ALT 30 Reflections & Retrospectives: African Literature Today (African Literature Today, 30) [1 ed.] 1847010563, 9781847010568

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Reflections & Retrospectives

AFRICAN LITERATURE TODAY 30 Guest Editor: Chimalum Nwankwo Series Editor: Ernest N. Emenyonu Assistant Editor: Patricia T. Emenyonu Associate Editors: Jane Bryce • Maureen N. Eke • Stephanie Newell Charles E. Nnolim • Ato Quayson • Kwawisi Tekpetey • Iniobong I. Uko Reviews Editor: James Gibbs

Articles on: Dennis Brutus • Cyprian Ekwensi • Bessie Head • Ezekiel Mphahlele Flora Nwapa • Ousmane Sembène • Zulu Sofola FORTHCOMING TITLES ALT 31 Writing Africa in the Short Story ALT 32 Politics & Social Justice Cover: Shantytown near Khayelitsha, outside Cape Town. © Don Bayley/iStockphoto

Editor Ernest N Emenyonu

an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com www.jamescurrey.com

Reflections & Retrospectives ALT 30

This issue is devoted to pioneer voices of African fiction in the twentieth century. The contributors explore the development of these influential writers and their impact on the continent and beyond, through a study of their writing, sources and influences. These are also writers whose works have, in the words of Chimalum Nwankwo in his Introduction ‘defined for their time a deep engagement and commitment with the pulse of the people...’

AFRICAN LITERATURE TODAY 30

Reflections & Retrospectives AFRICAN LITERATURE TODAY 30



Guest Editor: 

Chimalum Nwankwo



Editor:  Assistant Editor: 

Ernest N. Emenyonu Patricia T. Emenyonu

     

Associate Editors:

Jane Bryce Maureen N. Eke Stephanie Newell Charles E. Nnolim Ato Quayson Kwawisi Tekpetey Iniobong I. Uko



Reviews Editor:

James Gibbs

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GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION OF ARTICLES The Editor invites submission of articles or proposals for articles on the announced themes of forthcoming issues: Ernest N. Emenyonu, African Literature Today Department of Africana Studies, University of Michigan-Flint 303 East Kearsley Street, Flint MI 48502, USA email: [email protected] Fax: 001 810 766 6719 Submissions will be acknowledged promptly and decisions communicated within six months of the receipt of the paper. Your name and institutional affiliation (with full mailing address and email) should appear on a separate sheet, plus a brief biographical profile of not more than six lines. The editor cannot undertake to return material submitted and contributors are advised to keep a copy of all material sent. Please note that all articles outside the announced themes cannot be considered or acknowledged and that articles should not be submitted via email. Articles should be submitted in the English language. Length: articles should not exceed 5,000 words Format: Articles should be double-spaced throughout. Use the same type face and size throughout the article. Italics are preferred to underlines for titles of books. Articles are reviewed blindly so do not insert your name, institutional affiliation and contact infor­ mation on the article itself. Instead, provide such information on a separate page. Provide also an abstract of your article not exceeding 200 words in a separate file. Both the abstract and personal profile should be submitted with the article but as separate attachments. Style: UK or US spellings, but be consistent. Direct quotations should retain the spelling used in the original source. Check the accuracy of your citations and always give the source, date, and page number in the text and a full reference in the Works Cited at the end of the article. Italicise titles of books or plays. Use single inverted commas throughout except for quotes within quotes which are double. Avoid subtitles or subsection headings within the text. References: to follow series style (Surname date: page number) in brackets in text. All references/works cited should be listed in full at the end of each article, in the following style: Surname, name/initial. title of work. place: publisher, date Surname, name/initial. ‘title of article’. In surname, name/initial (ed.) title of work. place of publication, publisher, date or Surname, name/initial, ‘title of article’, Journal, vol. no.: page no. Copyright: it is the responsibility of contributors to clear permissions Reviewers should provide full bibliographic details, including the extent, ISBN and price, and submit to the reviews editor James Gibbs, 8 Victoria Square, Bristol BS8 4ET, UK [email protected]

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AFRICAN LITERATURE TODAY 1-14 were published from London by Heinemann Educational Books and from New York by Africana Publishing Company Editor: Eldred Durosimi Jones   1, 2, 3, and 4 Omnibus Edition   5 The Novel in Africa   6 Poetry in Africa   7 Focus on Criticism   8 Drama in Africa   9 Africa, America & the Caribbean  10 Retrospect & Prospect  11 Myth & History

