between African and European centers of knowledge production—Eileen sees it as her uncontested right to study Hausa and even translate Hausa texts, but when Andy appropriates British slang, it makes her uncomfortable and she orders him to stop. Another iteration of this same phenomenon is when Eileen shows Andy some pictures she has taken in Abuja. She obviously finds the subjects of her photos exotic and interesting, but to Andy they are “mundane” (Buoro 189). The cognitive dissonance that Andy experiences with Eileen, especially because of his exposure to Western culture, leaves him feeling alienated and dissatisfied, wondering if he will ever be able to truly communicate with her. Through the relationship between Eileen and Andy, Buoro effectively deconstructs the contemporary encounter between Europe and Africa to reveal that history never really belongs totally to the past.

A key strength of Buoro’s work is how he instills Andy’s character with relentless curiosity about his place in the world as an African. Andy critically examines the ways in which Africa has been disadvantaged by geography, slavery, and colonialism. In his poems, he writes of a being called HXVX who hovers over the continent and embodies “the Curse of Africa” (Buoro 50). He even argues at one point that Africa is a computer simulation: “How else could we explain the sun and hunger vs our laughter and dancing, the corruption and killings vs the churches and mosques in every corner of every neighborhood?” (Buoro 131). The counterpoint to Andy’s decidedly pessimistic outlook is his teacher and mentor Zahrah’s “Anifuturism,” which she describes as “the fusion of animism and Afrofuturism” (Buoro 49). In a novel full of a wide variety of themes, Buoro still manages to carve out a space for intellectual discussions between student and teacher that contribute to current debates in postcolonial theory. Andy’s personal philosophy and outlook toward the world is largely shaped by the existence of HXVX, and through Andy and Zahrah’s dialogues Buoro is able to represent the contemporary situation of young Africans who are aware of the lingering impacts of colonialism even as they are shaped by Western culture. Indeed, Andy and his friends occupy an impossible position, but it is their sense of humor and resilience that propels Buoro’s narrative forward.

The number of conversations that Buoro intervenes in with his novel is truly astonishing—through his compelling and well-crafted characters he engages with issues of communal violence, family relationships, and the contemporary encounter between Europe and Africa. Andy himself is the nucleus of Buoro’s text, and his novel succeeds in large part because of the deftness with which Andy is characterized. There is not a single moment that feels contrived, even as Buoro explores themes which are familiar territory for other authors, including Chris Abani and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In short, Stephen Buoro’s The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa is a thrilling and masterful debut that not only entertains, but asks important questions.

Chris Hebert
PhD candidate African Studies, Ghent University

Ancient Egyptian Animal Fables. Tree Climbing Hippos and Ennobled Mice (Brill, 2022), Jennifer Miyuki Babcock | A Review by Caroline Janssen

Introduction

A humble corpus of seventy-nine limestone flakes – ostraca – and four papyri lies at the basis of this book, a study of what Jennifer Miyuki Babcock understands to be visual representations of Ancient Egyptian animal fables. The author is a professor of Art History and Archaeology in New York, and specializes in the visual arts and narratives of Ancient Egypt, an interesting combination of fields, as the book demonstrates.

As for the corpus, as a writing material, papyrus was expensive and ostraca were cheap; the latter were used for a variety of purposes. Some were ‘textual’ – letters, inventories, receipts, work journals, …- while others were ‘figurative’ and contained drawings and sketches. Many of the ostraca were ex-votos, offerings made to deities to fulfill a vow, some may have been created for educational purposes or perhaps even out of boredom, as the author suggests. A small but interesting group depicts animals acting like people – wearing clothes, playing board games, banqueting, playing music, … – and these are the focus of this investigation. The most popular animals, for this purpose, are cats, mice, canines and caprids, but there are also birds, hippopotami and lions. Jennifer Miyuki Babcock chose to exclude most pictures with primates (with the exception of the motif of the baboon and the cat), because, as she argues, their activities could be the result of animal training; they usually appear in the company of people, not in anthropomorphic animal settings like the others.

