gloria, could you tell us what the racist innuendo was in paradise? i hope to read the books we were able to download (luckily)
as for the judgment of the nobel committee, i have not been convinced of its high authority for many many decades. remember borges, arguably the greatest writer of his day, or of the century....
the recent awardees seemed minor figures, to me, esp when major ones like ngugi were ignored.
and the awarding of the racist naipaul was infuriating.
in film it is the same: none of the major festivals, from academy awards to cannes, are really serious judges of global south films. berlin is a bit better. but africa doesn't count. for them, and i believe the academy awards are largely influenced by monetary considerations.
i do not know the politics of the nobel committee. i could be persuaded they are onto something when it comes to the sciences, but not in our fields.
ken
(bobby dylan wrote a lot of nice songs....)
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, October 11, 2021 4:02 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fw: Africa Is a Country Weekend Special, October 9th: The opacity of Fanon, Nobel notable, Pandora Papers in Kenya + more
There are those who conclude that
since the Nobel Committee declared
Gurnah to be great enough to be
a winner, everyone else should
fall in line. No questions asked.
This line of thought undervalues
critical thinking and intelligence,
and prioritizes sycophancy and
naïveté. Not only that, many of
us in this group are multidisciplinary
and multidimensional. For example,
before I became a historian I was
a student of literature and languages.
The racist innuendo in "Paradise "
disqualifies Gurnah, in my view, but
I hope to read more of his works -
to get the whole picture.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
On Oct 11, 2021, at 05:42, Chambi Chachage <chachagechambi@gmail.com> wrote:
Informative take from Sean Jacobs, but a bit inaccurate hence the importance or Gurnah's works in illuminating contentions on Zanzibar stemming from the Revolution and the Union.
First, Zanzibar is not in confederation with Tanzania - it has been in a Union with the then Tanganyika, the two forming the United Republic of Tanzania; the result was a unitary state with two governments - the union one (whole of Tanzania, including Zanzibar) and the semi-autonomous one in Zanzibar that deals with what are regarded as non-union matters, leading to strong contentions from Zanzibari nationalists that Tanganyika is wearing - under guise - the coat/mantle/cloak of the Union (as de facto Tanzania) by constraining Zanzibar's sovereignty i.e. by reducing non-union matters through doubling union matters from 11 to 22.
Second, it was not really a debate between Tanzanians and Zanzibari, but a debate between pro-Tanzanian patriotism and pro-Zanzibari autonomy/nationalism, which includes Tanzanians from both sides i.e from Tanzania Mainland (then Tanganyika) and Zanzibar; so, there are both camps across.
To conclude, it is not black and white there.
Re:
On Sun, Oct 10, 2021 at 4:51 PM Harrow, Kenneth <
harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
more on gurnah, from africa is a country. all worth looking at
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
From: Africa Is a Country <auth@africasacountry.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2021 2:45 PM
To: Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu>
Subject: Africa Is a Country Weekend Special, October 9th: The opacity of Fanon, Nobel notable, Pandora Papers in Kenya + more
 | Nobel wins for Africans
Abdulrazak Gurnah, born in Zanzibar and who has lived in England since 1968, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. This is big. It is a time to celebrate, especially as Bhakti Shringarpure, co-founder of Radical Books Collective, has argued in a post on our site, Gurnah is only the 6th African to win the prize since its inception in 1901: "... he is also only the fourth Black writer to have won the prize. Unlike the Booker Prize which has historically scored well on the diversity points, the Nobel has always favored the whitest and the most European of all literature." The first African to win the prize was Wole Soyinka in 1986; 35 years ago. In between, the Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz won in 1988, then the two white South Africans—Nadine Gordimer (1991) and J.M. Coetzee (2003). Doris Lessing, who was born in Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe), was the last African to win the prize in 2007. Initial appreciations of Gurnah's win, particularly on social media, have played up Gurnah's identity. His Africanness and Blackness. That is fine, but Gurnah is from Zanzibar, an island nation (now in a confederation with Tanzania) that is at the crossroads of the Indian Ocean, Arabia, and Africa. And, as a Tanzanian friend reminded me, yesterday Tanzanians and Zanzibaris exchanged words online over who could claim him. And, amid the celebrations, some hard questions also confront us. In another post for us, Nicole Rizzuto, an Associate Professor of English at Georgetown University, writes how Gurnah has rebelled throughout his writing career against being pigeonholed. That Gurnah's "... novels offer a running commentary and a skepticism toward the cultural politics of packaging African stories for global circulation and consumption." As for Bhakti, she asked: "Gurnah's win pushes us to think about the role of the LitNobel and prizes, more generally, and the way in which they construct what we think of, read, engage with, and buy as African literature today." One small footnote: a less widely circulated fact about Gurnah is that his working life as an academic (he is now retired and lives in Brighton on the English coast) was spent as a scholar of literature and, that among others, he has done close readings of the novels and short stories of the South African writer, Zoe Wicomb. Congratulations! – Sean Jacobs | | Elsewhere in our country Catch up on any of our posts you may have missed from the last week | | We don't need no education
Colonial and post-colonial governments in Kenya have worked to separate education from access to culture and information. It is an outdated model.
The opacity of Fanon
This week on AIAC Talk, we speak with Leswin Laubscher and Derek Hook about the phenomenology of Franz Fanon and the ways he is understood throughout different eras of time.
Louder in Lagos
Africa Is a Country Radio continues its season focused on African club culture with a stop over in Lagos, Nigeria.
EndSARS, workers' power, and war
The working class that organized #OccupyNigeria should collaborate with #EndSARS. If these two boiling points burn together to produce the fire next time, a new Nigeria will be possible.
Bono's vanity
This #ThrowbackThursday piece from 2007 on Vanity Fair's famous "Africa" issue, makes for fun, at times depressing, reading of the debates we hopefully left behind.
A matter that defies tears
Wọle Ṣoyinka's new novel examines a country caught in the crosshairs of unimaginable events.
The secret offshore world of the Kenyatta family
The Pandora Papers connects Kenya's ruling family to secret accounts in offshore companies and tax havens. But, state looting started with Jomo Kenyatta. | | | | |
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