The
Dead End of African Literature
By Obiajunwa Wali
A truly educated African who predicted the death of African languages in literature
In order to truly understand the context of this article, please first read: How Britain and the CIA fooled Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe to destroy African languages in literature.
PERHAPS, THE MOST IMPORTANT ACHIEVEMENT of the last Conference of African Writers of English
Expression held in Makerere College,
Kampala, in June 1962, is that African
literature as now defined and understood, leads nowhere.
The Conference itself marked the final climax of the attack on the Negritude school of Leopold
Senghor and Aime Cesare. For some time
now, African writers of English
expression like Ezekiel Mphahlele, Wole Soyinka,
and Christopher Okigbo, have treated this kind
of literature which expresses sterile concepts such as "negritude" or the "African
personality" with the utmost derision. One
would say that negritude is now dead,
judging from the confident tones of the remarks
and decisions made at the Makerere conference.
Another significant event in the conference, is the tacit omission of Amos Tutuola. Not only was
Tutuola, who
undoubtedly is one of the most significant
writers in Africa today, not present in the conference, but there was a careful exclusion of his
works in the discussions of the
conference. In fact, according to the
Conference report, Tutuola's publishers protested at the implied questioning of their integrity in
publishing this writer's works. One can
guess that Tutuola received this kind of
treatment partly because influential critics
like Janheinz Jahn have repeatedly grouped him in the negritude school, and partly because he has
gone out of line winning acclaim
overseas for using that kind of English
expression that is non-Ibadan, and non-Makerere.
With the now seeming defeat of the Negritude and Tutuola schools of African writing, what now
represents African literature can be
seen from these examples from some of
the writings of the artists and critics
who now dominate our literature. Una Maclean, reviewing J. P. Clark's play, Song of A Goat,
opens in the following fashion:
"The author of this poetic melodrama possibly
perceives himself as some sort of Tennessee Williams of
the Tropics. Suddenly the sultry
symbolism of the sex war seeps through the swamps, to hang like a horrid miasma upon the
polluted air ... It is a simple and familiar tale, impotent man, ardent woman. But this cat on a hot tin roof had
once known better times, for her partner
had once given palpable token of his
potency in siring a son."
Christopher Okigbo in his acknowledgement prefixed to his poem, Silences, makes the following
observations: "the author wishes to
acknowledge his debt to those composers
whose themes he has used or varied in certain
parts of the present work. The INTROIT is a variation on a theme in Raja Ratnam's At Eight-fifteen
in the Morning; the first three passages
of the first movement are variations
on a theme by Malcolm Cowley; "Sand
banks sprinkled with memories" in the 4th
passage of the same movement is a variation on Stephane Mallarme's
"Au bosquet arrose d'accords" in his
L'Apres-midi d'un Faune; the 6th passage of the same movement is a variation on a theme in
Rabindranath Tagore's Stray Birds.
Ulli Beier, in his paper read to the Makerere conference, discussing
the poetry of J. P. Clark, remarks,
"John Pepper Clark is a very different poet. His background is similar to
that of Okigbo . . . He studied English,
and what Ezra Pound is to Okigbo, Eliot and
Hopkins are to Clark. As the case of Okigbo, one finds it occasionally disturbing to recognise the
'ready made' language.
What these examples clearly show is that African literature as now understood and practised,
is merely a minor appendage in the main
stream of European literature. Both
creative writers and literary critics,
read and devour European literature and critical methods. The new drama of J.P. Clark is seen
in terms not only of the classical past
of Aristotle and the Greeks, but in the
current present of Tennessee Williams, and
the Absurds, leading to such crudities as Una MacJean's
comparison of the simple and child-hungry Ebiere, to the sexual complications of Big Daddy's
American family. In this kind of
literary analysis, one just goes back to
parrot Aristotle, and the current cliches of the English and American new critics.
The consequence of this kind of literature is that it lacks any blood and stamina, and has no means
of self enrichment. It is
severely limited to the European oriented, few college graduates in the new
Universities of Africa, steeped as they
are in European literature and culture.
The ordinary local audience, with little or
no education in the conventional European manner, and who constitute an overwhelming majority,
has no chance of participating in this
kind of literature. Less than one per
cent of the Nigerian people have had access
to, or ability to understand Wole Soyinka's Dance of the Forest. Yet, this was the play staged
to celebrate their national
independence, tagged on to the idiom and
traditions of a foreign culture. It is no wonder, that a poet like Christopher Okigbo, so
readily resorts to Mallarme's idea of an
aristocratic and limited poetic
community, for his impertinent remark, "I don't read my poetry to non-poets" is Mallarme in
paraphrase.
