Ezekiel Mphahlele

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African Writing Today

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SOURCE: A review of African Writing Today, in Modern Language Journal, Vol. LI, No. 6, October, 1967, pp. 366-67.

[In the following review, Harries questions the stated purpose of Mphahlele's African Writing Today,but praises the anthology as a good introduction to African writing.]

This anthology of writings [African Writing Today,] from English, French and Portuguese, all in English, by Africans excludes the work of white African writers like Paton and Gordimer. This limitation is expressly intended to reflect the fact that, according to the editor, himself an established author, “Black Africa is becoming more and more aware of itself.”

This is something of a cliché that does not have to be examined too closely, but it is a way of saying that in the modern world Africans are becoming increasingly aware of their common identity as black Africans and that the writings in this anthology are intended to prove it.

Such a self-conscious aim is not perhaps the best introduction to what is meant to be a representative collection of the best modern African writing. Most readers would prefer to let the writings speak for themselves. Happily it is not necessary to presume that the individual writers were concerned primarily with stating a case for “Black Africa,” except perhaps for the editor's own speech on négritude at a Conference in Dakar. Even in Sylvain Bemba's story, the leading character's purposeful meanderings which range from the starving bellies of African children through—and in the same speech—the rehabilitation of Negro music in the churches, receive the right kind of comment from his lady-friend, when she says, “You talk too much, darling.”

The editor is anxious to show from his anthology that blacks and whites do not belong to the same literary culture, but an anthology of this kind in which the writers have consciously adopted a literary medium of the whites is not a satisfactory basis for establishing such a thesis. Insofar as Africans are choosing to adopt a literary culture in a foreign language they are attempting what is for Black Africa something new. If the editor wants to show simply that some Africans write very well indeed, the contributions by Ekwensi, Soyinka, Abioseh Nicol, Camara Laye, La Guma, Matshikza and Nkosi are proof enough. But the best writing on the technical level is that which best observes the accepted canons of the literary culture of the whites, like the clever use of dialogue by the Ghanaian writer, Christina Ama Ata Aido. The work is no less African for being in a foreign medium.

The idea that African writers are expressing self-awareness only when they are describing themes or moods that are recognizably African in the geographical sense is hardly acceptable, for there are values which transcend even national identity. We are individuals first. The reader, whether black or white, seeks to identify himself through the written word with other individuals. The fact that they may be Africans in an African setting is relevant, of course, but how does one identify oneself with “Black Africa”? It is impossible to make any direct identification with a continent. Only through individuals can this be done. The concept of, say, Mother Russia is understood only through the lives of individual Russians like Dr. Zhivago. The concept of Black Africa becomes meaningful only through the interpretation of black African lives. When African writers have given us characters from their own society whose lives evoke in the reader feelings of sympathy, admiration, respect, or even complete and utter loathing, that will be the day of their achievement, the day of real awareness.

Meanwhile in the short story and especially in poetry, African writers achieve the most success. As Lewis Nkosi remarks, “Africans have a great admiration for language,” but not all that they write springs, as he suggests, from a love of flowery language. Nkosi himself knows well how to write concisely. The poets exercise the same economy of expression that can be found in African oral tradition. Joseph Kariuki's poem “New Life” and George Awoonor-Williams' “Rediscovery” are particularly effective verses, whereas the French poets, even Senghor himself, are more inclined to less economy of words and, for this reason, are in my opinion less successful.

This anthology exemplifies different styles and themes. It is an excellent introduction to modern African literature in a foreign language. The extracts from larger works are well-chosen, and will surely lead readers to seek out the complete works for a better appreciation of the authors' achievement.

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A review of African Writing Today