Editor: Eldred Durosimi Jones Associate Editor: Eustace Palmer Assistant Editor: Marjorie Jones 12 New Writing, New Approaches 13 Recent Trends in the Novel 14 Insiders & Outsiders

Backlist titles available in the US and Canada from Africa World Press and in the rest of the world from James Currey, an imprint of Boydell & Brewer ALT 15 Women in African Literature Today ALT 16 Oral & Written Poetry in African Literature Today ALT 17 The Question of Language in African Literature Today ALT 18 Orature in African Literature Today ALT 19 Critical Theory & African Literature Today ALT 20 New Trends & Generations in African Literature ALT 21 Childhood in African Literature ALT 22 Exile & African Literature ALT 23 South & Southern African Literature ALT 24 New Women’s Writing in African Literature ALT 25 New Directions in African Literature Note from the publisher on new and forthcoming titles James Currey Publishers have joined Boydell & Brewer Ltd. African Literature Today continues to be published as an annual volume under the James Currey imprint. North and South American distribution: Boydell & Brewer Inc., 68 Mount Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA UK and International distribution: Boydell & Brewer Ltd., PO Box 9, Wood­bridge IP12 3DF, UK. Nigeria edition: HEBN Publishers Plc ALT 26 War in African Literature Today ALT 27 New Novels in African Literature Today ALT 28 Film in African Literature Today ALT 29 Teaching African Literature Today ALT 30 Reflections & Retrospectives in African Literature Today Call for papers ALT 31 Writing Africa in the Short Story ALT 32 Politics & Social Justice

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Reflections & Retrospectives AFRICAN LITERATURE TODAY 30

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor: Ernest N. Emenyonu Department of Africana Studies, University of Michigan-Flint 303 East Kearsley Street, Flint, MI 48502, USA



Assistant Editor: Patricia T. Emenyonu Department of English, University of Michigan-Flint



Associate Editors: Jane Bryce Department of Language, Linguistics and Literature University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados



Maureen N. Eke Department of English, Central Michigan University Mount Pleasant, MI 48859, USA



Stephanie Newell School of English, University of Sussex Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QN, East Sussex



Charles E. Nnolim Department of English, School of Humanities University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria



Ato Quayson Centre for Diaspora and Transitional Studies Room 202, Medical Arts Bldg, 170 St George Street Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5R 2M8



Kwawisi Tekpetey Department of Humanities, Central State University PO Box 1004, Wilberforce, OH 45384, USA



Iniobong I. Uko Department of English, University of Uyo Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

Reviews Editor: James Gibbs 8 Victoria Square, Bristol BS8 4ET, UK [email protected]

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James Currey is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd & of Boydell & Brewer Inc. PO Box 9, Woodbridge, 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Suffolk, IP12 3DF (GB) Rochester, NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com www.jamescurrey.com HEBN Publishers Plc 1 Ighodaro Road, Jericho, P.M.B. 5205, Ibadan, Nigeria Phone: +234 2 8726701 [email protected]   [email protected] http://www.hebnpublishers.com www.facebook.com/pages/HEBN-PublishersPlcs www.twitter.com/HEBNPublishers © Contributors 2012 First published 2012 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available on request from the British Library ISBN 978-1-84701-056-8 (James Currey paper) ISBN 978-978-081423-6 (HEBN paper) The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or ­appropriate. Papers used by Boydell & Brewer are natural, recycled products made from wood grown in sustainable forests.

Designed and set in 10.5/12 pt Berkeley Book by Long House Publishing Services, Cumbria, UK Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

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Contents

Notes on Contributors EDITORIAL ARTICLE Reflections & Retrospectives

ix 1

C himalum N wankwo ARTICLES Gender Politics, Home & Nation  in Zulu Sofola’s King Emene: Tragedy of a Rebellion

8

M aureen N. E ke The Militant Writer in Sembène’s Early Fiction:  From Le docker noir to L’Harmattan

32

K wawisi T ekpetey Psychological Violence in Bessie Head’s

62

Maru & A Question of Power B lessing D iala -O gamba Constructing the Destructive City:  Representations of Lagos in Cyprian Ekwensi’s People of the City