The purpose of this article is not to discredit these writers who have achieved much in their
individual rights within an extremely
difficult and illogical situation. It is to
point out that the whole uncritical
acceptance of English and French as the inevitable medium for educated African writing, is
misdirected, and has no chance of
advancing African literature and
culture. In other words, until these writers and their western midwives accept the fact that any
true African literature must be written
in African languages, they would be
merely pursuing a dead end, which can only
lead to sterility, uncreativity, and frustration.
The conference itself, faced with the fundamental question of defining African literature, and
the problems involved for an
African writing in a language that is
not native to him, came very near the truth: "It was generally agreed that it is better for an
African writer to think and feel in his
own language and then look for an
English transliteration approximating the original. This very conclusion, as naive and as
misguided as it is, expresses the
problem concisely and accurately, and it is
from that we shall find a new direction for African literature, if we are really serious and
sincere in what we are doing.
An African writer who thinks and feels in his own language must write in that language. The
question of transliteration, whatever
that means, is unwise as it is
unacceptable, for the 'original' which is spoken of here, is the real stuff of literature and the
imagination, and must not be discarded
in favour of a copy, which, as the
passage admits, is merely an approximation.
Of course, all the old facile arguments would arise again - the multiplicity of African
languages, the limitation of the
audience to small patches of tribal
groups, questions of orthography, and all the rest of them. Yes, but why not? I believe that every
language has a right to be developed as
literature. There is no part of the
world where a false literary unity has been
attempted in the way that we are doing today in Africa, not even in Europe. The problem has always
been met by the technique of translating
outstanding literary achievements into
other languages, especially the more
widespread and influential languages of the world.
One wonders what would have happened to English literature for instance, if writers like
Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, and
Milton, had neglected English, and
written in Latin and Greek simply because these classical languages were the cosmopolitan
languages of their times. Even though a
man like Milton could write even more
easily in Latin and Greek, he did his major
works in his own mother tongue without playing to the gallery of international fame.
Literature after all, is the exploitation of the possibilities of
language. It is the African languages that are
in crying need of this kind of development, not the over worked French and
English. There is, for instance, a good
deal of scholarly work being done in the linguistic
structure of several African languages, but
there is practically no use being made of these in creative writing, simply because we are all busy
fighting over the commonplaces of
European literature. If linguistic
science devotes so much energy and attention to African languages in spite of their tribal and
limited scope, why should imaginative
literature which in fact has more
chances of enriching the people's culture, consider it impossible to adventure in this direction?
The criticism being done today in African writing in English and French, sounds so dull, drab, and
flippant, mainly because there is no
opportunity for original thinking. It is
the same cliches over and over again - romantic and classic, realism,
sentimentality, Victorianism, surrealism,
and so on. There is no need for creative
thinking in order to become a 'leading,
critic or authority' in African literature. Fraser, Freud, Darwin, and Marx, are, as in European
literature, the necessary reading for
the acquisition of fundamental critical tools.
What I am advocating here is not easy, for it entails a good deal of hard work and hard thinking,
and what is more, a necessary casting
overboard of hardened debris of the
overblown ego. It would force some
'leading' critics to go in for the hard school of African linguistic studies, a knowledge of some of
the important African languages, before
generalizing and formulating all kinds
of philosophical and literary theories. Literature in Africa would then become the serious
business that all literature truly is,
reaching out to the people for whom it
is meant, and creating a true culture of the African peoples that would not rely on slogans and
propaganda, nor on patronage of doubtful
intentions.
The basic distinction between French and German literature for instance, is that one is
written in French, and the other in
German. All the other distinctions,
whatever they be, are based on this fundamental fact. What therefore is now described as African
literature in English and French, is a
clear contradiction, and a false
proposition, just as 'Italian literature in Hausa' would be.
What one would like future conferences on African literature to devote time to, is the
all-important problem of African writing
in African languages, and all its
implications for the development of a truly African sensibility. In fact, the secondary place
which African languages now occupy in our
educational system would be reversed if
our writers would devote their tremendous gifts and ability to their own
languages. Attempts have recently been
made to include the study of African
languages in the curriculum of some of the new African universities. This programme would certainly
have no future, for all that is
available even at the university level
is the usual string of proverbs, a few short stories on the tortoise and the tiger, and a number
of inadequate grammar books
written by untrained linguists. The
student of Yoruba for instance, has no play available
to him in that language, for Wole Soyinka, the most gifted Nigerian playwright at the moment,
does not consider Yoruba suitable for
The Lion and the Jewel or The Dance of
the Forest.