Animals play a big role in Egyptian culture, religion and daily life. In representations, they are symbols of danger, strength, power, etc. In the hieroglyphic script animal-shaped signs can carry both literal and metaphorical meanings. On paintings, they appear in real-life conditions, crying out in pain, galopping, … and even their odor can be expressed by using symbols. But the ostraca are a group apart, as the animals here engage in human behavior. This is what animals in fables do. However, linking them to specific stories is not self-evident. The original drawings are not accompanied by explanatory texts and most drawings are not backed up by a recorded story. Jennifer Miyuki Babcock leaves no stone unturned to overcome this problem.

Let the reader be warned (but not deterred): this book is a reworked dissertation, which is still palpable, and it is not an easy read. It is based on original source materials that are hard to interpret. Before one can enter the world of tree climbing hippos and ennobled mice, one is deeply immersed in academic debates. What a reader not too familiar with Ancient Egyptian history might miss, at times, is a concise historical framework before these debates start, something I would have added because this book is of interest, not only for Egyptologists, but also for other people interested in fables and story-telling in other parts of the world or other temporal settings. There are a few flaws in the register which could have been avoided – e.g., the entries hippopotami, hippopotamus and hippotamus (sic!), hippotamus and crow but no crow as an entry, … – but on the whole this is a good work. In terms of methodology, the author is a guide, who presents complex theories in an accessible way and uses them eclectically. In the course of the book we find reflections on terminology and definitions; when different interpretations of materials have been suggested pros and cons are duly weighed, conclusions are drawn after consideration, the author shares her doubts and provides tentative explanations, it is up to the reader to agree or disagree. The author argues that in order to analyze the pictures one has to contextualize them and this becomes the key to their interpretation.

The book has six chapters, each of which opens up a new perspective:

  1. Introduction to the Materials
  2. Artists and Audience: Deir el-Medina and Its Inhabitants
  3. Understanding Ancient Egyptian Aesthetic Value
  4. Constructing Visual Narratives in Ancient Egypt
  5. Animal Fables and Their Purpose
  6. Contextualising the Egyptian Imagination: Concluding Thoughts

There is an Appendix of 84 pages, with colour photos of the papyri and ostraca, a few drawings, detailed descriptions and references. Not only is this catalogue fun to browse through, it also allows the readers to see the evidence with their own eyes. This catalogue is a most valuable instrument as the materials are not easily available otherwise. Beside all the rest, this book tells us a story of archaeological evidence that was dispersed over so many museums and private collections that studying them, today, requires an odyssey. As a result of historical power relations, many small artefacts have left Egypt, and are now in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, … The whereabouts of some of the materials cannot be traced anymore, in which case a modern drawing is all that remains. Writing this book required a lot of patience and dedication, even on a material level.

Missing: the archaeological context

Sadly, an utterly relevant context was lost in modern times. The ostraca and the papyri had once belonged to the vestiges of an ancient civilization, like the remnants of temples, houses, streets, tombs, skeletons, plant and animal remains. It seems that ostraca of different kinds were found in various contexts, such as the ‘Great Pit’, houses, tombs, streets, … but no one took care to note which one came from where so that we cannot know whether those with anthropomorphized animals came from a specific context, as a group or in groups, or were found in different settings. It is believed that all of them came from Deir el-Medina, the ‘Valley of the Artisans’, near Luxor, which can be ascertained for many of these, but not for all, and that is as far as one can get. The animal drawings can hence not be linked, by their archaeological context, to domestic, funerary or religious contexts, let alone to specific owners, their houses, graves, or other possessions, contexts that could potentially have contributed to their interpretability. Had they not been robbed of this context, because of 19th century looting and substandard excavation reports, all of these vestiges could have told their story in unison. The damage done is irreversible.

Deir el-Medina and its artisans

As for the makers of the ostraca, Deir el-Medina was not a run-off-the-mill village, as the author explains. Its artisans were the ones who excavated and decorated the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings and that of the Queens. They were highly skilled and exceptional workers who also decorated tombs in their own village, with delightful scenes from every-day life. They were visually literate and educated people. Although the concept of art in contemporary European and American context has undergone a semantic shift – it now conjures up a world of individual expression, something almost transcendental, as the author explains – Jennifer Miyuki Babcock defends the position to call the products of Egyptian ‘craftmanship’ art. Artistic quality was something that was highly sought after and no one can doubt the artistic skills of the painters of Deir el-Medina.