86

L ouisa U chum E gbunike History, Progress & Prospects in  the Development of African Literature: A Tribute to Dennis Brutus

98`

S ophie O gwude Dispelling the Myth of the ‘Silent Woman’:  The Nigerian Igbo Woman in Flora Nwapa’s Efuru

108

S halini N adaswaran

vii

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viii  Contents Interrogating Dichotomies, Reconstructing Emancipation:  Bessie Head’s Vision on Gender Issues H ellen R oselyne S higali

122

Es’kia Mphahlele’s Enduring Truth  in Down Second Avenue J oyce A shuntantang

138

A Tribute to Cyprian O.D. Ekwensi  (26 September 1921–4 November 2007): The Writer, the Man & His Era E rnest N. E menyonu

162

REVIEWS

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Jack Mapanje. And Crocodiles are Hungry at Night J ames G ibbs

168

Wilson Katiyo. Tsiga D iana J eater

172

Bernth Lindfors (ed.). The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography R obert G ordon

175

Jane Katjavivi. Undisciplined Heart Sarah Ladipo Manyika. In Dependence J ames G ibbs

177

Anne V. Adams (ed.). Essays in Honour of Ama Ata Aidoo at 70: A Reader in African Cultural Studies J ane P lastow

185

Chinua Achebe. There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra E rnest E. E menyonu

187

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Notes on Contributors

Joyce Ashuntantang teaches English at Hillyer College, University of Hartford, Connecticut Blessing Diala-Ogamba is an Associate Professor of English at Coppin State University, Baltimore, Maryland Louisa Uchum Egbunike is a Ph.D candidate in African Literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London Maureen N. Eke is a Professor of English at Central Michigan Uni­ versity, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan Shalini Nadaswaran is a Ph.D candidate, School of English, Media and Performing Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney Sophie Ogwude is a Professor of English and Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Abuja, Nigeria Hellen Roselyne Shigali is a Senior Lecturer, Department of Litera­ ture, Theatre and Film Studies, Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya Kwawisi Tekpetey is a Professor of International Languages and Literatures at Central State University, Ohio

ix

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Editorial Reflections & Retrospectives ECHIMALUM NWANKWO

are adept at selecting with un­ canny acuity all kinds of iconic images, iconic moments, iconic significations for their mailing stamps. Those, sometimes cryptic, patriotic representations endure as part of either national imaginaries, or indelible and ineluctable and incandescent repre­sentations of the consciousness of the people. The words which follow from Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah, down the unfurling road of world history, will echo and speak on to all hearts like one of those innumerable and collectible special stamps as long as the tradition of storytelling, in all forms remain with human societies… postal services all over the world

So why do I say that the story is chief among his fellows? The same reason I think that our people sometimes will give the name Nkolika to their daughters. Recalling-Is-Greatest. Why? Because it is only the story that can continue beyond the war and the warrior. It is the story that outlives the sound of war drums and the exploits of brave fighters. It is the story, not the others, that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence. The story is our escort; without it, we are blind.

Contemplate this trope of the cactus fence, and you will see how darker gravitas gathers around the first serious meeting, a marker about African literature in the world. The Makerere conference of 1962 was therefore more than a warning about blundering blindly into a cactus fence. It was indeed like a first seismic thing on a fresh new planet, a muted great tremor warning that in the new Africa there was trouble, and that that trouble will persist, before any cooling, in the growth of the African consciousness. Political freedom was being wrested from alien hands but seizing and nurturing and preserving that freedom would require more than the reflexivity of resistance politics. Africans will reconstruct like 1