The main reason for the study of a language is that it contains great literature or some form of
literature. This was what led scholars
like Eliot and Pound to the study of
oriental languages in their poetic experiments early in this century. There is little doubt that African languages would face inevitable extinction,
if they do not embody some kind of intelligent
literature, and the only way to hasten
this, is by continuing in our present
illusion that we can produce African literature in English and French.
The last junketing at Makerere was good as far as it went, but it is a little scandalous to admit
that its only concrete achievement is
that it gave African writers and their
patrons, the opportunity to get to know one
another!
TRYING TO EXPRESS IDEAS even in one's own language is difficult because what is said or written
often is not exactly what one had in
mind. Between the birth of the idea and
its translation into words, something is lost. The process of expression is
even more difficult in the second
language of one's own cultural group. I speak not of merely expressing general ideas, but of
communicating an idea to the reader in
the absolute or near absolute state in
which it was conceived. Here, you see I am already
groping for words to make you understand
what I really mean as an African.
"Once an African, always an African; it will show in whatever you write" says one school
of thought. This implies that there is
no need for an African writer to exert a
conscious effort to make his writing African
through the use of words or the construction of sentences. Equally it
seems to say that the turns of phrase,
the nuances and the imagery which abound in African languages, thinking, and culture are not
worth letting the world know about.
As a writer who believes in the utilisation of African ideas, African philosophy and African folk-lore
and imagery to the fullest extent
possible, I am of the opinion the only
way to use them effectively is to translate them almost literally from the African language
native to the writer into whatever
European language he is using as his
medium of expression. l have endeavoured in my words to keep as close as possible to the vernacular expressions. For, from a word, a group of
words, a sentence and even a name in any
African language, one can glean the
social norms, attitudes and values of a
people.
In order to capture the vivid images of African speech, I had to eschew the habit of expressing my
thoughts first in English. It was
difficult at first, but I had to learn.
I had to study each !jaw expression I used and to discover the probable situation in
which it was used in order to bring out
the nearest meaning in English. I found
it a fascinating exercise.
Some words and expressions are still equivalent to the present day life of the world, while others
are rooted in the legends and tales of
a far-gone day. Take the expression "he is
timid" for example. The equivalent in Ijaw is "he has no chest" or "he has no shadow". Now, a person without a chest in the physical sense
can only mean a human that does not
exist. The idea becomes clearer in the
second translation. A person who does
not cast a shadow of course does not exist. All this means is that a
timid person is not fit to live. Here,
perhaps, we are hearing the echoes of the battles in those days when the strong and the brave
lived. But is this not true of the world
today?
In parting with a friend at night a true ljaw would say, "may we live to see ourselves
tomorrow". This again is
reminiscent of the days when one went about
with the danger of death from wild beasts or hostile animals dogging one's steps. But has the
world we live in changed so much? On the
other hand, how could an ljaw born and
bred in England, France or the United
States write, "may we live to see ourselves tomorrow" instead of "Goodnight?" And if he
wrote "Goodnight", would he be
expressing an Ijaw thought? Is it only the
colour of one's skin that makes one an African?
In the Igbo language, they say something like, "may dawn come", or "may it dawn".
Once again it is a wish or a prayer.
Isn't the grave sometimes likened to an
endless night and is it not only the dead that go to the grave? The lgbos sometimes lighten this sombre
thought with the expression, "you
sleep like a rat while I sleep like a
lizard." Because it is thought that rats never sleep, while lizards are heavy sleepers. This never
fails to produce peals of
laughter.
Why should I not use the poetic and beautiful, "may we live to see ourselves
tomorrow" or, "may it
dawn", instead of "Goodnight?" lf I were writing a dialogue between
two friends, one about to leave after
visiting the other at night, I would do it this way: "are you getting up now?" said
Otutu as he saw his friend heaving
himself up with his two hands gripping
the arms of the chair he was sitting on.
"Yes I am about walking now. The night has gone far", Beni his friend said, for he was a
very fat man. "May we live to see
ourselves tomorrow", Otutu said
after seeing his friend to the door.
"May we live to see ourselves tomorrow", his friend also said and walked panting into the night.
What emerges from the examples I have given is that a writer can use the idioms of his own
language in a way that is understandable
in English. If he uses their English equivalents, he would not be expressing African ideas and thoughts, but English ones.
Some may regard this way of writing in English as a desecration of the language. This is of
course not true. Living languages grow
like living things, and English is far
from a dead language. There are American,
West Indian, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand versions of English. All of them add life and
vigour to the language while reflecting
their own respective cultures. Why shouldn't
there be a Nigerian or West African
English which we can use to express our own ideas, thinking and philosophy in our own way?
Obiajunwa Wali https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obi_Wali#Contributions_and_views_on_African_literature
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