"why should black and African writers listen to Ben Okri?"
December 30, 2014 3:29 PM   Subscribe

Point: The black and African writer is expected to write about certain things, and if they don’t they are seen as irrelevant. This gives their literature weight, but dooms it with monotony. Who wants to constantly read a literature of suffering, of heaviness? Those living through it certainly don’t; the success of much lighter fare among the reading public in Africa proves this point. Maybe it is those in the west, whose lives are untouched by such suffering, who find occasional spice and flirtation with such a literature. But this tyranny of subject may well lead to distortion and limitation.

Counterpoint: Black and African writing does need freedom. It needs freedom from the repetition of tired complaints and the issuing of dusty and ineffective prescriptions. After all, as Okri begins his essay, “Living as we do in troubling times, we look to writers to reflect the temper of the age” – and that is precisely what black and African writers are doing. Our literature doesn’t need better writers; it needs better readers.
Ben Okri and Sofia Samatar argue about the role of the African writer in The Grauniad.

Meanwhile others wonder whether there is actually such a thing as African literature in the first place:
If you wanted to, you could argue that the conditions for the legibility of "African Literature"—which were obtained between the rise of African nationalism and the end of the Cold War, the long, drawn-out era of decolonization and national resistance that reached its peak with the fall of Apartheid—have passed. You could argue that the concept served a particular purpose in a particular time and place, but that, as the context changes and as history moves on, the idea of "African literature" is less and less important, even for writers who are, in whatever sense, "African." You could even argue that it never made sense at all, that "African literature" has always been an arbitrary distinction between literature produced by certain people in certain places, rather than by other people in other places; maybe, as Selasi argues, it has never really existed.
posted by MartinWisse (8 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
The article responding to Okri doesn't seem to really disagree with him, does it? There's not much practical difference between saying "writers should produce more of X" and "no, readers should demand more of X!" They both want to see the same result.

I can definitely see the point, either way it's made. But I'm not sure that Samatar lecturing readers will be any more effective than Okri lecturing writers.
posted by neat graffitist at 4:19 PM on December 30, 2014


MartinWisse: "Our literature doesn’t need better writers; it needs better readers."

I haven't read the articles yet, but any art form that starts from this basic premise is doomed.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:00 PM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]


Okri writes for a living, whereas Samatar is on the tenure track. Maybe that explains their differences better than the ideology.
posted by topynate at 6:53 PM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


"African Literature" isn't just about being African or living in Africa? If it's not, how are they going to show us how the reality is different than the colonial stereotypes?
posted by kjs3 at 7:31 PM on December 30, 2014


Okri wrote one of the finest books I have ever read. Not something that I could devour in a day or two, or even a week. "The Hungry Road" was so dense with description, character and mood that it took me a month to finish it. It is the first book I go back to when I feel empty or grey.
It is the book I read to a friend.
posted by qinn at 3:45 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yeah, the guy who wrote The Hungry Road carries more weight to me than, well, just about anyone else talking literature. Jesus, that book is great.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 6:06 PM on December 31, 2014


topynate: "Okri writes for a living, whereas Samatar is on the tenure track. Maybe that explains their differences better than the ideology"

That's not a difference of ideology?

Also, you're talking about "The Famished Road", right?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:13 PM on December 31, 2014


Oh jesus, The Famished Road, right. Can't believe I got that wrong. Guess I need to read it again!
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 6:31 AM on January 1, 2015


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