RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series -

Literature for me is about life. A work of literature is usually the writer's view of some aspect of life that they know, have experience of, or wish to share or bring attention to. People write because they believe that they have a good story to tell. A writer is less likely to write if the writer does not believe that their story is worth telling.

The assumption therefore that every writer is seeking acceptance is exactly that- an assumption that one hopes is as believed to be. That a writer desires that their work be read is not to say that the writer is necessarily seeking acceptance. Every writer knows that their work may be read and not appreciated by the reader.

When a writer is incapable of publishing on their own, the writer is at the mercy of publishers who decide whether or not the literary work sees the light of day. It is probably more the case therefore that it is publishers who seek acceptance of a writer for reasons that are not hard to imagine. All who have written and relied on publishers to publish their work have experience of their publisher asking them to change this or that for market acceptance reasons. Book publishers are after all profit seeking businesses.

Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" was not worth publishing until Heinemann Publishers came along. Heinemann shared Achebe's belief that his story was well worthy of telling and sharing with the world. That Achebe was not deterred by rejection is veritable evidence that Achebe truly believed that his story was worth telling and sharing with the world. The rest as they say is history.

It is not much different in the music recording/publishing business. The Beatles' music for example was rejected by Decca Records. Decca at the time was perhaps the world's largest music recording/publishing company. EMI thought different. The rest as they say again is history.

Acceptance of a writer and their work must be gratifying to the writer. Acceptance has its benefits to a writer. Acceptance is however not the consuming reason for most writers' decision to write. Writing benefits from criticism. This is however no reason for the arrogance that causes critics to disparage writers they believe write for one this audience when they critics, believe that the writer should be writing for another. The critic should write their own book. Its critics more than writers therefore who are consumed by acceptance of a writer. Having written, a writer is just happy that they have.

All writing begins as one or more thoughts and ideas in the head/mind of the writer following some experience or realization. The writer processes and tumbles the thoughts and ideas until the mixture becomes a compound and ultimately a story which hopefully, will be an interesting story for someone or other out there after the story is told. Most writers are like teachers. They believe that they have a story  will educate, edify, inform, and change or expand perspectives. This helps to explain why people write even when they know that they would be misunderstood, cause offence, and/or disagreed with.

 

oa

 

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ikhide [xokigbo@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2012 8:42 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com; Ederi@yahoogroups.com
Cc: krazitivity@yahoogroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series -

"If the Negro, or any other writer, is going to do what is expected of him, he's lost the battle before he takes the field. I suspect that all the agony that goes into writing is borne precisely because the writer longs for acceptance--but it must be acceptance on his own terms. Perhaps, though, this thing cuts both ways: the Negro novelist draws his blackness too tightly around him when he sits down to write--that's what the antiprotest critics believe--but perhaps the white reader draws his whiteness around himself when he sits down to read. He doesn't want to identify himself with Negro characters in terms of our immediate racial and social situation, though on the deeper human level identification can become compelling when the situation is revealed artistically. The white reader doesn't want to get too close, not even in an imaginary recreation of society. Negro writers have felt this, and it has led to much of our failure.

Too many books by Negro writers are addressed to a white audience. By doing this the authors run the risk of limiting themselves to the audience's presumptions of what a Negro is or should be; the tendency is to become involved in polemics, to plead the Negro's humanity. You know, many white people question that humanity, but I don't think that Negroes can afford to indulge in such a false issue. For us, the question should be, what are the specific forms of that humanity, and what in our background is worth preserving or abandoning."

Read the rest here.

 

- Ikhide

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