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2  Chimalum Nwankwo

all survivors from brutal physical or psychological agon the field of contest and successful emergence from contest, and then design a new chart for a steady more reliable or durable self-deter­mina­tion and inexorable becoming. The great enemy in all this is a multiplex diversity wielding various cosmogonies and histories, different patterns of growth and growing, under various masters and political modes, novel volatile epistemologies stressed by differences in culture and a baffling plethora of complex languages. The great question was in what crib would Africa nurse and raise this new birth? What language/s would be the escort of the emerging nation/s? And the pith of such first imponderable questions became whether a song of freedom could be genuine and sanguiniferous when genetically the language of that freedom belongs to the vacating enemy? Keep within sight the congenital fact that no African country could boast a linguistic monolith, and not of course the continent. You may see how then in much of East Africa and West Africa, the raging debate after the Makerere conference became what should be the most appropriate nomenclature for the various departments of English in the universities the new African nations were inheriting or going to inherit from the existing colonial stables. The second historical marker may indeed be the formation and inauguration of the African Literature Association far away from the African continent in the United States of America at the University of Texas at Austin in 1975. It remains politically significant, even today, that such a powerful organization would have its permanent base so far away from home with periodic tokenistic conventions in Africa. Those organizations and other smaller bodies of that time, in and outside Africa, were for quite a long time wrapped in the smolder­ing debate regarding the posture or alignment of the African writer in an evolving vatic politics intricately meshed with the sensitive psychology of culture. How does the African writer become involved, engaged or committed in those days of the great independence euphoria and its optimistic haze? Should it be in align­ment with the East or West? With the latent and in some cases and places the moribund cultures re-emerging from the imperial heels of subjugation or in alignment with the ways of the colonial master seated in the battered psyche and subconscious of the oppressed? Cresting this turbulent tide was the great debate of the 1970s, another marker defined for ever by Toward the Decolonization of African Literature. It was electric, violent and acrimonious with

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Editorial: Reflections & Retrospectives  3

still unsettled eddies of pain and hostility on all sides because its brutal African honesty trumped all traducers of Western civility, affectation, or ceremony of manners. Its scar tissue, after so many decades, houses the voices we now associate with the omnibus postmodern and global pavilion of African literary productions. In the pith of such inimitable issues and associated questions, there are and there will always remain the great semaphores of escort. I find in those semaphores markers of the evolution of African literature and arts in general and the African world, from simply cultural production into the politics of literature and the psychology of culture. It is in that light and context that some wonder or ponder over the following nagging issues or questions. Why has the Nobel Prize in Literature eluded Chinua Achebe? Why are magazines like the National Geographic periodically trapped in the gaze at an imagistically and culturally unplugged Africa? Can human beings ever escape what I call the parallax blight, the proverbial beholder’s perspective, when we contemplate what we generally call ‘beauty’? Who and what really needed to be decolonized, and how? And then, of course, a la Wole Soyinka, who is/are qualified to be the ‘pontifex maximus’ (Art, Dialogue, and Outrage), of any required decolonization and rehabili­ta­tion of mind? Insiders? Outsiders? Africans? Non-Africans? Marxists? Traditionalists? Who…? Some might suggest some other semaphores of escort… The great debates of the 1970s held up some important visible apices that appeared to become strangely blunted or blighted by epochal tides and irruptions in history. On one apex was Ngugi wa Thiong’o, wielding a brazen trumpet of Marxism and Afro-Marxism. On the other apex were Okot p’Bitek and the traditionalists. P’Bitek’s successes with texts like Song of Lawino led the charge which forged an attractive template of orature and cultural nationalism. The influence and reach of p’Bitek’s visibility earned radial and deep emotional support from the spirit of the 1977 World Black Festival of Arts in Lagos, Nigeria. In Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s vanguard were critics either delving the base for attention or offering bolsters for what appeared then like an unstoppable enterprise. There was Emmanuel Ngara (Marxism and African Literature) and Gugelberger (Marxism in African Literature) with those I, in playful mischief, refer to as Gugelberger’s children: Biodun Jeyifo and others. Contemporaneous or in tow were writers in South Africa like Wally Serote, Sipho Sepamla, and in Nigeria like Tunde Fatunde, with big but less doctrinaire