Motifs

While in search of their meaning, the author notes that the anthropomorphized drawings on the ostraca reflect elite themes and that there are recurrent motifs. One of these, that of the cat and the vulture, can be successfully connected to the myth of the “Distant Goddess”: in this story the god Thoth appears in the shape of a baboon, while the goddess Tefnut has assumed the form of a cat. The former tries to convince the latter to return to Egypt by telling her a story of a cat and a vulture. Depictions of a baboon and a cat, or of a cat and a vulture (or other birds), are thus identified as depictions of fables. The author tentatively connects the story-telling and the ostraca to celebrations during festivals for the Distant Goddess. She points out that although materials from Deir el-Medina have been found in Amarna, no such ostraca were found in the city of Akhenaten (Akhnaton), an absence that she links to the pharao’s religious reforms. The fact that the connection with the Distant Goddess myth can be ascertained, means that other motifs which include anthropomorphized animals in story-like settings, are most probably also connected to animal fables. Some depictions are very specific, such as the hippopotamus sitting in a fruit tree with a crow climbing a ladder, or a hippopotamus and a crow sitting on opposite sides of a balance. These images raise so many questions that it would be easy to convert them into story lines (how did the hippo end up in the fruit tree? why does the crow not fly but use a ladder? is he crippled and if so, whose fault was that? …). Corroborating evidence that these are indeed animal fables, not just funny pictures, is that there seems to be ‘a stock of characters and motifs’ which, as the author states, include:

  1. Elite Animals and Offering Scenes
  2. Chariot Riding
  3. Religious Scenes
  4. Agricultural and Food Production Scenes
  5. Animal Musicians
  6. the Distant Goddess and the Cat/Vulture Fable
  7. the Boy, the Cat and the Mouse
  8. the Hippopotamus and the Crow
  9. Unclear/Miscellaneous

Narration

The reconstruction of narratives based on sequences of images found on the papyri turns out to be a challenge, since the materials do not seem to have been organized in a linear way. In ‘Constructing visual narratives in Ancient Egypt’ the reader is introduced into the conceptual world and theories of narratology and their application to visual materials. The author argues that we should look beyond the modern bias, that narratives should be presented in a linear sequence. To investigate how stories are presented in the visual arts of Ancient Egypt, she looks into paintings in tombs which depict the road to afterlife. She incorporates the idea of Assmann, that myths are organized around ‘nuclei’ (larger themes) which could be combined into ‘narrative constellations’ in oral story-telling, and wonders whether the ostraca were ‘icons’ that could be arranged and rearranged, during performances. Tentatively, she points out that in the 18th century, in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, lukasa memory boards were used by story-tellers (boards with beads, shells and metal) as a mnemonic device. Could the ostraca have had a similar function? The world of the Ancient Egyptian story-tellers is another lost dimension, but the author, as said, leaves no stone unturned to find relevant contexts and ideas which help us imagine how the texts might have functioned.

Interpreting the social implications of the fables is another topic that is covered, and here too we see how the author gains information from contextualizing the materials. Several ostraca reverse the roles of preys and predators, e.g., they depict mice who are being served by cats. Interpreting such scenes is not unambiguous and the author shows us a range of possibilities. Is role reversal a sign of rebellion against the existing social hierarchy? Not necessarily so, according to Jennifer Miyuki Babcock. She argues that the population of Deir el-Medina had more direct ways to express their dissatisfaction if needed; as evidence she adduces the fact that the first recorded strike ever was a sit-in near the mortuary temple of Ramasses II. She also denies that the pictures with the human-like animals are satirical or blasphemous representations of religious ceremonies. She points out that in the Book of the Dead, mice are presented as divine; the priest is a jackal. Blurred boundaries between humans and animals are omnipresent in Egyptian religion. It is by comparison with other materials from Egypt (Prophecies of Neferty, Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage) and near-by regions such as Mesopotamia and Greece that she finds reason to believe that stories about social upheaval and chaos could well end in a restoration and celebration of existing power relations.

