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From: Ikhide <xokigbo@yahoo.com>
Date: 5 November 2011 13:36
Subject: [Ederi] Helon Habila and the Search for The African Short Story
To: "Ederi@yahoogroups.com" <Ederi@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: "USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com" <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
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From: Ikhide <xokigbo@yahoo.com>
Date: 5 November 2011 13:36
Subject: [Ederi] Helon Habila and the Search for The African Short Story
To: "Ederi@yahoogroups.com" <Ederi@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: "USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com" <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Adunni my iPad just bought me an e-book, "The Granta Book of the African Short Story" published by Granta and edited by the Nigerian writer Helon Habila. The book's "Introduction" written by Habila alone is worth the price of the book. Adunni is happy. I am happy. It is an engaging, cerebral, thoughtful and comprehensive treatise on the short story form as practiced by African writers. Habila starts out with this bold salvo: "I often attend lectures and conferences where some distinguished speaker will give a talk on African literature that, to my disappointment, if not surprise, begins and ends with Things Fall Apart, as if nothing has been written in Africa since 1958. In this collection, I want to bring things up to date and present my own generation, usually referred to as 'the third generation of African writers', who, until now, have rarely been anthologized. To put them in perspective, I have also selected a few influential and representative first- and second-generation writers to stand alongside their artistic descendants. My hope is to capture the range and complexity of African short fiction since independence, highlighting the dominant thematic and stylistic shifts over the decades."
The book brings to the fore the debate about who defines what is an African story. It is interesting; the contemporary writers in this collection are virtually all writers in the Diaspora and as Habila freely admits, influential in determining what is African literature. To the extent that there is practically no one writing from inside the continent, it is presumptuous to declare this collection representative of African short stories. Habila's work is an important collection that documents the heavy, perhaps undue influence African writers in the Diaspora wield in shaping the face of the African story. This influence has been amplified by globalization, the digital age, and the near collapse of traditional publishing in Africa. If this trend is not arrested, we will be living witnesses to the distortion of the history and face of African literature by Western patrons with the unwitting cooperation of influential star writers like Habila. It does not have to be so.
Read the rest of my rant here.
- Ikhide
The book brings to the fore the debate about who defines what is an African story. It is interesting; the contemporary writers in this collection are virtually all writers in the Diaspora and as Habila freely admits, influential in determining what is African literature. To the extent that there is practically no one writing from inside the continent, it is presumptuous to declare this collection representative of African short stories. Habila's work is an important collection that documents the heavy, perhaps undue influence African writers in the Diaspora wield in shaping the face of the African story. This influence has been amplified by globalization, the digital age, and the near collapse of traditional publishing in Africa. If this trend is not arrested, we will be living witnesses to the distortion of the history and face of African literature by Western patrons with the unwitting cooperation of influential star writers like Habila. It does not have to be so.
Read the rest of my rant here.
- Ikhide
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