Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - AFRICAN LITERATURE IS LITERATURE WRITTEN BY AFRICANS IN AFRICAN LANGUAGES....Ngugi Wa Thiongo

to contradict myself a little (before anyone else jumps), boris diop agrees largely with ngugi. i think we need to make distinctions ngugi didn't make. but first, to give him credit, language can be part of the colonizing of the mind. but it can also serve to decolonize, and not by returning to authenticity arguments or indigeneity arguments, but as the north africans did brilliantly in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s, as kourouma did, as ouologuem did, and sarr now is doing--it is by expropriating and using the european sites/perspectives/languages against the deadening arguments re civilization and civilizing missions etc. i think black culture and language in the states does this brilliantly and all the time, from comics making farces of white superiority, to rap, to cultural expressions, all the time.

in africa that was less common since whites were a minority and an increasing minority. the formality of european superiority, say in universities and their exclusions of african authors from the curriculum, required a fight. i am with ngugi on all these points. and it is a question of dominant formal values that continues to this day: which literature counts, which philosophy counts, etc.

but he is far far too narrow. english is not just joyce and chaucer, but is also what i said above, the tools and modes of expressions of black authors, culture, films etc. english in nigeria became pidgin, as everywhere along the coast a creative amazing language that evolved into a decolonizing tool, as soyinka and clark and a million early nigerian authors demonstrated, until we get to the rotten english of saro-wiwa. i don't see how that doesn;t really undo the ngugi argument. just say, sojaboy, and everything in it, and you have a definitive argument for the creative afro-centered appropriation of english. there are examples in every european language in africa, every one, and they are the proof of makerere's positive development. song of lawino, song of ocol, another brilliant early example.

lastly, the argument that african languages alone solve this issue of colonization ignores how kikuyu in kenya was also an instrument oof domination, as was amharic in ethiopria, or even afrikaans in south africa. another example of a language or a dialect turning into a dominant tool, only to be turned against the oppressors.

lastly, using that argument today is to negate a vast body of work that has served to create an entire field called African literature, or African Literatures, if you will. it shouldn't require language police at the door for african authors to gain admittance.

(film, same story. consider two things: the film Mandabi made in french and then wolof, and the novel Xala written in french, in which the revolt of el hadj's daughter, in forcing her father to speak wolof, and not french, with her, had to be expressed in french! and the turn to wolof by sembene, in his films, was a real revolt against francophone dominance in all spheres. but he continued to use french, over and over, to destabilize its dominance, as in Guelwaar (for those who remember the son who returns from france).

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2022 11:13 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - AFRICAN LITERATURE IS LITERATURE WRITTEN BY AFRICANS IN AFRICAN LANGUAGES....Ngugi Wa Thiongo

 

i wonder how edward said would respond to ngugi's argument.

the argument appears frozen in time and space. once it evoked the painful truth that language is immersed in social and thus political values.

it  never took hybridity as a plus, and it took creolité to provide the definitive riposte to ngugi. but truth be told, as achebe demonstrated from the start, and a zillion other nigerian and african authors, including kouroum or saro wiwa, european languages could be appropriated and put to african use. the arguments for purity re african thought and expression were never true; they only postulated an ideal about a time and place before europeans arrived. that idealizaiton generated what is called calabash movies, like yaaba or wend kuuni (which i still love), but little to do with the reality that all cultures of all people on earth were alway already mixed at any historical moment. there is not moment of pure beginning for any of us on earth, and that is a good thing.

ngugi was right about the need to continually be conscious of the need to decolonize. his fixation on linguistic purity was not fruitful or useful in accomplishing that goal.

said was. and so was spivak and gikandi and even mbembe, if maybe not always.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: 'Dr. Oohay' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2022 11:32 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - AFRICAN LITERATURE IS LITERATURE WRITTEN BY AFRICANS IN AFRICAN LANGUAGES....Ngugi Wa Thiongo

 

Ngugi's (chronic) claim rings neither historically nor (more importantly) LOGICALLY accurate. Of course, my point here does not mean that "indigenous" African languages should not ALSO be actively used or promoted as "official" or supplemental languages. I wonder why many with the Ngugi mindset tend to omit Arabic as a "colonial" language? In general, no language (be it African or non-African, Nigerian or non-Nigerian) is INHERENTLY inadequate to articulate the realities and ideals (or visions) of its speakers, users, or peoples. Creatively, one can make a language "dream" one's dreams — aka neologisms.

On Monday, September 26, 2022, 9:48 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com> wrote:

Interesting.

How realistic is this view?

Toyin

On Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 12:41 Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

AFRICAN LITERATURE IS LITERATURE WRITTEN BY AFRICANS IN AFRICAN LANGUAGES....Ngugi Wa Thiongo

By

Wale Okediran

Veteran Writer, Prof Ngugi Wa Thiongo has reiterated his well known position on the use of Language in African Literature with a new charge to African writers to write in African languages.

In a correspondence addressed to Dr Wale Okediran the Secretary General of the Pan African Writers Association (PAWA) over the weekend, the eminent US based Professor of Literature expressed his aversion to the current spate of celebrations of what he termed 'Euro African' Literature by many African Writers.

Prof Wa Thiongo's letter was written in response to an invitation extended to him to present a Keynote Address at a PAWA event scheduled for 2023.

As he put it: '' I really hope that the next big Writers Conference will NOT be a repeat of the 1962 Makerere Conference which spelt a literary disaster for the continent''

''If you want to celebrate Euro-African literature, please go ahead. But African literature is that literature written by Africans in African languages''

While accepting that African intellectuals including himself have become prisoners of English and French, Prof Wa Thiongo strongly believes that African languages are urgently in need of its writers and intellectuals.

According to the renowned author: ''English and French Literature which our intellectuals are promoting are multi-trillion industries for Britain and France. Dont you think it is time that PAWA did something for the continent?''

It is on record that the debate on what constitutes African literature has been on as far back as the 60's.

Unfortunately, the matter has remained unresolved with different writers giving their diverse opinions on the matter.

While Chinua Achebe was a strong supporter of Writing in African languages, he also believed that in view of Africa's multilingual state , it is only the languages ​​introduced by the colonizers that can serve as a common language.

Since its inception in 1989, the Pan African Writers Association in addition to its official languages of Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Swahili has also encouraged Literature in many indigenous African Languages.


Sent from my iPhone

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