Imagination

The ostraca and papyri are silent witnesses of the history of human imagination. To unmute them the author contextualized what she saw. The patience and dedication that was put into this scholarly work has paid off; she has definitely shed light on the interpretability of these images and there is a lot to discover in this book. Although the study is focused on a better understanding of Ancient Egyptian materials, it is relevant for a variety of readers. It shows us a road that lies ahead, one that runs in two directions. For one thing, it reminds us that research in fields like Assyriology and Egyptology that helps us interpret drawings on limestone flakes also urges us to deconstruct the myth of the Greek miracle, of Aesops who appear out of the blue. ‘Unmuted histories’ that are the results of archaeological, anthropological and textual explorations, are starting to shed light on the relations between cultures and on captivating literary networks. Historical power relations have created disbalanced views of the past. Contemporary research tells us to revise such views. Meanwhile, creativity and imagination keep doing their work, because subconsciously, when reflecting on this need to bring more balance in the reconstruction of the fragmented history of humanity, the image of the heavy hippo and the light-weighted crow, who struggled to find a balance, comes to my mind. An ancient fable whose original context is clouded is trying to rewrite itself in a contemporary setting, which is what fables do.

For all these reasons I recommend this book.

Caroline Janssen (Ghent University)

Interview with Noo Saro-Wiwa on her recent memoir Looking for Transwonderland | by Elizabeth Olaoye

Noo Saro Wiwa is a Nigerian- British Travel writer who Condé Nast Traveler Magazine listed as one of the 30 most influential women travelers. She was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and raised in England, where she attended King’s College London and then Colombia University in New York. She has contributed book reviews, travel, opinion, and analysis articles for The Guardian newspaper, The Financial TimesThe Times Literary SupplementCity AM, Chatham House, and The New York Times, among others. Although her genre is non-fiction, the keenness of her vision and her ability to look at ordinary everyday realities with an artistic vision makes her travel memoir, Looking for Tanswonderland: Travels in Nigeria, a great reference point in the discussion of narratives set in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. I discovered this memoir while writing my dissertation on the gendered portrayal of Lagos in contemporary narratives and find it fascinating. I asked if Noo would answer some questions on the text, and she agreed. I’m excited to share some of her responses here:

To what extent is Looking for Transwonderland a non-fictional work? Are there fictional elements in the narrative? If yes, can you give examples?
The book is 100% non-fictional. I take great pride in reporting my experiences faithfully. Real life is more interesting than fiction, especially in places like Nigeria. The only times I tweak names or details is to protect someone’s privacy, particularly for safety reasons.

Did you have to change names to conceal identities?
Yes, see above.

I know you write travel narratives. Have you tried or considered fiction?
I’ve considered it, but I find it much harder than non-fiction. Maybe one day.

The idea of a Transwonderland is fascinating, especially considering the linguistic possibilities in the word. Moreso, an amusement park in Ibadan has a name close to that. What exactly did you mean by transwonderland?
Transwonderland is the name of the dilapidated amusement park in Ibadan. My book title is a metaphor for my search for that touristy side of Nigeria, which I wanted to explore as a way of disassociating from the painful memories of my father’s death at the hands of the military regime. But I found that the touristy side, such as Transwonderland amusement park, was often rundown: neglected natural reserves and safari parks, etc.

The memoir says that, “being Nigerian can be the most embarrassing of burdens.” This statement is about Nigerian travelers’ cacophony at Gatwick Airport. Can you discuss this further? How often do you experience this burden? Is it physical or psychological? Has this something to do with the physical location or the attitude of the people?
Nigerians are constantly embarrassed by the failures of our government. Our diaspora contains some of the most successful immigrant groups in countries like the United States. We have so many smart, talented people, yet as a nation Nigeria is not worth the sum of its parts. Decades of poor governance has led to poverty, a lack of education, an increase in criminality, and a mistrust of authority (the latter demonstrated by that cacophony at Gatwick airport). Unfortunately, that’s the image of Nigeria in the eyes of the world. When you tell people you’re Nigerian you can often see the hidden disdain, or at least lack of admiration, in people’s eyes.

