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Specialists might want to give this page a miss! (Except for the criticism.) I admit to being a reader; I pretend to be a writer; but I lay no claim whatsoever to any skill as a critic. I have read some of what follows, but by no means all. My list of texts is arbitrary. It is intended to do no more than offer some pointers to a reader for whom African literature is an unexplored field.

This list excludes works which are in some way related to slavery or the slave trade.  For those, please click on The Slave Trade in Literature

FICTION & CRITICISM

GHANA

Aidoo, Ama Ata, Changes, A Novel, Sub Saharan Publishers, 1991

Armah, Ayi Kwei, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Heinemann, 1968

Darko, Amma, Beyond the Horizon, Heinemann, 1995

Darko, Amma, The Housemaid, Heinemann, 1998

Kwakye, Benjamin , The clothes of nakedness. (Heinemann,1998 ; African writers series), a novel on town life in Ghana

• Obeng, R.E. , Eighteen pence  9988550146 163pp.   1998 [publ. 1999] Sub-Saharan Publ.  
  • Written in 1943, this seminal work criticises colonial administration of justice. It is acknowledged as the first novel in English from The Gold Coast. Widely admired and discussed, it is an extended allegory extolling the virtues of a large family, honesty, and the rural life. The author draws attention to the relevance of customs and traditions to life, and to the conflicts and confusion created by the imposition of British colonialism and English law. Ultimately it is a moral fable vindicating the virtue of labour and the reward of an honest life. This new edition is introduced by Kari Dako, who has edited and annotated the original manuscript.

Patten, Margaret D., Ghanaian Imaginative Writing in English, 1950-1969, Dept. of Library Studies, University of Ghana, 1971. (bibliography)

Quote: A novel entitled Eighteenpence written by R. E. Obeng and published in England in 1943 is generally considered the first full-length novel written by a Ghanaian.  However, in 1911, Joseph E. Casely Hayford published Ethiopia Unbound. This was reprinted by Cass in 1969.  While this work is now studied primarily as "studies in racial emancipation," it is a work of fiction.

Sekyi, Kobina, The Blinkards, A Comedy (first performed in Cape Coast, 1915) Heinemann 1974 ISBN 0 435 00136 2

MARITA: or the Folly of Love. A Novel by A. Native
Newell, Stephanie - Editor  Notes, bib, index, x, 146pp, NETHERLANDS. EJ BRILL, 9004121862 2001 paperback 

Presents and contextualises what was probably the first West African novel in English. The anonymous writer's story critiques the Christian, Victorian model of marriage imposed on Africans, and was originally serialised in 40 episodes in a Ghanaian newspaper between 1886 and 1888.

WRITERS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES IN AFRICA

Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease (Nigeria)

Mariama Ba, So Long a Letter (Senegal)

Athol Fugard, Master Harold and the Boys (South Africa)

Ngugi wa Thiong'o, A Grain of Wheat (Kenya)

Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Weep Not, Child (Kenya)

Ben Okri, The Famished Road (Nigeria)

Ferdinand Oyono, Houseboy (Cameroon)

Ousmane Sembene, God's Bits of Wood.  (Senegal)

Wole Soyinka, Ake: The Years of Childhood (Nigeria)

• Chris Conte reviews Chinua Achebe's  Things Fall Apart.  Expanded Edition with notes.  African Writers Series Classics in Context.  Oxford and Portsmouth, N.H.:  Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1996. lviii + 148 Maps, glossary, bibliographical references, illustrations, list of characters, introductory essays. $13.95 (paper) ISBN 0435 905 25
  • Reviewed for H-AfrTeach by Chris Conte, Utah State University.
    <cconte@wpo.hass.usu.edu>
    
    Teaching African History through the Novel:      A Classic Improved
    
    Instructors presenting Africa's history to American high school and university students face problems particular to their endeavor. They must first convince students that Africa is not one country and, that in terms of physical and cultural geography, it is a very large and diverse place.
    
    There are, consequently, a number of regional and local histories of change and adaptation to internal and external forces.
    
    Students, on the other hand, are faced with history texts not only filled with unfamiliar peoples and place names but which also stress large diffuse processes -- the peopling of the continent, precolonial agricultural and industrial production and exchange, the slave trade, imperialism, colonialism -- rather than discrete events in succession. In short, they can become frustrated by the lack of a strong central narrative often presented in their other history courses.
    
    The incorporation of literature into the African history survey presents the instructor with a useful strategy to bring some of the complexity into focus. For this reason, Heinemann's African Writers' series, now in its 40th year of publication, has been a blessing to both students and teachers of African history.  Of the 350 Heinemann titles, the series' first publication, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, remains the most widely read and discussed.
    
    Most subscribers to H-AfrTeach will be familiar with the story of Okonkwo, Achebe's tragic hero from southeastern Nigeria's Igbo region who cannot cope with the late-nineteenth century collapse of his community's cultural institutions in the face of the British invasion of his homeland. Nor will they likely need to be told that Things Fall Apart presents students with a compelling vision of an African community in its cultural context. However, instructors should know that Heinemann has re-released Achebe's classic with 53 pages of introductory material, particularly two valuable essays which make important contributions to teaching the novel.
    
    In the first of these essays, "Chinua Achebe and the Invention of African Literature," Sam Gikandi explains the novel's early appeal and the cultural politics surrounding it. Gikandi suggests that Achebe's education in colonialism's Western literary tradition during the 1940s and 50s inspired him to represent the African experience invariably missing in novels about Africa. Thus Achebe sought to write in a way consciously different, both in form and in content, from Europeans like Joyce Cary and Joseph Conrad, who could write about Africans only as outsiders looking in.
    
    Gikani's essay further shows how Achebe forms the novel around the storyteller, in other words, a sympathetic insider who can nonetheless critique Okonkwo's blind commitment to Igbo cultural doctrine.  He also examines the wide appeal of Things Fall Apart to Nigerians, who, in 1958, were about to shun British authoritarianism and undertake to rule themselves as a nation-state, a political entity arguably unknown in precolonial African thought.
    
    In the second introductory essay, "Igbo Culture and History,"  Don C. Ohadike explains the diversity and cultural complexity of pre-twentieth century southeastern Nigeria. This section will be especially welcome to history students because it argues for the antiquity of Igbo settlement on the verdant landscape between the Niger and Cross rivers without implying stasis.  Ohadike highlights Igbo society's close association of religion, iron working and agricultural productivity.
    
    Furthermore, Ohadike explains the historical centrality of family, lineage and town rather than the ethnic group or "tribe" so often invoked in journalistic descriptions of Africa. With this knowledge, students can understand how, over a relatively small region, subtle differences can exist in language, social political organization, and religion. Moreover, they will see that Igbo allegiances are not primordial but shifting. In this vein, Ohadike elucidates the cross cutting regional ties of marriage change and culture.
    
    Perhaps Heinemann's introduction of its Classics in Context series with this new, expanded edition of Things Fall Apart, and its continued publication of other classics, will only enhance the English speaking students' understanding of the contradictions, tragedies, triumphs, ironies and paradoxes of Africa's history. It is a most welcome addition both to the corpus of African literature and the teacher's arsenal.
    
    Copyright (c) 1998 by   H-Net, all rights reserved.  This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if  proper credit is given to the author and the list.  For other permission, please contact <H-Net@h-net.msu.edu>.

   

• YOUR MADNESS, NOT MINE by MAKUCHI. OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1999.
  With an Introduction by Eloise Briere. ISBN 0-89680-206-X, $16.95.
  

  • FROM PUBLISHER'S BLURB:
    
    Women's writing in Cameroon has so far been dominated by Francophone writers. The short stories in this collection represent the yearnings and vision of an Anglophone woman who writes both as a Cameroonian and as a woman whose life has been shaped by the minority status her people occupy within the nation-state. The stories in Your Madness, Not Mine are about postcolonial Cameroon, but especially about Cameroonian women, who probe their day-to-day experiences of survival and empowerment as they deal with gender oppression: from patriarchal expectations to the malaise of maldevelopment, unemployment, and the attraction of the West for young Cameroonians. Makuchi has given us powerful portraits of the people of postcolonial Africa in the so-called global village who too often go unseen and unheard.
    
    FROM THE INTRODUCTION BY ELOISE BRIERE:
    
    "The characters Makuchi creates are survivors; they are scrappy and they are strong, especially the women. As we enter their world and see the neocolonial forces of gargantuan proportions that shape their daily living, Makuchi's pen guides us into a new literary space. She wields her pen like a pioneer's axe in the forest, clearing new spaces . . . that invite us to consider the realities we would otherwise never know."
    
    MAKUCHI was educated at the University of Yaounde (Cameroon) and McGill University (Montreal) and is now Associate Professor of English at The University of Southern Mississippi.

• A Womans Voice Edited by Mary Karooro Okurut et.al. 9970901036 100pp.   1998  Femrite
  • The first short story anthology by Ugandan women includes twelve stories. They vividly illuminate the courage and endurance of Ugandan women in the face of hardships and social injustice. The book is published by the publishing arm of the Association of Uganda Women Writers, as part of their remit of documenting womens feelings, thoughts and experiences, and creating awareness about the role of women in society.

   

• Butterfly Burning, Yvonne Vera, 1779090161 135pp.   1998  Baobab Books
  • The author is one of Zimbabwe's best known writers, winner of the Africa Region 1997 Commonwealth Writers Prize, the 1995 and 1997 Zimbabwe Publishers Literary Awards, and one of Africa's best known women writers outside the continent. This new novel is set in township life in the 1940s, its joys and sorrows, freedoms and restrictions, ebullience and disenchantments. It tells of a young woman mysteriously orphaned but with a hidden sense of her own freedom and independence. Her struggle is manifested in her happiness with an older man on the one hand, and her draw to other experiences. But the closely woven fabric of township life has a tight mesh, and reality is hard.

   

• The Invisible Weevil, Mary Karooro Okurut, 9970901028 206pp.   1998  Femrite
  • The author is a celebrated columnist, a former literature lecturer, and founder of the Association of Ugandan Women Writers. She is also a playwright and has published children s literature. This novel is a fictionalised record of Uganda s past tragic national experience. Spanning the decades of successive regimes, it covers the story of Africa s post-colonial political actors typified by the thinly disguised Presidents, Opolo, Duduma, Polle and Kazi. Weaving together strands of political and gender concerns, and employing humour too, the central image of the novel is the weevil.

   

• Memoirs of a Mother, Ayeta Anne Wangusa, 997090101X 73pp.   1998  Femrite
  • Written in the first person, this fictional biography tells the deeply moving story of a Ugandan woman forced to trade the romantic idealism of her youth for a mundane marriage, based on outmoded rules and obligations. Her quest to balance the need for social respectability with the dictates of her heart, lead to painful discoveries, which finally force her to assert her individuality against oppressive social norms. Described as highly economical and poetic, the novel illuminates remote corners of family life in modern Uganda.

• LINKS
  • Femmes écrivains et les littératures africaines. A very useful site
    Francophone African literature women writers ; background information, consult authors by countries, look at a few unpublished texts or glance at the many interviews published (in French) by the magazine Amina.
    http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/AFLIT/FEMEChome.html
    or in English
    http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/AFLIT/FEMEChomeEN.html#english

CRITICISM

• Porter, Abioseh Michael, West African Writers and the Dawn of the New Millennium

  • A New 'New' Jerusalem?
    West African Writers and the Dawn of the New Millennium
    by  Abioseh Michael Porter, Drexel University, Philadelphia PA
    Jouvert, A Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Published by the College of the Humanities and Social Sciences North Carolina StateUniversity Volume 4, Issue 2 (Winter 2000) http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v4i2/con42.htm
    
    Copyright © 2000 by Abioseh Michael Porter, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. Copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that the editors are notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.