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4  Chimalum Nwankwo

or dogmatic sympathizers in Senegal like Ousmane Sembène. Initially, that group felt and looked like fire-eaters and walkers on hot coal with possible territories in uncharted galaxies. This ideological thrust sputtered or foundered on, I think, the disastrous political experiments in Ethiopia, and Somalia, and the culturally anemic Tanzanian Ujamaa, and so forth. The final unraveling of the Soviet Union and its foreign satellites did not help matters. The inescapable wave of Euro-American modernity collided in different ways with all these various formations, with conservatives and traditionalists locking horns over all kinds of questions. Many of those questions in variegated phalanxes were sheltered by two major international journals. They were, and still are, Research in African literatures coming out of the University of Texas at Austin and African Literature Today coming out then from Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, shepherded respectively by Bernth Lindfors and Eldred Durosimi Jones. There were other continental African journals from various Institutes of African Studies and Departments of English, and international journals such as Britain’s Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Canada’s World Literature Written in English; and Anniah Gowda’s Literary Half-Yearly skirmishing all the way from the University of Mysore in India. The pioneer critics of the new discipline and their followers remained very familiar names for a very long time: Gerald Moore, Donatus I. Nwoga, M.J.C.Echeruo, Emmanuel Obiechina, Ernest Emenyonu, Abiola Irele, Romanus Egudu, Kofi Awoonor, Charles Larson, James Olney, Margaret Laurence (Long Drums and Cannons), Juliet Okonkwo, Chris Wanjala, Bahador Tijani, Ohdiambo, Oladele Taiwo, Austin Shelton, Dan Izevbaye, Eustace Palmer, Sunday Anozie,Theo Vincent, Adrian Roscoe (Mother is Gold), John Povey, Jonathan Peters and so forth. A more detailed survey of this march through history reveals something or should reveal something for African writers and writing. From the valleys and apices of this sweep of African literatures and writing, the works which have maintained an unflagging presence or dignified emergence are works which have come without grandstanding and soap-boxing, whether we are reading the deeply wise and tradition steeped but urbane tempered essays of Donatus Nwoga or the iconoclastic innovative writings of Taban Lo Liyong. A few East African and Zimbabwean writers appear to be in the forefront of all that latter category of measured tempo with the works of Yvonne Vera and Tsitsi Dangarembga leading the pack and trailed by the stories of

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Editorial: Reflections & Retrospectives  5

Kanengoni and Zeleeza. Nigeria’s new vanguard is headed by Ben Okri (The Famished Road); and Sierra Leone, Syl Cheney-Coker (The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar). In Nigeria, there is also Isidore Okpewho (The Victims), and other newcomers like Festus Iyayi, and more recent voices like Akachi Ezeigbo, Chimamanda Adichie and Helon Habila. Ghana, I think, has a powerful and unusual talent in the under-studied Kojo Laing (Major Gentl and the Achimota Wars), with others like Amma Darko (Beyond the Horizon) trailing. The pantheon of old novelists has remained intact with Chinua Achebe firmly where African destiny and Things Fall Apart placed him; Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka staying his course with his swelling slew of prose and auto-biographical works, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o retaining his bucking saddle of relentless controversial outings and spiking more visibility with the monumental Wizard of the Crow. In the shadows of the old formation loom Nuruddin Farah and the gadfly of quiet revolution, Ayi Kwei Armah, whose limited edition Osiris Rising begs both bigger critical attention and wider release. There are numerous important showings with historic significance such as Abrams, Alex La Guma, Lewis Nkosi, Gabriel Okara, Nkem Nwankwo, John Munonye, Onuora Nzekwu, Mongo Beti, Camara Laye and so on. It is difficult to assess the fortunes of the old guard in the first generation of African poets beyond the old spikes of Brutus in South Africa, Okigbo and Soyinka in Nigeria, Awoonor in Ghana, Peters and Senghor in Senegal. There are significant emergences in the second generation and its watershed needing more attention than has been accorded them like Ghana’s Atukwei Okai and Kofi Anyidoho, Sierra Leone’s Syl Cheney-Coker, or Kenya’s Jared Angira. Otherwise, because of the arrival of new modes and the vastness of experimentation, except in Nigeria, overwhelmingly powerful voices are not too many. In drama, the old guard is also still intact but attention is now shared with video films, much of which is badly afflicted by the application of improbable traditionalist melodrama and what I have called elsewhere bastard imaginaries! The issue of race has affected the chroma of writers continentally with apartheid and the complex politics of Northern and Mediter­ ranean Africa confounding inclusion and classification of African literature despite a few past efforts to define the contents of the umbrella in past critical studies. The emotional surge of activity after the new post-independence era began fading and waning in the 1970s and ’80s. Political