I noticed that the extreme religiosity of Nigerians repeatedly features in your memoir. Do you see this as a kind of agency for Lagos’s powerless people or a manifestation of sanctimony ecstasy?
The extreme religiosity is a result of economic failure caused by perennial corruption and structural adjustment policies in the 1980s. Nigerians began to import the ‘prosperity gospel’ from the United States (white Americans invented it) as a coping mechanism. Every society, be it in Europe, the Americas or Asia, responds to poverty in its own way in order to survive financially and psychologically.

Do you think it’s paradoxical that you refer to yourself as a tourist in your own country?
No, tourists can be domestic or foreign. I would say most people haven’t seen the beauty spots in their own countries, which is a shame.

Would you travel to Lagos again? Why or why not?
I touch base with Lagos at least once every two years as I have friends and family there.

What do you detest most about Lagos?
It’s too noisy. Constant music everywhere you go; you can’t escape it. There are almost no public spaces to enjoy quiet contemplation or meditation.

What do you love most about the city?
Like all major cities, it’s big and full of energy. There’s lots going on, always new developments (architecturally, culturally, etc.). Things are always changing.

Taiye Selasi describes Afroplolitans as Africans of the world. Recently, scholars have been knocking heads on the privileged position that tempers Afropolitan narratives. A travel writer fits that description. Do you view yourself as an Afropolitan?
If the definition of an Afropolitan is an African who owns a passport and does a job that enables them to travel easily to other countries, then yes I’m an Afropolitan. There aren’t many such people. Having a British passport puts me in a very privileged position, and I never taken it for granted. I know the struggles that Nigerian passport holders have. It affects their ability to work, study or simply explore different parts of the world.

Are there potentials in Lagos that are not being harnessed right now?
Yes. Every human being has potential, and if the government is not investing in them (through education) then their potential is not being fulfilled. In Lagos – and Nigeria as a whole – there are millions of potential entrepreneurs, astronauts, teachers, lawyers, journalists. But instead they are living parallel lives as impoverished, struggling citizens.

Do you think that the spatial structures of the city (Lagos) are not neutral? Do you think it would have been easier to navigate the city as a man? How does Lagos treat women?
To be honest, it’s hard to answer this question as I don’t live there. I find Lagos easy to navigate as a short-term visitor with dollars in her pocket and an Uber app on her phone. Living there, however, is another matter.

Have you visited any other place that created the same feelings that you had in Lagos? Did any other city present similar precarious situations?
Lagos is pretty unique. I’ve been to massive cities like Manila and Cairo, but their infrastructure always seems slightly better than Lagos. But maybe that’s only because I haven’t seen their poorest areas.

What do you think about the presence of the supernatural in the African psyche as manifested in our movies and literature?
It’s important that literature and movies reflect our psyche – it’s what makes it authentic. The supernatural can be confusing and inaccessible to non-African audiences when production values are poor, but when such themes are explored by talented artists like Akwaeke Emezi, Wole Soyinka or Nnedi Okarafor it’s great.

Elizabeth Olaoye
Idaho State University

Chinua Achebe and the Igbo-African World: Between Fiction, Fact and Historical Representation (Lexington Books, 2022), Chima J. Korieh and Ijeoma C. Nwajiaku (Eds.) | A Review by James J. Davis

During the 1991-1992 academic year, the Division of the Humanities of the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University, with grant-funding from the National Endowment of the Humanities, restructured its two-semester core course entitled “Introduction to Humanities I and II”. The overall goal was to revise and expand the course content to include in the Humanities curriculum non-western literary historiography and cultural trajectories. Howard, like some other North American universities, quickly decided to include Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart as the exemplary novel to represent the wide expanse of African literatures written in English. Project administrators purchased a copy of Lindfors’ Approaches to Teaching Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (Modern Language Association, 1991) for the faculty who would teach a section of the Humanities course. I was one of them. While there is no explicit reference to that work in the volume reviewed here, this reviewer believes that, in many ways, it is a comprehensive sequel to that publication and to the proliferation of other published scholarship heretofore on Achebe’s work.     