  The decades of the eighties and early nineties must be seen as some of the worst periods of economic, social, and cultural dislocations in contemporary West African history. The recent unsavory political and social events in Africa -- ranging from the tragedies of Somalia, Liberia, Algeria, Sudan, Angola, Sierra Leone through the bloodbath in Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo and on to the potentially very explosive situation in Nigeria -- at times have created a sense of doom. One can say that, notwithstanding some qualified successes (South Africa, for example), the future of the continent seems apocalyptic. Such a situation has naturally led historians and political commentators to start asking some fundamental questions about the continent all over again. Problems such as the following, which seemed to have been addressed some time ago, are being raised afresh: "What went wrong?" "How did things come to such a pass?" "How could at least some of these tragedies have been avoided?" Of course, these are questions that many historians and several creative writers have asked during the past three decades. The creative writers have done this by, among other things, subverting traditional generic elements of the historical novel. Writers such as Ouloguem in Bound to Violence (Sphere 1968) and Armah in Two Thousand Seasons (Heinemann 1979) have used specific literary techniques (satire, distortion, hyperbole) to continue and at the same time to subvert the conventions of the historical novel.

  In what follows, however, I would like to demonstrate how this exciting phenomenon has been taken a step farther in some relatively new works. Because in some of these recent works, the respective authors seem to confirm the belief that politics deserves something better than mere irony, we see in novels such as Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah (1987), Syl Cheney-Coker's The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar (1990), Ahmadou Kourouma's Monnè, outrages et défis (1990), and T. O. Echewa's I Saw the Sky Catch Fire (1992), that these authors have not only used irony but have also added some new thematic and stylistic permutations to the African novel. In addition, they have exploited resources of traditional African folk literature (tales, legends, myths, etc.) to raise new questions about Africa's current predicament and, perhaps more significantly, to offer some convincing solutions for the continent's problems

  And so, while it has often been argued that various ills -- colonialism, imperialism, tribalism, neocolonialism, the actions of rotten politicians, stupid soldiers, and those of uneducated intellectuals, and an indifferent electorate and some others -- have been responsible for the present state of affairs, the writers under discussion, using varying degrees of apocalyptic elements and subversion of the historical novel as key forms, seem to suggest that it would be simplistic and perhaps even dangerous to continue to look at previous solutions as the way out for Africa in this new millennium. Unlike much previous writing, these authors seem to be moving away from the positions of "look at what has been done," "what can we do?" to a combination of "this is what has been done" and "this is what we should or must do."

  

  Apocalyptic writing, to be sure, does not always lend itself to one simple explanation. Nonetheless, a brief definition is necessary to help us understand its presence in some African fiction, and especially in Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah. It is generally agreed that apocalyptic literature involves "a record of divine disclosure made known through the agency of angels, dreams, and visions. These may take different forms: an otherworldly journey in which the 'secrets' of the cosmos are made known . . . or a survey of history often leading to an eschatological crisis in which the cosmic powers of evil are destroyed, the cosmos is restored, and Israel is redeemed. [1] But though it has long been common to explain apocalyptic writing by linking it with biblical, hermeneutic interpretation, my present purposes would be better served, if I briefly elaborate on some statements by Maxine Lavon Montgomery about the apocalypse in African American literature. According to Montgomery, "[i]n an apocalyptic novel the author responds to the crisis of the times, whether it is world war or sociopolitical injustice. But he [re]writes the apocalypse from the self-conscious position of one who is outside of the bedlam."   [2] In my view, this awareness of the "crisis of the times" -- often characterized by a lack of any seeming ironic detachment or neutral terseness of language -- also helps to make the theme of restorative power another major characteristic of apocalyptic writing. The battle lines between the besieged and their enemies (the offending majority) are not only clearly drawn but also often provide the location for the ethical, moral, and aesthetic values in this genre of writing.

  Achebe clearly does not seem content to be looking for divine intervention, apocalyptic as some of his (or even Cheney-Coker's) writing may seem. Achebe's fictional cosmos, like those of the other writers I discuss here, is fully grounded in the here-and-now material world of twentieth-century Africa. Thus it should not be surprising that the mood of political change in Anthills of the Savannah was immediately seen as another instance "of the phenomenon of military dictatorship. "  [3] Achebe, after all, can be said to express nearly all that is central to social upheaval and social turmoil in West African fiction. But this observation is true only up to a point because there is an essential and fundamental difference between Anthills of the Savannah and Achebe's previous novels. This vivid but also very poignant tale of oppression and redemption does not merely stand out because of a different technical complexity and verbal density; it stands out especially because of some of the solutions Achebe offers for the major problems in his fictional creation. His vision here, like those of Cheney-Coker and Kourouma, is clearly laced not only with apocalyptic elements but also some very credible and systematic socio-political solutions.

  As with other apocalyptic writings, Anthills of the Savannah is set in a period of tremendous social stress. Events in the novel take place about twenty years after those in Achebe's last major work of fiction, the equally political A Man of the People (Heinemann, 1966). And because Anthills chronicles the way in which a once fairly innocuous soldier descends to become a modern-day tyrant in the fictional West African country of Kangan, it might be tempting to see Anthills as just another work dealing with political corruption in Africa. It might likewise be tempting to see the work as Achebe's (long overdue?) nod to women, especially to their extraordinary, even if often unacknowledged, roles in the shaping of Africa. [4]

  Nonetheless, we may also read this work as one of the most striking interfusions of political trickery, unbounded ambition, betrayal, and exploitation on the one hand and as some of the most practical answers ever offered for contemporary problems in fiction on the other hand. Starkly put, Achebe does not shrink back from exposing and denouncing autocracy and corruption as well as some of the reasons for their continued existence. He shows us in Anthills that no matter how good "His Excellency's" original intentions might have been, from the moment we meet him barking orders and threatening members of his cabinet right up to the end of the novel, he is nothing but a tyrant. "The President-for Life" does not only treat his cabinet members with utter contempt and intimidation, but also demonstrates complete paranoia and pathological inferiority. It might seem appropriate that this is so because "His Excellency" knows that he is unqualified to lead. The narrator's sarcastic evaluation sums up "His Excellency's" character best:

  To say that Sam was never bright is not to suggest that he was a dunce at any time in the past or that he is one now. His major flaw was that all he ever wanted was to do what was expected of him especially by the English whom he admired sometimes to the point of foolishness.

  When our headmaster, John Williams, told him that the Army was the career for gentlemen he immediately abandoned thoughts of becoming a doctor and became a soldier. (44-45).

  This lack of fiber -- moral or intellectual -- on "His Excellency's" part will later on be a contributing factor to the murder of two of Sam's closest friends, Ikem and Chris. Encouraged by obsequious courtiers such as the despicable "Professor" Okong and the other "disciples" -- the cabinet is made up of twelve members -- Sam uses the state apparatus to intimidate and silence opponents (real and imagined). Like all bullies, he grovels toward seemingly superior power while crushing those under his authority. Thus even though he is extremely high-handed and vindictive toward the native Kangans, especially the Abazonians who have the temerity to make claims for that which is truly theirs, and even though Sam shows nothing but discourtesy and loathing for his cabinet and senior civil servants such as Beatrice, he allows the young and inexperienced American journalist, Lou Cranford, to be as condescending and rude as she wants to be toward him and others. Given his misguided sense of leadership and authority and his being prodded on by a bunch of toadies from whose viewpoint he can do no wrong, it is not surprising that "His Excellency" is shown trying to 'govern' the ungovernable. Force soon becomes his only instrument of choice for ruling.

  But one might say that topics such as these have been dealt with in works such as The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (Heinemann, 1968) and A Man of the People. Achebe's chief theme, then, is not so much political exploitation and human degradation but what can or should be done about such obstacles. Subverting perseverance -- a central feature of most apocalyptic literature -- for example, Achebe shows how the people of Abazon had endured their tribulations because they always believed, as the old man suggests, that at the end of the present crisis a new Jerusalem will emerge. What they and the other Kangans learn in the process, however, is that mere steadfastness and hope will not be enough. Some concrete steps will need to be taken to make the new millennium a better one for the Kangans.

  While we cannot, of course, claim that Achebe deliberately set out to write an apocalyptic novel, it can be said that the numerous sinister references and imagery of doom in Anthills give the work an apocalyptic quality. "His Excellency" and his cabinet seem to be linked pejoratively with Christ and his disciples as when, for example, the Attorney General, in the process of currying Sam's favor, says: "You know, Your Excellency it was the same trouble Jesus had to face with his people. Those who knew him and knew his background were saying: 'Is it not the same fellow who was born in a goat shed because his father had no money to pay for a chalet?'" (21-22). In the "Hymn to the Sun," Ikem the poet wonders what "hideous abomination forbidden and forbidden and forbidden again seven times have we committed?" (28). And what can be viewed as an even more fecund source for this line of interpretation is part of what Ikem says as he tries to explain to Beatrice (BB) the nature and purpose of revolutionary change:

  The sweeping, majestic visions of people rising victorious like a tidal wave against their oppressors and transforming their world with theories and slogans into a new heaven and a new earth of brotherhood, justice and freedom are at best grand illusions. The rising, conquering tide, yes; but the millennium afterwards, no! New oppressors will have been readying themselves secretly in the undertow long before the tidal wave got really going.

  Experience and intelligence warn us that man's progress in freedom will be piecemeal, slow and undramatic. Revolution may be necessary for taking a society out of an intractable stretch of quagmire but it does not confer freedom, and may indeed hinder it. . . . (90)

  Although no key can unlock all the doors to a writer's meaning, this passage provides a very good access to a convincing interpretation of Anthills of the Savannah. Ikem, for all his human flaws one of the most likable Achebe characters, seems to point out in word and action that there must be a new beginning, a new line of action, for the millennium. Unlike characters such as Odili in A Man of the People or the man who is the symbolically named protagonist in The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Ikem is quite specific about what can and should be done. He rightly admits to BB that he had been wrong in adopting the macho, male chauvinistic attitude that he had so often displayed toward women and for such a long time; when addressing the university students, he proposes a line of action that would have been relevant and applicable to any segment of the community:

  I have no desire to belittle your role in putting this nation finally on the road to self-redemption. But you cannot do that unless you first set about to purge yourselves, to clean up your act. You must learn for a start to hold your own student leaders to responsible performance; only after you have done that can you have the moral authority to lecture the national leadership. You must develop the habit of scepticism, not swallow every piece of superstition you are told by witch doctors and professors. I see too much parroting, too much regurgitating of half-digested radical rhetoric. . . . When you have rid yourselves of these things your potentiality for assisting and directing this nation will be quadrupled. . . . (148)

  For characters such as the baby Ama (Ikem and Elewa's daughter), her mother Elewa, BB, Braimoh, and all of the other survivors of Chris and Ikem -- those who will most likely continue fighting for the ideals for which Ikem, Chris, and others fell -- Ikem's words are both an inspirational legacy and a call for action. The oppression described in this work is not new. What is truly innovative is the creation of a new breed of fighters for justice -- male, female, young, old, urban, rural, illiterate, literate, middle class, working class, etc. -- who are going to pool all of their resources and use all just weapons of war to overcome tyranny. Fittingly, the baptismal ceremony for Ama[echina], the daughter of Ikem and Elewa (two fierce warriors for justice if ever there were warriors) serves as the starting point for this new beginning:

  She [Beatrice] picked up the tiny bundle from its cot and, turning to Elewa, said: "Name this child."

  "Na you go name am."

  "OK. You just saved a false step, anyway. Thanks. I will start afresh. . . .

  There was an Old Testament prophet who named his son The remnant shall return. They must have lived in times like this. We have a different metaphor, though; we have our own version of hope that springs eternal. We shall call this child AMAECHINA: May-the-path-never-close. Ama for short."

  "But that's a boy's name."

  "No matter."

  "Girl fit answer am also."

  "It's a beautiful name. The Path of Ikem."

  "That's right! May it never close, never overgrow."

  "Das right!"

  "May it always shine! The Shining Path of Ikem."

  "Dat na wonderful name."