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6  Chimalum Nwankwo

disillusionment all over the continent heaving with that era’s sudden wildfire of military interventions appeared to marry comfortably with the novel critical postures hitherto associated with the watershed of the modern and post-modernity. A politically new age of frustration begged, from the old leftist and other coterie initiating radical posturing or grandstanding, for the paradigms and theories spinning out of or associated with structuralism and deconstruction and feminism and post-coloniality and so forth. Of whatever came with those critical approaches in the main and the interstices, only feminism and other cognate socio-political leanings appear to have endured with robust promises still in store. There is clearly a lesson in that endurance. Mark that in this edition of African Literature Today, outside the edition’s thematic thrust, contributors have in unprogrammed concert rested with the great fundamental question recurrent in all African cultural productions. That question is how does the artist or writer help the human condition positively? South Africa’s apartheid history can never evade the works and memories of Dennis Brutus and Bessie Head. The sacrifices of Dennis Brutus remain monumental in the growth of African Literature in South Africa. Brutus was there with stubborn hope, as activist writer and relentless campaigner and indefatigable champion in the quest for social justice. Sophie Ogwude’s essay captures the entire gamut of the great poet’s labor. Blessing Diala incisively probes the aesthetic of Bessie Head whose fiction sends relentless psychological feelers beyond the veneer of social action into the collective consciousness where good and evil skip over the human boundaries of race and gender and class. Head sees and re-defines culpability and fallibility and grave human error and bestiality as just simply human. Without discrimination and beyond cavil, justice or injustice is all about us all and our ability or inability to summon the courage to elect fair moral choices and decisions. If there are any binaries and either/or questions missed in that assessment, Hellen Roselyne Shigali despatches them all to give readers a wider scope of the moral vista which Bessie Head’s work tried to blaze for the human condition in South Africa and beyond. In an era in African or indeed world history when the forces of racism and imperialism colluded to obscure and occlude the eternal verities of humanity, it appeared as if it was the destiny of South African writers in politics to keep everything in focus. Ashuntantang’s essay on Mphalele’s work forcefully shows that it

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Editorial: Reflections & Retrospectives  7

was only a matter of time before truth would catch up with the apartheid regime’s errancy of reason and justice for posterity. The other writers in this edition of African Literature Today are increasingly enjoying some sort of critical re-appraisal regarding technical expertise as in the case of Flora Nwapa or the pulp fiction syndrome which supposedly mars the work of Cyprian Ekwensi. By and large, Nwapa’s foundational attitude to her fictive world lends her work a special ambience which defines her effort as peculiarly Igbo and African. Ekwensi in similar fashion brings something special to the table through his fresh urban perspective in African fiction. Maureen Eke’s essay on Zulu Sofola and Kwawisi Tekpetey’s on Sembène’s early work respectively address the old issue of text and context in literary criticism and how more careful studies based on that could lead to a better understanding and appreciation of the contributions of African writers. Clearly, it might be safe to insist that the literature of Africa and indeed other cultural productions appear too deeply tied to the autochthonous foundations of all African art practices. Those practices demand from art a relevance that delves into the ontological and epistemological issues and questions and require clear consoling and ameliorating answers for the problems of the human condition. Those practices insist that in Africa, because the people live in awareness of the cactus fence, the story must remain as escort of the people. Directly or indirectly, the African mind wails for the didactic, for the art which teaches, the art which enlightens, the art which overtly heightens consciousness and conscience and engages and coopts individual attention into the societal by sympathy and empathy. Hedging, fringing, and privatist rumination will probably never sell or endure in both creative and critical African writing. Perfunctory sartorial paradigms and their frilly argots are gone or moribund. Coincidentally, this edition of African Literature Today presents some of the foremost African writers whose works have defined for their time a deep engagement and commitment in the pulse of the people, their general well-being. The collective hermeneutic beam rests on writers whose works summon the traditional spirit of sacrifice and psychic sharing desirable for a continent perpetually battling with the comprehensive restitution of a face maligned by tragic historical forces, by periodic self injury, or sustained epochal conspiracies implicating alien greed or imperialistic exploitation.

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Gender Politics, Home & Nation in Zulu Sofola’s King Emene Tragedy of a Rebellion MAUREEN EKE

They will say, in the traditional system, you are not supposed to be seen, you don’t have a voice (Sofola, ‘The Black Woman Playwright’ 1988) Women have no mouth (Beti proverb, Cameroon)