After a quite engaging introduction by editors Korieh and Nwajiaku, the volume is divided into three parts. Part I “Chinua Achebe and Igbo-African Realities” includes 6 chapters (essays); Part II “Chinua Achebe and the Politics of Representation” includes 4 chapters; and Part III “Achebe, History, and the National Question” comprises 5. The editors offer the following rationale for the division: “The rationale behind this division is that, although some aspects of the Igbo experience can be addressed in their relationship to African and Nigerian culture, unique contextual circumstances warrant such division” (p. 4). The 15 essays are authored by scholars representing a variety of fields in the humanities, social sciences, theology, and communications. This gives way to different hermeneutical approaches and to a variety of sometimes conflicting interpretations of Achebe’s perception, presentation, and representation of historical facts, hence the subtitle of the volume: Between Fiction, Fact and Historical Representation.  

By all accounts, this volume is indeed a welcome and timely addition to studies on Achebe’s literary works and persona because it takes us from chapter to chapter to a deeper understanding and fresh and new-fangled analyses of his work. Achebe’s efforts to unveil artistically the social, political, religious, male-female relations and the general psychological environment of the Igbo people are lauded, but they are examined critically and comprehensively to offer varying ways of reading and appreciating his artistry. In general, this volume makes a gargantuan contribution to African Studies, Igbo Studies, and cross-cultural literacy. The novice student as well as the seasoned scholar of African Literatures and Cultures will gain invaluable insights from reading the thought-provoking introduction and the 15 elucidating chapters followed by an excellent index of names, topics and themes.

James J. Davis (Howard University)

Eye Brother Horn (Catalyst Press, 2022) Bridget Pitt | A Review by Beverley Jane Cornelius

Eye Brother Horn (2023) by Bridget Pitt, is the story of two brothers who, though devoted to each other, are at odds with the world, each in his own way. Daniel and Moses are the sons of an English Reverend at a Christian mission station in Natal[1] in the mid- to late-1800s. While Daniel, the biological son, experiences debilitating sensitivity to the natural world around him because of a painful empathy with the animals he sees hunted, Moses, the adopted son, feels torn between two cultures without a sense of belonging to either. Both boys dream of travelling to England where each hopes to become his own man. But their patriarchal benefactor challenges their bond and their aspirations.

The novel begins – in Part One 1862 to 1864 Bhejane – with a clash between hu/man and nature when the baby, Daniel, and his carer, Nomsa, survive a close encounter with a rhinoceros: “Two tons of bone and muscle hurtle towards the women gathering grass for weaving. Their grass bundles fly up as they flee screaming” (Pitt 2022:1). Nomsa, with the baby strapped to her back, trips and falls leaving her and the baby helpless with the rhino looming over them. But having lunged at them three times, the rhino retreats. Daniel is unharmed yet forever affected, with “a look of strangeness in his eye, as if he’d been lost in distant worlds” (1).

This opening scene foregrounds not only the tension between hu/man and nature but between all the disparate forces at play here: at Umzinyathi Mission there is an intersection – sometimes a melding, sometimes a clash – of culture, religion, language. For example, while Daniel’s father, the reverend of the mission station, calls their survival of the rhino encounter a miracle, there are other theories amongst the local inhabitants, “including witchcraft, ancestral intervention, and good luck” (2).

These events at Imzinyathi occur within the greater context of British colonialism. The positioning of this local scene within the broader frame of colonialism is illustrated by Cousin Roland, a character who epitomises colonial ideology with his words and deeds, while illustrating – through his mobility between India, Africa, and Britain – the range of the British Empire at the time.

