It is said that bad times are good for good literature or that the absence of freedom is sometimes a catalyst behind the birth of literary masterpieces. This may be true to Africa as it is true to other countries. Let us take, for instance, 19th century Russian, where autocracy and serfdom had inspired some of the best writing of the time. Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and others were the literary stars who championed the cause of the poor peasants and the lack of freedom faced by the urban literati or intelligentsia. Life in Russia was terrible at that time, but it gave birth to some of the best novels.
This can also be the case in Ethiopia under imperial rule. There was no freedom; feudalism controlled the economy, and peasants were dying in their millions due to famines, while press freedom was virtually non-existent. It was exactly at that time that some of our best writers appeared on the literary stage with their masterpieces and modern novels. They took Amharic literature one step forward and proved that any language can be used to express creativity. The Ethiopian authors who brought about the renaissance of local literature are many, and it may not be necessary to present their names and works because their legacy is still alive.
The same logic applies not only to individual countries but also to Africa as a continent. Bad times produce good literature. They may not be a rule, but this is true, as we have tried to show it in the case of Russia and Ethiopia. This was also true to American literature that blossomed during the Great Depression and during the literary boom of the 1920s, when life in America was very difficult. American literature flourished during this period with the works of writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernst Hemingway, Dos Passos, Norman Mailer, and others. American literature has not witnessed such a boom in the time of post-war economic boom.
Africa too seems to go through the same process of bad times producing good literature. If we look at the political and economic situations in individual African countries, we may realize that we are indeed going through bad times. Africa is doing better as a continent.
There is no denying that Africa is facing tremendous challenges. It is facing multiple challenges while also encountering opportunities, both real and potential. Its culture, its arts, and its creativity are amazing. There is light in the midst of darkness. The light shines brighter and is more powerful than the darkness, which is progressively overcome.
Africa continues to vibrate with its music, songs, dances, untold tales, and much more creativity. Africa is tapping into its rich literary traditions, both oral and written, to produce amazing works, although she has not yet produced or reproduced something remotely resembling Chinua Achebe’s classic “Things Fall Apart,” the Cairo stories of Egyptian Mahfouz, or Ghanaian author Ayi Kwe Armah’s “The Beautiful Ones are not yet Born.”. Classics are not born every year. The good news is that Africans are still producing beautiful culture and writing beautiful books that capture the attention of the global reading public and sell well in European and American bookshops.
African Jazz from Ethiopia is telling Africa’s story in sounds and vibrations. Younger musicians from Nigeria are producing albums that sell like hot cakes within and outside the continent. Artists from South Africa, Egypt, Senegal, and Francophone Africa are gaining growing recognition in Paris and beyond. Africa is singing in English, French, Portuguese, or any other European language, but she is singing from the depths of her heart or from her soul.
Africa is also writing, whether in its own languages or in foreign ones. It is writing prose, poetry, drama, novels, and short stories. Young and upcoming African writers are read in Europe and America as far as Asia and other parts of Africa. Africa has new ideas, philosophies, and still-untapped spiritual wealth. Whether at home or in the Diaspora, African intellectuals are producing books, articles, and nonfiction works in general, although they seldom connect with their roots and are not yet addressing African problems in their own practical ways.
Nigerian movie makers are shining in the streets of Lagos and the studios of Nollywood. They are conquering the world, although they are not so well known within their continent. They are fighting for honorable space and for their deserved niches in the global film industry. The good and bad, the beautiful and the ugly are bound to continue into the New Year. This is always true about life in general. Good years follow bad years, and vice versa. On balance, Africa continues to inspire, aspire, and respire in the arts and literature.
Apart from the arts, this is also a glorious moment for African writing. This is what African Report (AR), the leading publishing house in Africa, is telling us by saying that “a mixture of poetry, plays, memoirs, and novels await the reader, showcasing the best of Africa and the Diaspora this year. A much-anticipated translation from Portuguese and a second effort by multitalented Ghanaian writer Nii Ayikwel Parkes are part of our selection.”