I As a pioneer woman playwright in Nigeria, Zulu (short for Nwazulu) Sofola used her plays as platforms to address a variety of issues, including gender identity politics, culture, community, and nation as early as the 1960s.1 Despite her position as the first published woman playwright in Nigeria, her work has been ignored, lacking the critical attention which the works of some of her contemporaries – Wole Soyinka, Ola Rotimi, and J.P. Clark – have received. Her critics condemn her for being too rooted in the traditions of her people. One critic indicates that her plays have been described as showing ‘an uncanny propensity for the magical, the mythical, the legendary and the traditional’ (Obafemi 1989: 60), generally favoring the “preservation of the old” (60). Another asserts that she ‘shows an inclination towards the tragic mode, but her plays’ dynamics depend too much on a superficial study of the forces that act on the central characters’ (Nasiru 1978: 51). Sofola’s critics have to contend with the various levels of ambiguity in the playwright’s work, an ambiguity which Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi recognizes when she complains that ‘Sofola cleverly raises numerous sexist issues to create an awareness in both men and women; however, she retreats to maintain the status quo’ (1988: 63).2 This essay provides an alternative reading of Sofola, focusing 8

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Gender Politics, Home & Nation in Zulu Sofola’s King Emene   9

primarily on King Emene (1968), first performed in the midst of the Nigerian civil war (1967–1970). Sofola’s exploration of the intersection of gender and identity politics at local or communal (symbolic national) level in the play reveals the gradual erosion of women from (traditional) spaces of power, thus problematizing the nature of ‘nation’ and belonging for women. There are three intersecting relationships: the struggle between the Omu/Mkpitime and King Emene also called Ogugua; the three women’s – Nneobi, the queen, and Obiageli – resistance to marginality or silence; and the play’s interrogation of the notion of home, nation, and community. Briefly, Sofola’s play King Emene deals with the fall of the recalcitrant and newly crowned Emene,3 who has been warned by both oracle and elders not to enter the peace week until the palace has been purified of a heinous crime: his mother Nneobi’s murder of the rightful heir to the throne. But, unknown to Emene, his mother, desperate to safeguard his success and safety as king, decides to purify the palace herself. However, despite several warnings from the goddess Mkpitime through her representative, the Omu, an obdurate and paranoid Emene eager to protect his crown enters the peace week leading to dire consequences for him. Although Emene is innocent of the murder of the rightful heir to the throne, his intransigent refusal to listen to the Omu, his female political counterpart who warns him about the crime, threatens the security of his people. Furthermore, his subsequent expulsion of the Omu erodes women’s political presence. To ignore that act and its implications overlooks the play’s significant commentary on gender politics. In examining the Omu-Emene conflict, the play interrogates practices that subordinate women even in those spaces where they had ‘traditional’ power. Sofola suggests that Emene’s heavy-handed response to what he perceived as a potential threat excluded oppositional voices and is representative of the emerging national politics of Nigeria before and after the civil war.4 In his essay, ‘Third World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism’, Fredric Jameson states that ‘all third world texts are necessarily . . . allegorical’, in what he calls ‘national allegory’. He adds that ‘even those narratives which are seemingly private and invested with a properly libidinal dynamic – necessarily project a political dimension in the form of a national allegory,’ (1986: 69) because, ‘the story of the private individual destiny is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society’ (69). A modification of Jameson’s theorizing of

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national allegory and ‘all third world texts’ suggests that perhaps some may be allegorical. My modification recognizes Aijaz Ahmad’s problematizing of Jameson’s essay.5 Still, Jameson’s reading of personal or local narratives as allegories of national encounters has relevance in my reading of Sofola’s play, King Emene. Sofola has indicated that the play was influenced by events that played out in her home town during the Nigerian civil war.6 Indeed, the play underscores how the increasing intolerance for dissenting voices, alienated certain groups or individuals by rendering them as ‘other’ and threatened the cohesion of communities and the nation in general.7 Although set in a late nineteenth-century royal court in Mid-Western Nigeria, King Emene: Tragedy of a Rebellion reveals how events in the past, even in a fictional past, may provide insight into present day and future ethical conundrums. As Azubuike Iloeje agrees, it ‘embodies Sofola’s most profound formulation of her notion of our past and the crisis-ridden mores that sought to secure its self-definition’ (2004: 157). Sofola claims that her plays are interrogatory. They are constantly ‘questioning something,’ which she defines as ‘the human problems that confront us all’ (Eke 1991). As such, her writing is not dedicated by popular demands. In an interview with Adeola James in In Their Own Voices, Sofola insists, ‘I don’t allow myself to write what people would like to read’ (1990: 144). It is, therefore, not surprising that her plays have confounded critics who wish to see her articulate a definitive response to social or political problems. One of the areas of topical ambiguity for critics is her position on the experiences of women. She contends that women’s lives need to be contextualized, and she is particularly disturbed by the poor or even stereotypical representation of women’s lives and identities in the works of some African writers. Again to Adeola James she says: With European exposure the African educated person has been led to believe that the female is an after-thought, a wall flower, and the man is heaven-sent, the controller of everything. When you look in our literature you find this is how women are portrayed. Even where it is a woman in her own right within the traditional setting, she is going to be portrayed half-way her strength. (145)