The author forestalls a dominating coloniser’s narrative, however, by foregrounding language from the outset. isiZulu is seamlessly blended into the narrative, beginning with Reverend Whitaker’s moniker, “umfundisi, the teacher” (2) and the way that the boy, Daniel, is spoken about following the incident with the rhino: he is thereafter known as “inkonyane likabhejane: the Rhino’s child” (2). Throughout the book, though explanatory phrases in English at times follow the use of isiZulu, the reader (if not familiar with isiZulu) is left in most instances to infer the meaning without explanation. Thus, blended language is seamlessly incorporated in the novel, giving the narrative an authentic context, a sense of place, time, and culture; as well as making prominent the inevitable entanglement of language and culture, and the formation of a transcultural and/or liminal space in a colonised place. In this context, though, there is disparity and conflict; the novel examines, with this story of brothers, the oppositions inherent in colonial discourse, which “at the very least, […] creates a deep conflict of consciousness of the colonised” (Ashcroft, Griffiths, & Tiffin 2007:37).

The boys are inseparable in their early youth, only becoming aware as they grow that there are differences between them: one is a biological son, the other adopted, one is white and English, one is black and Zulu. This brings into sharp relief in the novel, the division at the time between the white Englishman and the colonial subject, the illogical disparity and inequality, the foundations of which are the “[r]ules of inclusion and exclusion [of colonial discourse that] operate on the assumption of the superiority of the colonizer’s culture, history, language, art, political structures, social conventions, and the assertion of the need for the colonized to be ‘raised up’ through colonial contact” (Ashcroft, Griffiths, & Tiffin 2007:37).

Ultimately, these ‘rules’ will force the boys apart, but not because they are binary opposites of each other; rather, because neither Daniel nor Moses can live by these prescribed rules, each with his own reasons for subverting his expected role. Thus, the novel explores the theme of the ‘in-between’ space, which is occupied by ‘hybrid’ characters in a cross-cultural situation, by deviating from expected or cliched characterisation.

This is signaled early in the narrative – in Part Two 1871 The Python and the Gun – when the word ‘birthright’ “erupts between [Daniel and Moses], like the sudden blast of a trumpet, like a call to arms” (50) in a childish squabble about their 13th birthday presents.

Though Daniel uses the word ‘birthright’ in the argument, subsequently he in fact subverts his role as a colonial Englishman: instead of assuming the guise exemplified by his missionary father or landowner uncle, he clings instead to his ‘birthright’ as a young man born and raised on the continent of Africa. He has an affinity with his natural environment, rejecting patriarchal, colonial culture. He is emotionally sensitive and spiritually curious. Moses is more pragmatic; he is fascinated with science. As the boys grow older, the divide between the adjacent worlds they straddle becomes more apparent: on the one hand there is a traditional African existence with the environment, on the other there is the modern emphasis of change and ‘progress’ that is being imposed by the colonising force.

This divide is brought into sharp focus – in Part Three 1871 to 1876 Evolution – on a visit (with the church) to King Mpande. Here, Moses is immersed in Zulu culture, experiences the heritage he has been denied through his upbringing; he confronts the notion that he can never feel a sense of complete belonging to either the mission station or to the Zulu nation. Instead, he puts his faith in science, eschewing local customs and spiritualities.

Thus, with the goal of pursuing a scientific education in England, Moses withstands great hardship – in Part Four 1877 to 1978 The Silence – while Daniel, contrastingly, is crushed by the injustices of their lives. Through the boys’ respective responses to their mission station upbringing, the novel (reminiscent, perhaps, of Lewis Nkosi’s (1986) Mating Birds, and Farida Karodia’s (1991) A Shattering of Silence) examines the impact of Christian colonial mission stations in southern Africa. Contrasted with their father Rev Whitaker’s zeal is his cousin Sir Roland’s attitude that “the real world is a little different from a mission station” (177). When Roland attempts to break the bond between the two boys, at pains for Daniel to understand that Moses is not his brother, Daniel emphatically clings to his belief that “Moses is [his] brother everywhere,” not only when they are at the mission station (212).