  "Na fine name so." (206)

  That Amaechina will grow up in a world different from that of her parents and grand-parents, a world, to quote her late Uncle Chris, "which belongs to the people of the world not to any little caucus, no matter how talented" (215), is not in doubt. In the concluding scenes of the novel, Achebe emphasizes the point that it will take not only various committed groups and classes of society -- especially people of goodwill and fierce commitment -- to bring about positive change but also a real struggle for justice on all fronts. In the words of Abdul, the soldier turned double agent:

  "I say there is too much fighting in Kangan, too much killing. But fighting will not begin unless there is first a thrusting of fingers into eyes. Anybody who wants to outlaw fights must first outlaw the provocation of fingers thrust into eyes." (212)

  

  Abdul's analogy would most probably appeal to Syl Cheney-Coker of Sierra Leone. What Cheney-Coker seeks to do in his fiction and most of his poetry, as Achebe does in most of his novels, is to give not only a comprehensive and often bitter historical survey of his native Sierra Leone, thinly disguised in The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar as Malagueta, but also to show the need for genuine struggle as the true means for national liberation. In this latter work, Cheney-Coker documents how co-conspirators, indigenous and foreign to the country, gave rise to and even encouraged the savage exploitation of Sierra Leone's mineral and other resources. One can also surmise from the manner in which T. Obinkaram Echewa of Nigeria and Ahmadou Kourouma of the Ivory Coast depict the disastrous consequences of domestic and foreign exploitation of their respective countries, that they see history as a guide to understanding both the past and the present. What all four authors have in common, then, is a desire to serve as challengers both to the status quo of the present and to that of the past, a period often seen as once-glorious. The remaining three authors have chosen the historical novel as a major outlet to look back into the past in order to grapple with present realities. These writers also know, however, that using history as a guide to the present is a fairly commonplace procedure; they therefore have tried to include innovative strategies in their works. Above all, they have relied on the oral tradition as a major technical resource.

  The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar is an epic novel divided into four books, sandwiched between a prologue and an epilogue, that spans the entire history of Sierra Leone  .[5]. Using the familiar universe of realism and the chronological scope of the historical novel, it goes back to the time before the arrival of Pedro da Cintra, the Portuguese explorer who is supposed to have chosen the name Sera Lyoa (lion mountains) for what is now Sierra Leone and then combines elements of the fantastic and surreal plus actual historical details to show how the legendary Ausine Dunbar's dire predictions of the country's decline have come to pass. The world that Cheney-Coker creates is one in which we see verifiable historical forces at work, but it is also one that is not bound by regular notions of time and space. In parts, it seems like a combination of the worlds of Amos Tutuola's The Palm Wine Drinkard and Achebe's more 'realistic' worlds. Long before European intervention, for example, Alusine Dunbar (or Sulaiman the Nubian) accurately predicts, in very unflattering terms, the arrival of the Krios of Sierra Leone as well as the arrival of European colonialism:

  "One day a great disaster will take place here, and many years after that, black people from across the sea, who will be speaking a barbarous language, will come here with their wayward manners." He told them that although Almoravid diviners had come to Kasila [what is perhaps now Freetown, Sierra Leone] before him and had blessed the place and driven out all the djinns, there was nothing to save it from the plague of those people. But the citizens of Kasila were not to worry, because although the foreigners would control the place for one hundred and seventy-five years, and would establish a most spurious society with laughable manners, and would for a while live under the impression of being in control of their destinies, they would in the end be pushed aside by the 'tumultuous onslaught of the soapstone people.' Two hundred years later they would have become pieces in a museum, he concluded. (19)

  He is equally prescient and insulting about the coming of the Arabs:

  He revealed through the trembling looking glass at what time the scourge of the wandering Arabs would come, with their coral beads and Babylonian salt with which they would hypnotise the town and transmogrify the people. He announced with the incisiveness of a sabre that the town would grow lethargic again, and waking up would find the Arabs from the Shouf mountains, with their smell of garlic, their belch of onions, their parasitic breeding and pugnacious competitiveness, in charge of the town. (30)

  Dunbar also foresees the birth of "an emperor [Selassie] with a spurious claim to the lineage of the Queen of Sheba, who will feed meat to his lions" (21), the arrival of Jeanette Cromantine, the albino, and other characters. But the Nubian's predictions (right as they are) and his use of magic are only a small part of the fantastic world that Cheney-Coker creates. Readers are introduced very early to supernatural episodes such as the mysterious deaths of the guard dogs, the suicide-drowning of the hens, the disappearance of the "early warning" monkeys, and the actions of Fatmatta the bird-woman, the offspring of Sulaiman and his mistress, Mariatou Fatmatta's genealogy, her supernatural powers, and the episode describing the aftermath of her wedding to Camara the "handsome man," who turns out to be an albino, help to hasten the pace of the narrative, but they also clearly demonstrate Cheney-Coker's indebtedness to the oral tradition. When he echoes a version of a story such as this one that is found not only in Tutuola's works but indeed in many West African folk tales, the author uses the well-known motif of the wedding of the 'complete gentleman' to make the supernatural seem quite natural. Soon he uses the extraordinary powers of the 'scorpion' in Fatmatta's eyes to wreak revenge on those who torment her and her people, both in and out of slavery. So instead of just discussing rape and other horrors of slavery (as Ouologuem does in Bound to Violence, for example), Cheney-Coker uses the 'scorpion' in her eyes as a weapon to fight back; it helps render Mr. McKinley, her rapist-owner, impotent.

  Related to the theme of personal exploitation (as is illustrated by the attempted rape episode of Fatmatta by Mr. McKinley) are larger issues such as the causes and consequences of subjugation and true human freedom. Because The Last Harmattan is about slavery and its effects on both sides of the Atlantic, Cheney-Coker furnishes the reader with vivid descriptions about the lives of former slaves as they try make a new home on the West African coast and those Africans who still try to keep their people in captivity. Led by the Martinses -- Gustavius and his African-born wife, Isatu -- and Jeanette Cromantine, the returnees very quickly establish a settlement in Malagueta. The bulk of the novel then focuses on this new beginning.

  Aided by new arrivals such as Rodrigo, the Brazilian, and (later on) by other characters such as the black civil war veteran, Thomas Bookerman, Louisa Turner, Phyllis Dundas, and the brothers Farmer -- Richard and Gabriel -- the settlers are able to create farms, set up shops, build schools and even escape from some of the hostile indigenous forces. The quasi-idyllic surroundings are soon disrupted, however, by British colonialism. Motivated by greed, a racial superiority complex, and a spirit of adventure, the British Captain Hammerstone invades Malagueta, leading to a prolonged stalemate between his forces and those of the nationalists led by Thomas Bookerman. The war between the colonialists and nationalists provides a good opportunity for Cheney-Coker not only to offer a running commentary on those Africans who, just as at the time of the slave trade, sided with the enemy, but also to demonstrate an effective use of the supernatural. In fact, we can say that it is in scenes such as this confrontation between Bookerman and Hammerstone that the writer makes some of his finest use of the fantastic. As Bookerman leads a funeral procession -- the largest crowd of black people that Hammerstone had seen since he had first encountered them during a stop in Louisiana -- to the cemetery, the captain imperiously tries to stop it:

  "Stop, or I shall shoot," warned Captain Hammerstone.

  A hawk circled in the sky looking for a chick. Somewhere in the distant quiet came the echo of a thousand feet marching like a trained army. Captain Hammerstone raised his revolver to shoot. He aimed at Thomas Bookerman with a hand that trembled with the anxiety of not wanting to do what it had been commanded to do, and he squeezed the trigger and waited for the resounding evidence of his action. But instead of Bookerman, he saw the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, looking straight at him with the deadly eyes of a scorpion. He heard the bullet ricochet against the shell of an animal that had swum in the deepest rivers, over the longest resources of time, before surfacing to the shore to torment men like him and others who had the temerity to interfere with the dance of the spirits on their journey to a different home. (169)

  As in several other episodes, this passage creates the impression that there is a Manichean struggle in which forces of good, beyond normal human control and for quite a while, outwit those of evil. Writing in a manner suggesting that realist or naturalist techniques may not always be the best ways to convey certain ideas, Cheney-Coker allows his fiction to respond more experimentally, more boldly to the world of the fantastic. The spirit of the dead Santigue Dambolla (Isatu Martins' father) thus provides disembodied protection for his living wife, Sawida, and family. The diviner, Modiba, prognosticates quite correctly that the Lebanese, derisively described as "a monstrous horde of coral-bead sellers" (191), would dominate the commercial interests of Malagueta. Santigue Dambolla also sends grotesque signals -- in the form of the identical twin dwarfs -- from the dead to provide an explanation for his daughter's miscarriages and then offers a remedy for Isatu's seeming barrenness. And like Alusine Dunbar years before him, Garbage Martins foresees the arrival of "Arab traders hawking coral beads" (258).

  But Cheney-Coker also stresses the point that even though the supernatural does help the Malaguetans to a certain extent, the self-destructive tendencies of these people is such that not even extraordinary forces could save them. They become extremely complacent and imitative, not innovative, and are concerned only with tyranny and "illusory development":

  [Thomas Bookerman] viewed with contempt the beginnings of the rise of an oligarchy: men who only yesterday were shopkeepers with bad teeth and could barely read now ordered evening jackets in black Venetians and hopsacks; women who only yesterday were content to wear hand-me-downs and keep clean houses had taken to buying gold and parading in silk and brocade at church services.

  "Dis is inevitable," he told Phyllis. "Dey over de hill, and now dey want to have balls and parties like their masters in de other place." Nor was he surprised by the awe and respect with which some of the Malaguetans were beginning to recall the place which only a few years ago they had been only to eager to escape. (213)

  What we see in passages such as this one is clearly a shift in authorial attitude. Instead of presenting a situation where the supernatural is used to protect the Malaguetans, the author provides us with realistic descriptions of some of the internal and external conflicts that contribute to the collapse of the settlement. With snobbery, lack of imagination, and masochism becoming the norm among the powerful, it is not surprising that this phase of the Malaguetans' life comes to a climax with the imposition of white rule. In spite of the best efforts of fighting men such as Gustavius Martins, Sebastian Cromantine, Gabriel Farmer, Bookerman, and the 'women without men' such as Isatu Martins, Phyllis Dundas, and Jeanette Cromantine, the country quickly becomes a colony. Indeed, we now begin to see Alusine Dunbar's predictions enacted. By the time the visionary Garbage Martins -- son of Isatu and Gustavius -- meets with Alusine Dunbar and learns some more about the country's history, personages and impending doom, it is already too late. We are told that "nothing in [Dunbar's] occult weaponry had prepared for the vandalism that greeted him" when he comes back back a hundred and fifty years later. "The destruction has started," he says (289). Significantly, for Cheney-Coker as an artist and a Krio of slave ancestry, the pain as well as the distortions of slavery and colonialism are major but not the exclusive causes of Sierra Leone's problems. Continually using battles that help to define apocalyptic writing, he documents some of the other reasons for the country's misery: treachery, avarice, superiority, and inferiority complexes, and so on.

  Cheney-Coker often evokes folk beliefs and mystical powers as a means of partially explaining this destruction. He makes it clear that, although the Malaguetans may have brought some of these upon themselves, there is still a possibility of temporal salvation if they can use some of the attributes of traditional society -- human warmth, a concern for the feeling of others, and so on -- to do the right thing [5]. That is why when the mantle of leadership is passed on to Garbage, Alusine Dunbar reappears as his mentor, and aided by the spirit of Fatmatta the bird woman, Garbage is finally able to get rid of the colonialist 'snake' Hammerstone. But the negative changes in Malagueta have already been too dominant and the rest of the novel focuses on the rapid decline that leads eventually to the attempted coup with which the work starts. Betrayal, greed, misplaced priorities, a strong sense of decadence, and cultural and moral sterility merely pave the way for the tyrannical state that marks the beginning of the novel.

  One of the most interesting and strangest debuts in African fiction, The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar is probably the closest thing Sierra Leone has to a national epic. No author has set out more determinedly to capture in fiction the hopes, aspirations, false contributions, disappointments and despair of the Sierra Leonean people. The novel's scope, its inclusion of legendary heroes and heroines, its actions consisting of some acts of great valor, the presence of the supernatural, its myths of origins, the use of Alusine Dunbar as griot and the general use of elevated language, all help to emphasize the work's epic quality. This epic, however, is not a mere panegyric to the past: it is one that strains toward a vision of a genuinely new dawn. The author's sense of national history is one marked by revolutions in both thought and action, and by various struggles for liberation. The basic notion behind Cheney-Coker's prose seems to be a reminder to most Sierra Leoneans that their enemies are parts of the past and of the present; these enemies include both Sierra Leoneans and their foreign allies. The will not only to survive but also to lead a better life, he suggests, should therefore push his compatriots to choose on which side of the battle lines they want to be.