Another interesting feature of African writers is that they have started to write about their major challenges in their own ways. They seem to have stopped seeking inspiration from foreign sources in order to highlight their grievances. A recent collection on African writing, which is a collection of essays entitled “Strange and Difficult Times: Notes on a Global Pandemic” by Nanja Nyabola, is lauded as “an important body of work that highlights unforgivable injustices and the courageous systems and voices trying to counter them.” This is a clear case of protest writing against injustice in Africa. This is also a confirmation of the above assumption that bad times give birth to great writing.
New African poets are also emerging in many countries. One of them is called Kweku Abimbola. He published a collection of poems entitled Saltwater Demands a Psalm” and was appreciated by the Poetry Foundation as “a powerful and stirring debut from one of the most unique voices, a nuanced description of life in the Diaspora as an African immigrant.”
Portuguese writers are hardly known in the rest of Africa where English and French are the main languages used by them. But a Portuguese-language writer has shined, perhaps for the first time, through a biographical work entitled “Whites Can Dance Too,” which is a “fascinating narrative about “a musical genre born in the intersection of house, techno, and kizomba in the late 1980s,” the story of Kalaf, the protagonist, who is a culture agitator and ambassador of the genre who was arrested en route to Europe’s most iconic music festival in Oslo on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant.”
Another female writer from neighboring Sudan called Leila Aboulela has written another work called “River Spirit,” a historical novel about siblings orphaned and enslaved as their country rebels against Ottoman rule. “Abulela’s story has been praised by the New York Times as “a swift, galloping over momentous events, stating profound changes with unsettling directness.”
African writers are not only writing about their home countries or from their own experiences of Africa. They were also writing about Diaspora Africans and their many lives. One of these books is called, “Relations: An Anthology of African and Diaspora Voices” and edited by Nana Brew Hammond, which is “a mélange of African and Diaspora writing into a poly-phonic chorus of poetry and prose contemplating shared humanity.”
New African talents have also come up with new African poetry. African writers are known to be multitalented as they always wrote in multiple genres and attained global recognition. Wole Soyinka, the doyen of African letters is of course the leading poet, dramatist, essayist and novelist on the continent. But now, others are following him in the poetry genre and gained appreciation in 2023. “Tisa: New Generation of African Poets,” is a book edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani and published by the African Poetry Fund” which, in the last twelve years, has been into the service of promoting African poets at home and abroad to discover and elevate new talents.”
African writers have also dealt in the travel genre, and Sara Cheik proved it in her latest book with a rather long title. It is called “Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Insha Allah: How the Journey Back to My Roots Became an Adventure Escape.” A prominent publication called Ms. Magazine described the book as “evocative and harrowing; Cheikh’s debut work beams the spotlight on the plight and perils of the Saharawi people.”
African writers also dealt with memories, as Ika Anya, who is an author and physician, did in the work entitled “Small by Small,” which is “his memoir of his experience of medical school in Nigeria, which ironically also serves as a communal memoir of a specific tumultuous period in Nigeria’s history and the twilight of military dictatorship.”
Writers from neighboring Kenya that had so far produced prominent writers like Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and others have been absent from the festival, while Somalia, which is still in political turmoil, has spent long years in literary abstinence. Somalia achieved international literary fame thanks to Nuredin Farah, the most prominent author who is half British and published top books like “Maps” about the chaos and suffering of Somalia.
Ethiopian writers are, as always, notable absentees from the gala festival of African writing. The problem with Ethiopian writers is that they do not write much in any of the foreign languages, without which it is difficult to gain recognition in the international arena. For that matter, Ethiopian writers have not produced notable works in their own language either. It is a dry season for literature in Ethiopia, although some American-based authors have been publishing some remarkable works in the past.
It seems that bad times are not going to go away in Africa so easily. Strangely enough, the bad times are giving birth to outstanding literature across the continent. This is also proof that the bad times are not confined to specific countries. They are everywhere, as the literary talents are unevenly distributed. The bad times will one day give their place to better times. What will the fate of African literature be at that time? Fortunately, the future is an unknown quantity not worth worrying about at the present time.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 23 OCTOBER 2024