These tensions mount in Part Five 1878 My Brother Everywhere: between the two brothers, between them and Sir Roland, between the various thematic forces in the novel (for example, religion vs African spirituality; coloniser vs colonised; hu/man vs environment). The brothers’ bond is tested by the choice to either give up or go on: to return to their father’s mission station or to continue under Sir Roland’s patronage and eventually acquire an education in England. Moses is prepared to endure saying, “[i]f this farm has taught me anything, it’s that there’s no place in this colony for me. The AmaZulu think I’m a peculiar black umlungu, and the abelungu think I’m an impudent over-educated native” (232). For Daniel, though, endurance becomes impossible. He is in physical agony while on the hunting safari, in Part Six 1878 The Black Imfolozi, because of his empathy with animals whose fear and pain he feels – physically – when they are hunted and shot. Here Pitt juxtaposes magical realism, African Knowledge Systems (AKS), and African spirituality: Daniel describes his “body-jumping” (72, 134, 263, 307), during which he seems to enter and feel the animal’s pain, as something almost unbearable. He seeks help from a powerful sangoma. He is predisposed to accept the intervention of African spirituality from the ‘mystic’, having witnessed his mother’s healing through traditional medicine when he was a child (she was cured with the leaves and bark of the isibhaha tree). This particular sangoma is a specialist who, he is told, is “a doctor who enables the ancient spirits to speak to you with the whistling voices of the birds” (272). She explains how Daniel could free himself of his ability/affliction through ritual. Ultimately, overwhelmed by pain and injustice, Daniel takes matters into his own hands – in Part Seven 1879 Eye Brother Horn –with devastating consequences.

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In tracking the boys’ trajectory from childhood to early adulthood, while highlighting the effects of colonialism and of Christianity in the region, there is also a mapping of the ecological effects of colonial land use.

Pitt’s environmental concerns are the golden thread in this text. Though not overt, the environment is the dynamic backdrop to this bildungsroman.

Throughout the novel – from the opening scene where women gathering grasses are accosted by an angry rhinoceros, to the final paragraphs in which a dog chases a sandpiper, and the gift of clay animals is given – elements of the natural environment are a touchstone. The “more-than-human” (Ashcroft, Griffiths, & Tiffin 2007:71) is considered from multiple perspectives to show the effects of colonial enterprises on the landscape, and the subsequent effects on traditional, indigenous lifestyles.

As they travel across Natal to reach Sir Roland’s sugar estate, for example, they witness how much of the land is under crops of “coffee, cotton, and sugar cane” (194) where “[y]ou can almost hear the march of the sugarcane as it consumes ever widening tracts of grassland and forest to grow more sugar,” (194). They come across small traditional villages – umuzi – with “rising mounds of beehive huts surrounded by small fields of corn and vegetables” that are affected by the “pressing of the English farmers around them” and where there is the worry that, “[s]oon there will be no more place to graze our cattle” (195).

Felling trees to make way for sugarcane on Roland’s estate, Daniel considers how “the stumps and brush will be burned, the land will be ploughed and all traces of that chattering web of former lives will sink beneath the sugarcane” (210). He wonders: “does this stump remember being a tree […] does the earth remember the feel of the elephants’ feet?” (210).

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Eye Brother Horn is a compelling examination of the effects of colonisation on people and the environment, that is, on the human and the ‘more-than-human’; as well as an exploration of the life-changing impact of Christian missionary interventions in Natal. With its portrayal of brothers whose fates subvert stereotypically expected roles, it questions the in/ability to intervene in human and ‘extra-human’ lives and is a call to more conscious and empathetic interactions.

Bridget Pitt (2022) Eye Brother Horn | Catalyst Press | ISBN 978-1-946395-76-4

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Beverley Jane Cornelius is a lecturer at University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).

References:

Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth, Tiffin, Helen. 2007. Post-colonial Studies: The Key Concepts (second edition). New York: Routledge.

Karodia, Farida. 1993. A Shattering of Silence. Johannesburg: Heinemann.

Nkosi, Lewis. Mating Birds. New York: St Martins Press.

Pitt, Bridget. 2022. Eye Brother Horn. El Paso: Catalyst Press.


[1] Natal is today known as KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), a province of the Republic of South Africa.