  

  If we accept that the theme of Cheney-Coker's novel is a fictional history in epic form of the rise, fall, and possible resurrection of a potential paradise, we can see the literary affinities it shares with Ahmadou Kourouma's Monnè, outrages et défi. In this novel, Kourouma also uses elements of the folk tradition to focus on the transformation and systematic degradation of a country with immense natural and other resources, from the time before European colonialism to the neocolonial period of post-independence. Kourouma stresses that the seasons of Monnè (woes or pain) that are played out in this fictional country (Ivory Coast?) had been envisioned centuries before and could have been avoided. They had been foretold way back in the twelfth century and, in fact, several messages had been sent to confirm that prediction. Djigui, the king of Soba, rejects the first messenger, claiming that the Europeans "ne pourront la passer que s'ils réussissent la tache impossible de reconstituer tes effets. Ils resteront englués comme des oiseaux pris au piège sur Kouroufi" (19) [could only get through if they performed the impossible feat of putting your belongings together. They will be stuck to the Kouroufi like birds caught in a trap  ].[6] With the advice of his supporters, he also dismisses a total of eight other emissaries who announce defeats of kings such as N'Diaye of Djolof and Ahmadou of Segou. Djigui then swears allegiance to Samory Touré, the legendary West African warrior-leader, but even this action is not enough to save Djigui and his people:

  Sur le chemin de retour, trois nuits successivement, Djigui fut réveillé par le meme cauchemar. Il était l'Almamy, un homme seul, assis dans sa peau de pri're, qui chaque après-midi. . . . C'est un rêve qui toute la vie reviendrait chaque fois qu'il se souviendrait de Samory. Les devins avaient expliqué qu'il signifiait que l'Afrique, un jour, ne verrait pas pendant d'interminables saisons, de nuit tomber. . . . (27)

  [On the return trip home Djigui was awakened three nights in a row by the same nightmare. He was the Almamy, a man alone, seated in his prayer skin, which every day.... This is a dream that would come back to him all his life long whenever he thought of Samory. The diviners had explained that it meant that there would come a period of interminable seasons when Africa would never see nightfall. . . ]

  This nightmare becomes a reality a few years later when Djigui's fortifications (both physical and metaphysical) are destroyed, marking the beginning of colonial rule. The novel ends with neocolonialism firmly in place.

  As Kourouma takes readers on this historical journey, he indicates in very explicit ways the debt he owes to the African oral tradition. In fact, his deft manipulation of some of the various resources of oral communication helps to him convey his message as forcefully and as convincingly as he does.   [7] We see this very early in his use of language. Speaking more in the manner of Achebe's narrators than, say, those of Laye, Oyono or most other francophone authors, Kourouma's narrator often uses the folk vernacular:

  Il les rappela ensuite.

  ---- Qui poss'de une mauvaise réputation ne ramasse pas de cadavre de chèvre derrière le village sans que naissent des soupçons. Sinon, qui sait ici l'intention réele du commandant? . . . Une chose cependant reste claire comme la paulme de la grenouille, et Bernier le savait bien. Yacouba n'est pas sans propriétaire et l'on ne frappe pas le chien dans les jambes de son maître sans frapper le maître. (175)

  [Then he reminded them.

  ---One who has a bad reputation can't pick up the corpse of a goat at the back of the village without giving rise to suspicions. Otherwise who here knows the commandant's real intentions? One thing remains clear, however, as the palm of a frog, and Bernier knew that. Yacouba is not without property and you don't hit a dog in his master's legs without hitting his master.]

  Kourouma's griots and interpreters commonly use the everyday language, proverbs, myths, and legends of their people because these interlocutors are aware of how such linguistic instruments can facilitate easy communication. But the author is also quite alert to the potentially manipulative uses of language. It is not surprising, then, that interpreters in this novel become mere mouthpieces, distorters and de facto enforcers of repressive laws and social customs. The interpreters scheme with colonialists, linguistically and otherwise, in the various forms of exploitation and degradation of the African people, especially women:

  "Le lieutenant sélectionna, parmi les filles peules vierges, les quatre ayant la peau la plus claire et le nez le plus droit; elles furent réservés aux deux Blancs. . . . L'interprète commanda qu'on les conduisit au marigot et les nettoyât dans tous les recoins et particulièrement sous les cache-sexe; elles étaient trop sales pour être consommées crues". (56)

  [The lieutenant selected, among the Peul virgin girls, the four who had the lightest skin and straightest nose; they were reserved for the two White men. . . . The interpreter ordered them to be taken to the stream and washed in every nook and cranny and especially under the panties; they were too filthy to be consumed raw.]

  The interpreters also use flattery to coopt traditional rulers (Djigui, for example) for the colonialist cause; and they refrain deliberately and in a self-serving manner from translating the truth about "le dénuement des villages . . . l'indigence des gens. . . . Les pays de Soba sont devenus exsangues" [the destitution of the villages . . . the indigence of the people. . . . The lands of the Soba have been bled to death] (110). Not surprisingly, the interpreters refuse to provide genuine information about World War ll, the French government's collaboration with Hitler, and especially about the large numbers of Africans being used as cannon fodder under Pétain's direction. In fact, Soumaré the interpreter, described as "la nocturne clabaud du commandant" [the commandant's nocturnal watchdog or gossipmonger] (115), confirms this linguistic conspiratorial role when he allows that his promotion to a civil service job is "une promotion que j'ai méritée pour mon rôle dans la pacification rapide, sans effusion de sang, des pays du Soba" ["a promotion that I earned for my role in the rapid, bloodless, pacification of Sobaland"] (70).

  The language manipulators, however, turn out to be just one of the many groups of exploiters. In scenes that eerily look like duplications and metaphorical representations of some contemporary events, the griot, who exaggeratedly comments that "Rien de plus méchant pour un Noir qu'un autre Noir" [Nothing is more spiteful for a black than another black], describes how some Africans have compounded the suffering and harsh treatment of their compatriots:

  Le pauvre diable capturé dans son village et descendu à Soba travaillait chez le sicaire, le représentant, le chef de canton et l'interprète gratuitement; l'interprète, le chef de canton, le représentant et le sicaire vendaient le travail du fatigué au plus offrant. Le système fonctionna si bien qu'on vit des hommes ayant quitté leurs villages effectuer six mois de travail au noir nègre (s'ils ne réussissaient pas à déserter) avant d'être présentés au Blanc complètement vides, maigres et maladies (les employeurs noirs nourrissaient très mal les manÏuvres à leur service (84).

  [The poor devil captured in his village and taken down to Soba would work for the hired assassin, the representative, the canton chief and the interpreter for free; the interpreter, the canton chief, the representative and the hired assassin would sell the labor of the worn-out soul to the highest bidder. The system worked so well that one saw men who had left their villages put in six months of black-market work (if they did not manage to run away) before being handed over to the White man, completely drained, skinny and ill (black employers provided very little food for laborers intheir service)].

  Anyone reading Monnè will quickly notice Kourouma's introduction of several sub-plots into the narrative, but the reader will also realize that the writer's overall concern is with freedom and the African's relationship to those evils that threaten freedom: tyranny, racism, bigotry, sexism, superstition, and dictatorship, among others. In fact, one can say that what manifests itself as a real kinship of artistic spirits between Kourouma and the other writers discussed in this essay is their call to people of good will to wage total, unrelenting war against the forces of domination and reaction. In discussing these seemingly intractable human problems, Kourouma allows us to see his need of the traditional resources of African story telling. This point needs some expansion.

  Clearly, Cheney-Coker and Kourouma want to elaborate on ideas expressed in novels such as Ouologuem's Bound to Violence and Armah's Two Thousand Seasons, two historical novels which stress that human exploitation is not merely skin- or color-based. Kourouma realizes that the sheer scope of the Monnè or woes (a perfectly acceptable -- and perhaps preferable term to monnew, which is used in the English translation of this novel -- in many West African languages) is such that he needs the kind of linguistic and cultural flexibility that will enable him to move rapidly between the distant historical past and a very modern present. This is why he does not rely on a single griot who remembers everything or a collective group of 'rememberers' to narrate the story. The character known as the Centenarian is, of course, the main repository of history and power; he is allowed to experience it all. Having arrived at age 125, when he seems to have stopped counting birthdays, he has not only experienced many forms of betrayal and treachery, famine, illness, death wars, in his own country, but also has visited his spiritual and cultural holy lands: Mecca and Paris. And being a wily old rascal purportedly armed even with some supernatural powers, he seems fully equipped to deliver information on legendary material, genealogy, historical data, and aspects of the future.

  But Kourouma makes it clear that problems such as senility, political instability, and so forth might prevent Djigui from paying attention to all of these details; so in accordance with an implied desire to give the reader the whole picture, the novelist allows other griot-narrators (Djeliba, Faudoua) to take over. The presence of these different voices -- and these are voices who for the most part want to be heard -- is one of Kourouma's most effective means of passing judgment on individual characters, on traditional Africa and its structures, on Europe and its colonial functionaries, and on all of those who simply want to bring in "les autres mythes: la lutte pour l'unité nationale, pour le développement, le socialisme, la paix, l'autosuffisance alimentaire, et les indépendances économiques; et aussi le combat contre la sécheresse et la famine, la guerre à la corruption, au tribalisme, au népotisme, à la déliquance, à l'exploitation de l'homme par l'homme" (287) [the new myths: the struggle for national unity, for development, for socialism, for peace, for nutritional self-sufficiency, and for economic independence; and also the fight against drought and famine, the battle against corruption, tribalism, nepotism, juvenile delinquency, exploitation of humans by their fellow humans] (287). Kourouma makes evident in statements such as these the types of cosmic battles between mighty opposites that must be fought if Africa is to become a genuinely free place. The confrontations between the perpetrators and their myths -- used in the derogatory sense of lies -- on the one hand, and the rest of the people on the other, must be understood by Africans if they are to know who is on the side of the enemy. Implied in all of this is a denial of all empty routines and false ethnic, racial, gender, or other essentialist solidarities. In other words, like Achebe, Cheney-Coker and Echewa, Kourouma disgards as solutions for his country's (and possibly Africa's) problems all comforting pieties devoid of meaningful action.

  

  My concern up to this point has been to show how Cheney-Coker and Kourouma use elements of traditional African oral communication to present events covering vast periods of time: events beginning in the thirteenth century in one work and in the fifteenth century in the other, and with both ending in the post-colonial period of the twentieth century. T. Obinkaram Echewa does not go that far back in I Saw the Sky Catch Fire, but his sense of history and the techniques he uses to make history his subject matter are no less significant or impressive. Using an actual war that had been fought between the Igbo women of Nigeria and British colonialists in 1929 as his focal point, Echewa makes expert use of the art of story-telling, of song and dance, and of conversational tone to convey his message. The powerful and important theme of how solidarity, fairness, and determination not only can stop tyranny but also can bring genuine liberation to all concerned forms the core of this novel. Thus, although the story is told primarily by and about women, Echewa wields the beauty and efficacy of African oral story-telling so that the work's ultimate meaning goes beyond the immediate experiences of the women. [8] His two-part narrative deals with several subjects: remembering, learning, forgiveness, understanding, courage, betrayal, determination, and so on. But what is underlined more than anything else is how the presence of solidarity, fairness, and determination will make a good home better, a loving family more loving, and a strong people more powerful. The appeal of such virtues should not mislead readers into thinking that Echewa is preaching an idealistic message about some lost paradise that is waiting to be regained. Rather, he seems to propose that a sensible solution to some of Africa's socio-cultural problems might lie in Africans reclaiming a way of life that had been present in many of their communities but that had also been traditionally gendered as female. No wonder he suggests, corollarily, that the absence of all of these virtues can lead only to slavery, in one form or the other, and ultimately to destruction.

