Thanks a lot funmi
I am interested in what is world literature, how it is produced, and how some african writers (cole, abani) accede to this status, as it is deeply marked by their publisher. Here knopf. And then by the kind of writing that critics like kakutani applaud, those deemed cosmopolitan, afropolitan, sophistated, world sophisticates, sophists playing by what rules of writing learned under what creative writing regimes.
These cultural questions preoccupy me. For film and for literature, for african literary and cinematic production, and then for us in asking how and where it is consumed, weighed, ultimately taught, understood.
The intriguing sentence in this review that I’d love parsed is the praise kakutani gives when citing adeboya’s mentors/teachers, adichie (herself formed in the western creative writing academy) and atwood. Where was that formation given??
This forum has been debating moses and toyin’s arguments over the quality and corruption in thenigerian higher education establishment. An enlightening debate to be sure. but I am also, even more, interested in what cultural habitus is established, created, functions in both worlds, and how the notion of a good film or novel then is established.
that’s the key question for all education: what is it that frames our understandings of the culture, of the world. It isn’t authorities, it is common undiscussed understandings.
So, my friends, when we pick up this novel, as I am sure we all will feel compelled to do, I suggest we begin by asking about the use of metaphors and tropes, the extended metaphors, the lists and trills of verbal skills that underscore the western creative program’s teaching. Then kakutani’s little joys of africanness can be swallowed, like the palm oil, that makes palatable even the biggest seeds.
Ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
Michigan State University
619 Red Cedar Rd
East Lansing, MI 48824
517-803-8839
http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Funmi Tofowomo Okelola <funmitofowomo@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday, 28 July 2017 at 04:51
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Portrait of a Nigerian Marriage in a Heartbreaking Debut Novel Books By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday, 28 July 2017 at 04:51
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Portrait of a Nigerian Marriage in a Heartbreaking Debut Novel Books By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/books/review-ayobami-adebayo-stay-with-me.html
-- Portrait of a Nigerian Marriage in a Heartbreaking Debut Novel
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