  As the twenty-year-old Ajuziogu is preparing to leave his native village for Lagos en route to the States for higher education, he is given a thorough, tremendously enlightening and witty history lesson by his co-protagonist, his grandmother, Nne-nne. What starts off as a traditional valedictory speech by Nne-nne, Ajuziogu's only living relative, becomes a sustained monologue on several issues: Nne-nne's experiences in life (especially as a woman), male-female relationships in traditional African society, the disastrous consequences of domination of any kind (be it racial, sexual, or otherwise), cowardice, bravery, and a testimony about the solidarity of women, also known as "Oha-Ndom." Making the reader aware at every turn that the literary pedigree of this novel can be traced to the folk tradition of his people, Echewa allows the aged and experienced grandmother to exploit the full resources of oral tradition -- proverbs, riddles, fables, legends, myths, figures of speech dealing with nature, agriculture, etc. -- to teach her grandson about the long history of female abuse (physical and verbal). More significantly, she stresses the consequences of such behavior. Using an arsenal of rich and subtle techniques, Echewa works out various strategems that he thinks will help move Nigeria forward. One such strategy is his use of the theme of reconciliation.

  Reconciliation with both the beauties and the horrors of the past seems to be Nne-nne's watchword as she bids farewell to Ajuziogu, her grandson. This theme is sounded throughout the text. She jolts Ajuziogu and the reader into listening to her account of female oppression through distinctive techniques of narration and description. In rhetoric typical of her speaking style, this is how she describes the role of woman in the cycle of life:

  A woman is truly a hen. Every part of her body is demanded as sacrifice to one juju or another. No, less than a hen. A woman is nothing. Yet, a woman is everything! If a man is high like a tower, a woman is deep like a well! If a man is a mountain, a woman is the ocean! A woman is like a god! A woman's crotch is a juju shrine before which men always kneel and worship. It is their door into this world. That is why we always sing the Crotch Song whenever a baby is born. . . . Yet, men say, Nwanyi abugh ihie! A woman is nothing. (14)

  Nne-nne spends the bulk of the first part of the novel expounding four major issues for Ajuziogu: the bullying of women by men and its corollary, the cowardice often displayed by the men; the causes of the different war(s)-- anti-colonial, anti-tax, anti-male oppression, and anti-hostile traditions; the role of African co-conspirators in the exploitation of their motherland; the positive effects of solidarity and support on the individual or the group. We notice that whether she is describing the differences between the way the men fought their battles and the manner in which the women fought theirs or whether she is describing other events, the means chosen by Nne-nne to instruct her grandchild are totally in accord with her own personality: simple yet knowing, comprehensible but also uncompromisingly tough on principle, straight-forward, humorous (when necessary), and objective.

  You heard of the Enyimba War at Agalaba Uzo ten years ago, which started because a White man shot six men to death for refusing to dig coal for him at Elugwu. The men were imitating Ndom ("modern type of housewife," according to the book's glossary) then, but how long did they last. One week and no more. Yes, Ndom was like bush fire in the dry season. Ndom put down babies, market baskets, farm baskets, weeding hoes, and pounding pestles. Doused their cooking stands with water and asked their husbands to fend for themselves and feed the babies. . . . Nwa-D.C. [District Commissioner] thought he could buy peace by handing over the chieftaincy caps of all the Yellow Cap Chiefs that were the cause of the trouble. Ndom took the caps but continued fighting. The White man thought he could buy peace with Ndom by putting Chief Njoku Alaribe of Ikpatu Ala in prison. Ndom set the prison on fire, freed the prisoners, sat on the head warder, and captured Chief Alaribe. The White man took Ugbala hostage. Ndom took the White woman hostage.

  "Ala hentu!"

  The earth heaved! The earth heaved and heaved again in many places at once! (11)

  Her point in this and several other vignettes -- such as those dealing with Ufo-Aku and her brother-in-law, (11-13), the conflict between Chief Onyiri-Dike and Ndom (80-81), and Ahunze "the Impossible Wife" and the men of Ama-Nkwo (125-126) -- is the same. Instead of the men providing support (not necessarily protection) for their fellow citizens (the women) and defense of their land and traditions, they simply behave like bullies and cowards. They fight very hard to trample the rights of women while tolerating the worst forms of oppression from colonialists.

  The contemporary quality of the anguish expressed in I Saw the Sky Catch Fire is highlighted and reinforced by Nne-nne's chatty, even conspiratorial tone. Because her rhetoric suggests not only her closeness to Ajuziogu but also her credibility as a narrator with axes to grind only for genuine offenses, the reader is drawn quite easily to 'witness' the events and personalities being presented. Nne-nne's ability to provide concrete, at times repetitive, but also convincing evidence in non-convoluted ways -- a technique crucial for story-telling in oral societies -- makes her stories of abuse, ignoble behavior, and regressive traditions sound quite convincing. In fact, the college-educated ethnologist, Mrs. Elizabeth Ashby-Jones, completely misinterprets this manner of narration and interpretation of phenomena when she conjectures (that's the kind of language Ashbury-Jones would use) that perhaps the African cannot think logically because they observed and were able to translate their observations into witticisms and proverbs, but never went beyond discrete proverbial observation. No abstraction or series of abstractions linked by some rule of logical formulation into hypotheses and theories. Thinking (cogitation), in other words. How did they think? she wondered. (98-99)

  By making Nne-nne describe and emphasize her world in terms she knows best rather than in modes valorized by official Western discourse, Echewa enables the reader to move with ease from the grand issues of the society to very personal ones, such as the incongruous demands of society on the individual. The themes of subjugation and liberation (female or otherwise) are not presented through pretentious or detached theories and discussions but through simple stories and analogies. The story of the encounter between the fanatical census-taker Sam-el, or of the 'unstoppable counter' who kicks a defenseless pregnant woman and the women who take their revenge on him, seem more convincing, and have the potential of generating more empathy from the reader, than documents produced by 'cogitators' would have been. Correspondingly, the benefits of solidarity and a united front are stressed not by political doctrines or scholarly documents but by several fine descriptions and reenactments of actions taken by women. Nne-nne and her colleagues do not only tell Ashby-Jones about solidarity; they act it out and extend it to her during her captivity. It is also in this vein that Nne-nne handles other subjects such as the arrogance of colonialism, the real danger of domestic violence, and clitoridectomy.

  But Echewa's manipulation of Igbo oral traditions does not end with the use of a female griot and her expertise in the verbal arts, masterful as those are. Group performance, which traditional society encourages as much as solo performance, also takes center stage: "Back in 1929, Ndom had decided that the best way to fight the seemingly invincible White man was not with guns or strong talk, but with Ebube Ndom, the awesomeness of the Solidarity of All Womanhood, the Mother and Nurturer of all humankind, kneaded together by Mgbara Ala, the Goddess of the Unity of All Land" (204). In addition, traditional metaphysical explanations are provided to account for certain occurrences. Nne-nne attributes supernatural power -- Ebube -- to the old man, Nwa-Agwu, who inflicts chills on a school teacher, Mr. Ukah, when the latter unwittingly insults him; she also attributes them to another villager, Koon-Tiri, whose Ebube allowed him to pin "Fada [Father] Getz, the R.C.M. (Roman Catholic Mission) priest at Agalaba Uzo, as he was saying Mass, and the priest could not recite the words he supposed to say at Consecration, but kept repeating Hoc est enim . . . Hoc est enim . . . like a scratched record" (196). Adding an ironic twist by making some role reversals in the use of the spiritual, commonly found in apocalyptic writing, Echewa exploits episodes such as these to show how the battle in this millennium will also include revaluations of academic as well as spiritual leaders in society.

  As I stated previously, Echewa shares with Cheney-Coker and Kourouma not only a common interest in the oral culture of Africa but also an interest in the manner in which such folk wisdom can be used for human liberation. This position is made quite evident in the closing scenes of I Saw the Sky Catch Fire. In these final pages, the same set of issues that had confronted men and women are magnified because they become very personal and immediate for one of the co-protagonists, Ajuziogu. When he returns from the United States he has come full circle in the process of acquiring traditional as well as non-traditional wisdom. Nne-nne has been waiting for him not only because she wants to see him one last time and bequeath the land to him but, especially, because she wants to give him a final lesson on two of her favorite subjects: solidarity and fairness.

  This lesson is necessitated by the problem Ajuziogu is confronted with upon his return. His wife Stella, whom he had left for five years while studying abroad, is now pregnant for another man. As with many humans whose egos and pride are often hurt for being subjected to the same kinds of experiences they would most likely subject other people to, Ajuziogu's instinctive reaction (although unstated) is to abandon Stella. It is at this stage that the three most important women in Ajuziogu's life -- Nne-nne, Mama-Stella, and Stella herself -- help him understand and come to terms with the fact that where there is unity and fairness even the most intractable problems can be resolved. This is a lesson from which the society at large can benefit. Undoubtedly, Echewa's sense of regeneration is reflected in the strength and power he places in the female community. Urging the men, both implicitly and explicitly, to respond to the interests, values, and assumptions of a changing world, he provides us with situations in which all individuals -- and especially men -- must make a determined effort to heal rifts cuaserd by evils such as traditional patriarchy, colonialism, neocolonialism, and diasporic misunderstandings and tensions. One method he recommends is for society to learn, quite frankly, from its female members. The beginning of this healing and learning process is unmistakably underscored at the very end of I Saw the Sky Catch Fire. The novel concludes with a new side of Ajuziogu beginning to emerge. Rebuffing the counsel of De-Odermelanem, a potent symbol of the old ways of thinking, and one of his late father's friends, Ajuziogu begins to show that the true manhood is not a battle of men against women, but a fight of men with women against all that is unjust. In fact, the reader is left with the distinct impression that it is in Stella's yet to be born child (and who has also now become Ajuziogu's child), representing progressive man and woman (like Achebe's Amaechina in Anthills), that Africa's future lies.

  * * *

  In Toward the Decolonization of African Literature, Chinweizu, Jemie and Madubuike launch some angry, vituperative and, at times, even unjustified attacks on those writers and critics of African literatures whom they deem to be Eurocentric. One of the biggest and most positive contributions this "troika," as Soyinka derisively calls them, has made, however, is in calling attention to and stressing the need for exploring the full range of devices available for making African novels not only more flexible but also more authentic to local experience:

  If a flavor of African life is therefore to be captured in novels written in English , the English [or any other] language has to be flexed and bent to allow those idiomatic and rhetorical usages to be presented. . . .

  If the stylistic features of African oral narrative are to be captured, it is necessary that the full range of linguistic resources of African prose traditions be rendered in English. Proverbs, legends, fables, puns, jokes, similes, metaphors, allusions, declamatory speech, rhetorical devices of conversation and public oratory -- these are just some of the resources that need to be marshaled and so rendered that their flavor comes out in English. (262-63)

  In fact, Achebe, Cheney-Coker, Echewa, and Kourouma seem to have heeded their advice. These authors have capitalized on resources such as apocalyptic imagery and aspects of the oral tradition to make very convincing points about what should be done about West Africa's future  . [9] Indeed if, as is often the case, it is agreed that a literary genre is like a family composed of mutable members who nonetheless exhibit essential likenesses, we can say that these new historical novels are testimony to the living nature of genre. By using some elements of apocalyptic writing and by employing rhetorical devices from the African oral tradition, Achebe, Cheney-Coker, Echewa, and Kourouma indicate ways in which readers of West African literature might approach the new millennium with revalued cultural weapons. Because, in essence, these authors see the genuine liberation of the West Africans they are depicting as central to their craft. The battle, they seem to suggest, is far from being won, and it will not be won merely by using empty moral jeremiads, as some previous protagonists of West African fiction seemed to think. These authors point to concrete ways in which the new century might become better than most of the preceding ones have been for West Africa.

  Notes

    1. Metzger and Coogan; for more definitions of the apocalypse and fine reviews of apocalyptic writing, see Ahearn, Keller, Montgomery, and Weber. Back

    2. Montgomery 4-5. Despite minor qualms about Montgomery's unreserved acceptance of some essentialist statements John Mbiti makes about futurity and the hereafter among Africans, I still find her study quite interesting and relevant to aspects of my essay. Back

    3. Enekwe 35. Immediately following the publication of Anthills of the Savannah, many of the essays written on that novel, like Enekwe's, tended to focus on the theme of dictatorships (military and civilian). Some more recent essays, such as Leonard A. Podis and Yakubu Saaka's "Anthills of the Savannah and Petals of Blood: The Creation of a Usable Past," tend to contrast the corrupt present with a much more bearable, perhaps even magnificent, past. Thus, Podis and Saaka, comparing Anthills with Ngugi's Petals of Blood, suggest that: "Thematically, too, both novels express, and attempt to resolve, a complex ambivalence towards sociocultural modernization, recognizing its powerful appeal, but criticizing it for its association with corruption and for its ill fit with traditional values and contemporary cultural needs" (294-295). While the idealization of the past is certainly not as strong as they seem to suggest in any of the novels I am discussing here, Podis and Saaka are quite correct when they hint of a new Jerusalem in the person of Ama Amechina, Elewa and Ikem's daughter, and her generation (297). Back

    4. Although I first read Obioma Nnaemeka's essay (137-160) only after my essay had been accepted for publication, I found her piece to be quite stimulating. Not only is it enlightening in its treatment of gender relations, it is also quite effective in its presentation of the combination of both the African oral and the Judaeo-Christian traditions in Achebe's works. Back

    5. A fine critical analysis of Syl Cheney-Coker's The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar is Brenda Cooper's chapter "The Plantation Blood in his Veins: Syl Cheney-Coker and The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar" (115-155). I may not always agree with Cooper's analysis of the novel (for example, I think she seems to have missed Cheney-Coker's ironic treatment of aspects of traditional African life when she refers to the "novel's politically conservative urge towards the myth of past origins -- the base of national reconstruction" (154). But even if one takes issue with a few specifics of Cooper's reading, one cannot help but recognize the considerable power of her fundamental arguments. Back

    6. The translations into English from Monnè are mine, although I also read Nidra Polleer's translation, entitled Monnew. Back

    7. Critics have often, and quite rightly, highlighted Kourouma's indebtedness to the African oral tradition. Ahmadou Koné provides careful documentation and ample discussion of such use in his work. As an example of Koné's efforts, let us look at what he says of Kourouma and the latter's use of African oral culture, especially his native Malinke language:

  " La réussite de Kourouma vient de l'adéquation heureuse entre la langue française adaptée judicieusement à l'imaginaire malinké. . . . La volonté de Kourouma de décrire de l'intérieur son imaginaire africain l'a amené à écrire deux langues à la fois. Kourouma écrit une langue française mue par la langue malinké. La réalisation de cette langue double qui a déjà surpris, charmé, ou choqué, n'a été possible que grâce à un système qui montre toute sa fiabilité dans Monnè, outrages et défis. . . . Au delà des mots, on peut en effet remarquer dans la langue du roman des tournures d'esprit africaine, des proverbs, bref, ce qu'on peut appeler les formes conventionnelles" (156-158).

  [Kourouma's success comes from the pleasant appropriateness between the French language adapted judiciously to the imaginary Malinké. . . . Kourouma's desire to describe his imaginary African from the inside led him to write two languages at the same time. Kourouma writes a French language transformed by the Malinké language. The fulfillment of this double language which already surprised, charmed, or shocked, was only made possible thanks to a system which shows all its reliability in Monnè, outrages et défi. . . . Beyond words, one can indeed notice in the language of the novel turns of phrase with an African bent, proverbs, in short, what one calls conventional forms.] Back

    8. Combining and applying theories of translation, linguistics, genre criticism, ethnography, and semiotics, Bella Brodzki provides a rich and rewarding analysis of this Echewa novel. Her statement that "Echewa's ensemble of narrative strategies in this richly textured novel, in particular its foregrounding of the complicity between translation and ethnography, is a version of resistant translation" (218) is right on target. Back

    9. All four writers discussed here also seem mindful of a most important point made by Eileen Julien about the relationship between orality and the written literatures of Africa. While these authors recognize and celebrate the significant role of their respective oral cultures, they do not deify those cultures. As Julien remarks, "To exalt orality and oral traditions, then, is as ultimately sterile and blinding as to malign them. The exaggerated dichotomy between the orality of Africa and the writing of Europe took in the past a different form (orality as primitive/writing as evolved) which we have long dismissed. But it nevertheless reproduces itself as the object of literary criticism in the propensity to elevate the oral mode and world above the literate/technological one" (23). Back

  Works Cited

  Achebe, Chinua. Anthills of the Savannah. New York: Anchor, 1987.

  ---. A Man of the People. London: Heinemann, 1969.

  ---. Things Fall Apart. London: Heinemann, 1968

  Armah, Ayi Kwei. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. London: Heinemann, 1968.

  . Two Thousand Seasons. London: Heinemann, 1979.

  Ahearn, Edward J. Visionary Fictions: Apocalyptic Writing from Blake to the Modern Age. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1996.

  Brodzki, Bella. "History, Cultural Memory, and the Tasks of Translation in T. Obinkaram Echewa's I Saw the Sky Catch Fire." PMLA, Vol. 114, No. 2 (March 1999): 207-220.

  Cheney Coker, Syl. The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1990.

  Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa Jemie, and Ihechukwu Madubuike. Toward the Decolonization of African Literature, Vol. l. Washington, DC: Howard UP, 1983.

  Cooper, Brenda. Magical Realism in West African Fiction: Seeing With a Third Eye. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.

  Echewa, T. Obinkaram. I Saw the Sky Catch Fire. New York: Plume, 1992.

  Enekwe, Onuora Ossie. "Chinua Achebe's Novels." In Perspectives on Nigerian Literature 1700 to the Present, Vol. Two. Ed. Yemi Ogunbiyi. Lagos: Guardian Books, 1988. 31-37.

  Julien, Eileen. African Novels and the Question of Orality. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1992.

  Keller, Catherine. Apocalypse Now and Then: A Feminist Guide to the End of the World. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.

  Koné, Ahmadou. Des Textes oraux au roman moderne: Étude sur les avatars de la tradition orale dans le roman ouest-africain. Frankfurt: Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, 1993.

  Kourouma, Ahmadou. Monnè, outrages et défi. Paris: Seuil, 1990.

  Metzger, Bruce M. and Michael D. Coogan, eds. The Oxford Companion to the Bible. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993: 34-36.

  Montgomery, Maxin Lavon. The Apocalypse in African-American Fiction. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 1996.

  Nnaemeka, Obioma. "Gender Relations and Critical Mediation: From Things Fall Apart to Anthills of the Savannah." In Challenging Hierachies: Issues and Themes in Postcolonial African Literature,. Ed. Leonard A. Podis and Yakubu Saaka. New York, Washington, D.C: Peter Lang, 1998, pp. 137-160.

  Ouologuem, Yambo. Bound to Violence. London: Sphere, 1973.

  Podis, Leonard A.and Yakubu Saaka. "Anthills of the Savannah and Petals of Blood: The Creation of a Usable Past." In Challenging Hierachies: Issues and Themes in Postcolonial African Literature. Ed. Leonard A. Podis and Yakubu Saaka. New York, Washington, D.C: Peter Lang, 1998, pp. 294-309.

  Weber, Eugen. Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs Through the Ages. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1999.

  
  

• Emerging Perspectives on Ama Ata Aidoo, edited by Ada Uzoamaka Azodo and Gay Wilentz: Paperback:  ISBN:  0-86543-581-2 $24.95  Hardback:   ISBN:  0-86543-580-4 $89.95 374pp.
  • This ambitious and comprehensive volume of essays, edited by two committed scholars, mirrors a collection of insights, analyses and approaches to the works by Ghana's foremost woman writer, who has prevailed for over thirty years on the African literature scene by her sheer tenacity of purpose and the freshness of her writing. Ama Ata Aidoo comes across as a sturdy, well-rounded, dignified and reputable writer of world class… 
    
    Prof. Ernest N. Emenyonu says, "The editors have finally filled an embarrassing gap in African feminist studies."
    
    Prof. Obioma Nnaemeka writes, "…this collection…memorialize Ama Ata Aidoo's deep sense of history and consciousness of a feminism that is unyielding in its inscription of the balance and wisdom of Africa."

• Samba Gadjigo et al, editors, Ousmane Sembene, Dialogues with critics and writers 123pp. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press; distributed in the UK by Eurospan. Paperback, Pounds 13.20. - 0 87023 889 2.
  • As writer and director of at least seven full-length feature films and many documentaries, Ousmane Sembene is probably Africa's best-known film-maker; he is also the author of nine volumes of fiction. Given his long career, beginning with the publication of Le Docker Noir in 1956, it is surprising that so little has been written about him, and this collection of essays, interviews and dialogue provides useful supplementary information and commentary.   C. L. Innes TLS Dec 2, 94

   

• Kenneth W. Harrow. Thresholds of Change in African Literature, The emergence of a tradition 384pp. Currey. Paperback, Pounds 12.95. 0 85255 532 6.
  • Harrow's analysis of individual texts is detailed and perceptive. His discussion of the intertextuality between works, and between literary and oral traditions provides many new insights.    C. L. Innes TLS Dec 2, 94

   

• Bernth Lindfors Black African Literature in English, 1992-1996 xlii + 654 pp. ISBN 0-85255-565-2 £90.00/US$140.00 casebound Oxford: James Currey Publishers, October 2000.

  • This is the first title just published by James Currey under the Hans Zell Publishers imprint. The volume is a continuation of Bernth Lindfors's earlier volumes, the most recent of which was Black African Literature in English, 1987-1991 (London: Hans Zell Publishers, an imprint of Bowker-Saur, 1995), which was the joint winner of the ASA's Africana Librarians Council 1996 Conover-Porter Award. The new volume lists 13,500 entries - some of which are annotated to identify the authors discussed - covering books, periodical articles, papers in edited collections and selective coverage of other relevant sources. Also included are a substantial number of African newspaper and magazine articles. Indexes by author, title, subject, and geographical index.

   

• Marfo, Kofi, INTRODUCTION TO GHANAIAN LITERATURE

  • A collection of stories and dramas in which 'we find tyrants, fetish priests, slave traders, naughty princesses, warlords and witch doctors'. Bib, 223pp. UK . MINERVA PRESS, 07541091191999 PB GBP12.50

   

• Paul H. Thomas reviews Joyce Moss and Lorraine Valestuk. African Literature and its Times: Profiles of Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events that Influenced Them.
  • H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-AfrTeach@h-netmsu.edu (July 2001)
    
    Joyce Moss and Lorraine Valestuk. African Literature and its Times: Profiles of Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events that Influenced Them. World Literature and Its Times, V. 2. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. xlv + 544 pp. Illustrations, bibliography and index. High school and college. $145.25 (cloth), ISBN 0-7876-3727-0.
    
    Reviewed for H-AfrTeach by Paul H. Thomas <phthomas@uclalumni.net>, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford University.
    
    African Literature with a View towards History
    
    This is the second volume in this well-received series edited by Joyce Moss and Lorraine Valestuk. The first volume (on Latin American literature) won the American Library Association's RUSA (Reference and User Services Association) award as one of the outstanding reference works of 1999. There is no doubt this volume will be as highly acclaimed.
    
    The basic premise of the editors of this series is that they feel fiction is an excellent tool that may be used to help students understand both the differences and similarities between the various peoples and cultures of the world. They feel that a literary work can inculcate in a student a feeling for a time period or issue that would normally be lacking in a textbook. Conversely, the editors also feel that full understanding of a literary work requires knowledge of the social, cultural and historical milieu in which it was written.  Therefore, each title analyzed in one of these volumes includes information about the historical circumstances in which it was conceived and written and how it helps us understand some aspect of history.
    
    The volume under review analyses fifty African literary works that were selected by university professors with an eye to representing as great a number of the literary-historical connections mentioned above as possible. Each work chosen to be in this volume is felt, therefore, to illustrate some particular point in the historical development of the peoples of Africa. In addition, consideration in selecting the works to be included was also given to how often a literary work is studied. The editors consciously have tried to select authors who were representative of all races and a variety of ethnic groupings, and care was taken so that both men and women authors were represented. Works are included from and about all geographical regions, including North Africa and Egypt. While most of the selected works were originally published in English, some were first published in Arabic, Afrikaans, French, Portuguese or indigenous African languages.
    
    There was also an attempt to represent a variety of literary genres, including, for example, diaries, speeches, folklore and market literature.  While there were a few offerings of pre-colonial literature, the vast majority of titles discussed were taken from the colonial and post-colonial periods.
    
    The works are arranged alphabetically by title, and each is subsequently arranged as follows. There is a general introduction that places the work in context and provides a basic synopsis. Next there is an attempt to juxtapose the work with historical events that took place elsewhere at the time the story takes place. The third section summarizes in greater detail the plot, discusses how the work is particularly illustrative of some historical theme, looks at sources that may have inspired it, and finally takes a look at its overall literary context. A fourth section places the literary work more fully in the context of historical events happening when it was written, and a fifth section presents a list of bibliographical references (both works cited and suggestions for additional reading). In addition, wherever possible, primary sources are given through the use of quotations in the text and sidebars. The sidebars also provide additional details and amplify issues raised in the text. The authors have done a good job in trying to define terms that are specifically African. A short, but useful introduction and a Chronology of Relevant Events that compares historical events in Africa with related literary works precede the entries.
    
    Some of the titles discussed are certainly the classics of African literature. We find Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton; The Rivonia Trial Speech by Nelson Mandela; Efuru by Flora Nwapa, So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba; God's Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembene; The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon; Equiano's Travels; and Ibn Battuta in Black Africa.   From those titles alone one can see four of the major themes being covered are apartheid, women's place in society, resistance to colonial rule, and travels in the pre-colonial era. While not all of the other titles are as well known, all do their jobs well in illustrating the varieties of the African experience through literature. The scope of ideas, cultures, politics and history presented in this selection of literary works is excellent.
    
    While this series is evidently aimed at a secondary school audience, and certainly belongs in any high school library, it would also be a welcome addition to public library and college collections as well. It should also be of immense value to teachers who are looking to supplement reading lists for social studies or history classes and who have little or no background in African history or literature.
    
            Copyright 2001 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses contact the Reviews editorial staff: hbooks@mail.h-net.msu.edu.

   

• JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CULTURAL STUDIES Special Issue: Literature and history

  • H-NET List for African History and Culture [H-AFRICA@H-NET.MSU.EDU]
    Date:   Tue, 14 Dec 1999
    From:   Peter Limb, U Western Australia
           <plimb@library.uwa.edu.au>
    
    JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CULTURAL STUDIES
    (previously African Languages and Cultures)
    
    Volume 12 Number 2  December 1999
    http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
    
    Special Issue: Literature and history
    
    Literature and History: Introduction Nana Wilson-Tagoe & Kwadwo Osei-Nyame 117
    
    Social history, literary history, and historical fiction in South Africa Michael Green 121
    
    Pan-Africanist ideology and the African historical novel of self-discovery:  the examples of Kobina Sekyi and J. E. Casely Hayford Kwadwo Osei-Nyame 137
    
    Narrative, history, novel: intertextuality in the historical novels of Ayi Kwei Armah and Yvonne Vera Nana Wilson-Tagoe 155
    
    The politics of Black Identity: Slave Ship and Woza Albert! Francis Ngaboh-Smart 167
    
    Linkages of history in the narrative of Close Sesame Raymond Ntalindwa 187
    
    'Traduttore Traditore'? Alexis Kagame's transposition of Kinyarwanda poetry into French Anthere Nzabatsinda 203
    
    H-Africa has permission to post this TOC, but for furtherdissemination
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    Copyright Carfax Publishing Ltd, 1998
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    PO Box 25, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 3UE, UK.

   

• Quayson, Ato, Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice or Process? Blackwell 224 pages  November 1999 ISBN: 0-7456-1712-3

  • This important new book is a critical introduction to the rapidly expanding field of postcolonial studies. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the author draws on literary criticism, philosophy, anthropology, history and politics to develop a distinctive account of postcolonialism.
    
    Quayson discusses key debates in the field, including the implications of various forms of interdisciplinarity for postcolonial studies, the relationship between indigenous knowledge and contemporary historiography, the links between postmodernism and postcolonialism and the insights of feminism for postcolonial theory.  He explores the relevance of these debates for cultural, literary and political criticism.
    
    Throughout the text, he stresses the importance of seeing postcolonialism as a process of analysis which does not simply refer to another stage after colonialism, but to a continuing struggle against colonialism and its effects.
    
    He discusses the work of Rushdie, Morrison, Achebe, Soyinka and Okri, amongst others; many of his examples are drawn from African cultures, an area which has been hitherto neglected by postcolonial theory.

• Sheila Petty reviews: Pushpa Naidu Parekh and Siga Fatima Jagne, eds.Postcolonial African Writers: a Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook.  Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998.  xxxii + 525 pp.  Selected bibliography and index. $85.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-313-29056-3.

  • H-AFRLITCINE@H-NET.MSU.EDU 12-02-99  
    H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-List@msu.edu
    Reviewed for H-List by Sheila Petty, Sheila.Petty@uregina.ca, Department of Film and Video, University of Regina (extract)
    African Literature and the Postcolonial Debate       
    
    In Postcolonial African Writers: a Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, Pushpa Naidu Parekh and Siga Fatima Jagne undertake the ambitious project of creating an overview of a diverse group of African literary authors under the auspices of a single volume.  A much-needed sourcebook, this work brings together resources that would normally be scattered over several volumes and presents a critical examination of the issues, advantages and shortcomings of postcolonial theory as it relates to African writing.
    
    In the preface to this book, Parekh states that  "the central organizing principle of the volume is postcoloniality as it is reflected in the novels, poetry, prose, and drama of major, minor, and emerging writers from diverse countries of Africa, including representative North and South African writers and writers of the Indian diaspora born in Africa, both male and female" (p. xiv).  In addition, the editors have set themselves the task of creating a gender balance in terms of the selection of writers and contributors.  In a response to the "center-versus-margin construction of identities and ideologies" (p. xv), the editors locate known and emerging men and women writers side by side in order to place full focus on African contexts, possibilities and problematics and the shape and meaning of African theoretical preoccupations (p. xv).
    
    The book consists of sixty bio-bibliographical and critical entries organized into the following categories:  biography, major works and themes, critical reception and bibliography which consists of selected works and selected studies.  Of these, the major works and themes and critical reception sections are vital in advancing the book's goals because it is here that works are discussed in the context of "postcoloniality".  In addition, works are also situated within the historical and cultural context of the authors' contemporaries.  This resists the compartmentalization of individual African writers either by stature or gender and allows for a greater sense of African literature as a whole comprised of many strands.
    
    In her foreword to the book, Carole Boyce Davies asserts that "its primary and most important contribution is that it accounts concretely for a range of writers of a specific geographic specificity within the larger field of postcolonial studies... a body of writers emanating from the African cultural experience" (p. x).  The volume advances this project by the inclusion of new writers such as Mositi Torontle (Botswana) and Tijan Sallah (Gambia) alongside established luminaries such as Chinua Achebe (Nigeria) and Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Kenya).  Thus, the book possesses unusual breadth and documents African literature as a vibrant and continually unfolding literary practice.
    

• Carine M. Mardorossian reviews Keith Booker's  The African Novel in English:  An Introduction.Studies in African Literature.  New York:  Heinemann, 1998. xi + 227 pp.  Notes, bibliography, and index.  $24.00 (paper), ISBN 0-325-00030-1.
  • Reviewed for H-AfrLitCine by Carine M. Mardorossian <melkom@uiuc.edu>, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (extract)
    H-NET List for African Literature and Cinema [H-AFRLITCINE@H-NET.MSU.EDU] Date: Wednesday, January 20, 1999 11:42 AM Subject: Book Review: Mardorossian on Booker, The African Novel in English
    H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-AfrLitCine@msu.edu (January, 1999)
    
    Keith Booker's The African Novel in English provides an excellent introduction to the discussion of selected African novels as well as to the critical and theoretical debates that have accompanied African literature's rise to prominence.
    
    The African Novel consists of three basic parts:  The first section introduces the reader to three main issues (history, language, genre) necessary to understanding African cultural practices in their own historical and aesthetic contexts.
    
    The second part provides a literary history of the African novel written in English.  It also, however, includes a brief overview of lusophone and francophone African fiction whose discussion Booker otherwise deliberately excludes "as part of a general emphasis on accessibility to American and British undergraduate readers" (p. ix).  
    
    The third and longest part of this textbook includes extended discussions of eight novels written in English,[1] their historical background, and their author's biography. The eight books discussed are:  Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Buchi Emecheta's Joys of Motherhood (Nigeria), Ayi Kwei Armah's The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born and Ama Ata Aidoo's Our Sister Killjoy (Ghana), Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter and Alex La Guma's In the Fog of the Season's End (South Africa), Nguigi wa Thiong'o's Devil on the Cross (Kenya) and Tsitsi Dangerembga's Nervous Conditions (Zimbabwe). Booker explains his omission of difficult writers like Nigeria's Wole Soyinka and South Africa's Bessie Head in terms of the emphasis on accessibility mentioned above.
    
    . . . The African Novel provides an informed and lucid introduction to the African novel written in English.  It offers detailed and careful analyses of important individual texts as well as an overview of the influential theoretical and critical debates that have been waged in postcolonial studies of the novel.  The historical context provided with each textual analysis will be valuable to teachers and students of African literature, especially where Booker explicitly engages this background's relation to the text under scrutiny.
    
     Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net, all rights reserved.  This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the list.  For other permission, pleasecontact  H-Net@h-net.msu.edu

   

• Wangari wa Nyatetu-Waigwa.  The Liminal Novel:  Studies in the Francophone African Novel as Bildungsroman.  American University Studies, Series XVIII, vol.6.  New York:  Peter Lang, 1996.  x + 134 pp.  Bibliographical references.  $32.95 (cloth) ISBN 0-8204-2168-5.
  
  • H-NET BOOK REVIEWPublished by H-AfrLitCine@h-net.msu.edu (March, 1998)
    Reviewed for H-Africa by L. Natalie Sandomirsky <sandomirsky@scsu.ctstateu. edu>, Southern Connecticut State University (extract)
    
    The Liminal Novel
    
    This book is a study of three novels which were originally written in French and first published in Paris between 1953 and 1961, when the modern francophone African novel was in its infancy and the Negritude movement was still influential.
    
    The three novels are Camara Laye's The Black Child,[1] the story of Camara's childhood in Guinea, of his education prior to his departure for Oaris, and of his qualms regarding hisdecision to remain in France; Mongo Beti's Mission to Kala,[2] the story of young Jean-Marie Mezda's reverses in Cameroon after he failed to graduate from the French school; and Cheikh Hamidou Kane's Ambiguous Adventure,[3] the story of Samba Diallo who, raised in a strict spiritual Koranic milieu and then sent to Paris to learn skills needed for the survival of his community, discovers the secular temptations of rational thought, and upon his return to Senegal is unable to reconcile the two worlds he has come in contact with, and perishes.
    
    Wangari wa Nyatetu-Waigwa claims in her introduction that hers is a new way of looking at these novels, that by grouping them as "liminal"  and examining them as such we gain new insights (p. 1).  She then defines "liminal" in accordance with Victor Turner's pattern for the rite of passage as marked by three phases:  separation, limen or threshold, and reincorporation.[4] In her book, then, she analyzes different themes of the novels which she considers important to prove her claim.  Each chapter consists of a discussion of a different theme:  the first addresses the concept of place; the second, the relationship between the individual and the community; the third, the acquisition of knowledge by the protagonists; the fourth, the failure of the main character to fill the role of the patriarch; the fifth, the protagonists' "movement between two cultural traditions"; and in the last chapter the author points out that the main characters suffer for not having mentors.  In each chapter she presents all three novels from the particular point of view selected.
    
    My assessment is that, while most of the elements studied separately in each chapter are valid, examining the novels as "liminal"  fails to shed new light on them, and that the structure the author chose results in a fragmentary presentation.  It actually detracts from her real contribution which is a sensitive, careful, intelligent, well documented, and well written textual analysis of the novels. . .
    
    . . . In summary, assuming as I do that the novels studied in this book are still of general interest and are of sufficient literary merit to remain important, the author, while not achieving her aim, has written a book useful to readers of The Black Child and of Ambiguous Adventure in particular.

• Women's Studies Quarterly Volume 25, #3/4  Fall/Winter 1997 Special issue "Teaching African Literatures in a Global Literary Economy"
  • H-NET List for African History [H-AFRICA@h-net.msu.edu] Date: 22 Jan 1998
    From: Gretchen Walsh, Boston University       <gwalsh@bu.edu>
    
    Zeleze, Paul Tyiambe        Visions of Freedom and Democracy in Postcolonial African Literature. p. 10-34
    
    Bayi, Omofolabo        Negritude, Feminism, and the Quest for Identity: Re-Reading Mariama Ba's "So Long a Letter". 35-52
    
    Thielmann, Pia        Black-White Love in African Novels. p. 53-67
    
    Sizemore, Christine        Negotiating Between Ideologies: The Search for Identity in Tsitsi Dangarembga's "Nervous Conditions: and Margaret Atwood's "Cat's Eye". p. 68-82
    
    Scott, Joyce Hope        Daughters of Yennenga: "Le Mal de Peau" and Feminine Voice in the Literature of Burkina Faso. p. 83-96
    
    Mitifu, Faida M.        Zairian Novelists and their Female Characters. p. 97-108
    
    Cooper, Helen M.        African and Caribbean Texts/White Critics and Teachers: The Searchfor New Academic Life. p. 109-120
    
    Zucker, Marilyn Slutzky        On Teaching "The Abandoned Baobab: A Senegalese Woman'sAutobiography".  p. 121-138
    
    Williams, Lisa        Teaching Miriama Ba's "So Long a Letter" in a Women and Literature Course. p. 139-149
    
    Miller, Judith G.        Some thoughts on Producing African Theater in French with American Students. p. 150-158
    
    Okafor, Clement A.        Parabolic Decoding: Teaching J. P. Clark's Song of a Goat in a Global Classroom Environment. p. 159-168
    
    Ojaide, Tanure        African Literature and its Context: TeachingTeachers of Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart". p. 169-177
    
    Rasebotsa, Nobantu L.        Teaching African Literature in the Department of English, University of Botswana. p. 178-187
    
    Hale, Thomas A.        "A Siin de me": Learning to Teach the African Oral Epic in African Literature Courses.  p. 188-200
    
    Azodo, Ada Uzoamaka        Issues in African Feminism. p. 201-207
    
    Nnaemeka, Obioma        Black Women Writers. p. 208-224
    
    Venkateswaran, Pramila        Women's Issues in Global Context. p. 225-232
    
    Hichcock, Peter        Postcolonial Africa? Problems of Theory. p. 233-244
    
    Allen, Tuzyline Jita        Doing Archival Research in South Africa for Women Writing Africa,  July and August 1996. p. 245-248

   

• Ngugi wa Thiong'o, "Penpoints, Gunpoints and Dreams: Toward a Critical Theory of the Arts and the State in Africa".
  • Ngugi wa Thiong'o is a Professor of Performance Studies and the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Comparative Literature at New York University. One of the most important writers of the 20th Century, Ngugi wa Thiong'o has published many definitive books including "Moving the Center: Struggle for Cultural Freedom" (1993) and "Decolonizing the Mind" (1986). He is the author of many memorable plays including "I Will Marry When I Want" and classic novels such as "Weep Not Child".

   

• How Postcolonial is African Literature?  A Special Issue of MATATU edited by Ezenwa-Ohaeto and Frank Schulze-Engler

  • The Journal MATATU is planning a special issue on "How Postcolonial is African Literature?", to be published in Spring 2003. When Nigerian critic and poet Niyi Osundare posed this question in MATATU eight years ago, postcolonialism was already a major critical current exerting considerable influence on the reception and criticism of African literature. Since then, postcolonial theory and postcolonial studies have continued their meteoric rise and have turned into a veritable academic growth industry: in numerous universities all over the world African literature is today primarily researched and taught in terms of its "postcolonial" qualities.

  • Against this background, the special issue of MATATU will address the following questions: How do the critical protocols of postcolonial theory relate to the literature actually produced on the African continent today? Can the emphasis on poststructuralist and postmodernist theory be reconciled with an emphasis on the social and political role of literature in Africa? How "postcolonial" do writers in Africa feel today? In how far does postcolonialism influence publishers and translators of African literature, and in how far does it conflict with the perspectives of readers in Africa? Is there too little or too much of the "colonial" in the "postcolonial": i.e. is "post"colonialism an attempt to deny the economic and political legacy of colonialism, or is post"colonialism" an attempt to explain the complex realities of contemporary Africa in terms of oversimplified verities based on past conflicts between colonisers and colonised? How can postcolonialism be criticised without reverting to critical traditions such as cultural-nationalist nativism or orthodox Marxism? How does postcolonialism relate to the specific modernities of contemporary Africa, and are there other theoretical and critical modes of addressing these modernities beyond postcolonialism?

  • MATATU invites critical essays and scholarly articles on the questions raised above which must reach the editors before December 31st, 2002. We are particularly interested in contributions that combine theoretical arguments with critical perspectives on specific African literary texts. Please send a detailed abstract or description (about 500 words) to either of these e-mail adresses: eohaeto@hotmail.com    or    schulze-engler@em.uni-frankfurt.de

  •  All mail correspondence should go to:

  • Prof. Dr. Frank Schulze-Engler J.W. Goethe-University Frankfurt Instut fuer England- und Amerikastudien Grueneburgplatz 1 D - 60323 Frankfurt a.M. Germany

  • MATATU is a journal on African literatures and societies dedicated to interdisciplinary dialogue between literary and cultural studies, historiography, the social sciences and cultural anthropology. For more than ten years it has been published by Editions Rodopi (Amsterdam, Atlanta GA) and is currently edited by Gordon Collier, Geoffrey V. Davis, Tobias Doering, Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Frank Schulze-Engler and Chantal Zabus.

Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African Writers. First Series. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc., 1992.

Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African Writers. Second Series. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc., 1993.

Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African Writers. Third Series. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc., 1995.

Black African Literature in English, 1982-1986. By Bernth Lindfors. New York: Hans Zell Publishers, 1989.

Writers From Africa. By Stewart Brown. London: Book Trust, 1989.

A New Reader's Guide to African Literature. Second Edition (Revised and Expanded). Edited by Hans Zell, Carol Bundy and Virginia Coulon. London: Heinemann, 1983.

Douglas Killam and Ruth Rowe, eds. The Companion to African

Literatures. Oxford and Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

2000. xiii + 322 pp. Index. $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-253-33633-3

African Oral Narratives, Proverbs, Riddles, Poetry, and Song. By Harold Scheub. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1977.

Southern African Literatures. By Michael Chapman. New York: Longman, 1996.

African Writers. Edited by C.Brian Cox. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1997.

African Literature, African Critics: The Forming of Critical Standards, 1947-1966. By Rand Bishop. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

New Writing From Southern Africa: Authors Who Have Been Prominent Since 1980. Edited by Emmanuel Ngara. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1995.

To Lay These Secrets Open: Evaluating African Literature. By Brenda Cooper. Cape Town: David Philip, 1992.

A Morbid Fascination: White Prose and Politics in Apartheid South Africa. By Richard Peck. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997.

Reading Chinua Achebe. By Simon Gikandi. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1991.

Notes on Mariama Ba's So Long a Letter. By Judith Njage. Nairobi: Heinemann Educational Books, 1984.

Reading Buchi Emecheta: Cross-Cultural Conversations. By Katherine Fishburn. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995.

What Happened to Burger's Daughter or How South African Censorship Works. Emmarentia, South Africa: Taurus Press, 1980.

Bessie Head: Subversive Identities in Exile. By Huma Ibrahim. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1996.

Dambudzo Marechera: A Source Book on His Life and Work. By Flora Veit-Wild. New York: Hans Zell, 1992.

Es'kia Mphalele: A Bibliography. By Catherine Woeber. Grahamstown, South Africa: National English Literary Museum, 1989.

Critical Perspectives on Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Washington: Three Continents Press, 1984.

The Poetry of Okot p'Bitek. By George Heron. New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1976.

Wole Soyinka and Modern Tragedy: A Study of Dramatic Theory and Practice. by Ketu H. Katrak. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986.

Aspects of Yoruba Cosmology in Tutuola's Novels. By Ikupasa O'Mos. Kinshasa, Centre De Recherches Pedagogiques, 1990.

Daniel Gover, John Conteh-Morgan, and Jane Bryce, eds. The Post-Colonial Condition of African Literature. Annual Selected Papers of the African Literature Association. Trenton and Asmara: Africa World Press, 2000. 149 pp. $19.95 (paper), ISBN 0-86543-771-8, ISSN 1093-2976.

Eldred Durosimi Jones and Marjorie Jones, eds. Exile and African Literature. Trenton and Asmara: Africa World Press and Oxford: James Currey, 2000. viii + 152 pp. $19.95 (paper), ISBN 086543-822-6, ISSN 0065-4000.

Appiah, Anthony K. (1992). In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. London: Methuen.

 

Diawara, Manthia (1998). In Search of Africa. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Mudimbe, V. Y. (1988). The Invention of Africa: gnosis, philosophy, and The order of knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; London: Currey.

 

Mbembe, Achille (2001). On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ato Quayson reviews Achille Mbembe's On the Postcolony

H-Africa, Bibliographies, Documents and Essays

H-AfrLitCine reviews

• AFRICAN LITERATURE ON THE INTERNET
  • African Writers and Their Literature by Obianuju Mollel. " designed for those interested in African literature, and through it, in African culture and society. It provides links to resources on African writers"
    
    http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/area/Africa/aflit.html
    
    http://www.ualberta.ca/~omollel/afwrithome.html
    
    Postcolonial African Literature
    http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/post/misc/africov.html
    
    Voices: The Wisconsin Review of African Literatures
    http://african.lss.wisc.edu/all/voices.htm
    voices@studentorg.wisc.edu
    
    Jouvert: a journal of postcolonial studies
    http://152.1.96.5/jouvert/
    
    SOAS Literary Review, 1, November 1999 [ONLINE REVIEW]
    http://www.soas.ac.uk/soaslit/issue1/contents.html
    
    African Literature: Drama:
    http://www.sas.upenn.edu/AfricanStudies/Publications/BCdram.html
    
    African Literature: Fiction:
    http://www.sas.upenn.edu/AfricanStudies/Publications/BCfic.html
    
    African Literature: Collections:
    http://www.sas.upenn.edu/AfricanStudies/Publications/BClitcol.html
    
    African Literature: History and Criticism:
    http://www.sas.upenn.edu/AfricanStudies/Publications/BClitflk.html
    
    African Literature: Poetry:
    http://www.sas.upenn.edu/AfricanStudies/Publications/BClitpoet.html

Suppliers

Africa Book Centre, London

An excellent and comprehensive source.

http://www.africabookcentre.com/
orders@africabookcentre.com

 

Books by African Publishers are available from:

African Books Collective
The Jam Factory
27 Park End Street
Oxford OX1 1HU, UK
Tel:+44-(0)1865-726686 Fax:+44-(0)1865-793298
E-mail:abc@dial.pipex.com
Web site:www.africanbookscollective.com

The same books are distributed in the U.S. by the Michigan State University Press.  http://msupress.msu.edu/series.php?seriesID=22

African Shop  at http://www.over2u.com
for books on and about Africa and Nigeria in particular.

From: Katrina Daly Thompson

<kdthomp3@students.wisc.edu <mailto:kdthomp3@students.wisc.edu>>

VOICES: The Wisconsin Review of African Literatures, which I edit, posts advertising and Africa-related links on its web site, at no charge:

http://african.lss.wisc.edu/all/voices/

Interested parties should email information they would like to see posted to <voices@student.org.wisc.edu <mailto:voices@student.org.wisc.edu>>.