Really, this observation contradicts some of her critics’ comments which suggest that she is not concerned with women’s agenda or perhaps, not committed enough as Ogunyemi laments. This essay suggests that the roles of Omu and Nneobi in Sofola’s

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play are indicative of the playwright’s critique of the dismantling of women’s identities and diminishing of their “strength” even within those spaces where they already have power. In a contribution to the session on ‘Women Playwrights: Multiple Roles to Survive in the World’ at the First International Women Playwrights conference in Buffalo, Sofola stated that her plays are informed by what ‘does exist and where it exists,’ adding, ‘I did not agree to follow a certain line of ideology because my intention was to have a crystal reflection of all aspects of life as they captured my artistic sense’ (1988: 16). Although Obafemi criticizes her work for showing ‘an uncanny propensity for the magical, the mythical, the legendary and the traditional,’ and for favoring ‘a preservation of the old even when this is untoward’ (1989: 60), Sofola, insists that she is interested in exploring how human beings, particularly, women, function and are represented in contemporary Nigeria. She maintains that her representation of women is informed by the reality she finds in their lives: I pursued the image of the woman wherever it was necessary, not just creating the woman as the power that she is or might be, but as she was badly treated or as the society has certain corners carved out for her that were not humanly correct for anybody to survive well. They had to be exposed and they would be exposed with the type of terms and firmness that did not care for whatever feelings anybody will have about it (sic). (Sofola 1988: 16)

Clearly, such sentiments underscore an artistic vision and commit­ ment to the exploration of the diverse experiences of women in her society. She adds that most Nigerian women live within societies which straddle both indigenous traditional and contemporary values, and which exert differing pressures on women’s lives.8 Women ‘are automatically multi-functional,’ she says, asserting that ‘A Nigerian woman who has no job, no profession of her own in the traditional system or in the contemporary system, is in danger for herself and for her children’ (ibid.: 14). But, like several African writers and filmmakers, who attempt to find ways of melding what they perceive as ‘African traditional’ and western values, Sofola’s plays underscore the dilemma of living simultaneously in societies with multiple cultural values as a condition of postcoloniality. It seems, therefore, that her critics are troubled by her refusal to engage in pronouncements of a feminist or womanist agenda or to declare a radical socio-

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political activism. But, as a pioneer female playwright in Nigeria, she ‘found [herself] in the company of men who initially felt that women should stay at home and take care of their husbands and their babies (Sofola 1988: 16). In other words, she was a rebel and a pariah in a male dominated arena, where she had to struggle for space in the conversation. Besides, as she emphasizes in her contribution to the forum on ‘The Black Woman Playwright: African Heritage/Contemporary Challenges,’ male playwrights saw women playwrights as encroaching on a male domain. Then, she adds: If you are writing, you are invading in the area of concept and creation, original creation, which means that you are in that process going to control the man who will act in it and who will direct. The first thing you will hear was that you should learn to stay where you should be … I knew that something was wrong and something has to be done about it (sic). (1988: 5)

Sofola’s dilemma is familiar, because like other (pioneer) African women writers, their ‘late entry into the African literary arena created new imperatives that they had to confront’ (Mule 2007: 2). I suggest that the Omu, Nneobi, and queen in King Emene represent Sofola’s attempt to present women with voice, agency –women capable of interrogating the Beti proverb which opens my essay. But, while the Omu and queen seek justice and truth, Nneobi’s desperate desire to escape poverty forces her to exercise agency by murdering the rightful heir to the throne whom she perceived as an obstacle to her social uplift. II Although King Emene: Tragedy of a Rebellion tropes the intolerance of a Nigerian leadership that had become alienated from its citizens, the play also addresses women’s attempts to articulate their opposition to both patriarchal and cultural disempowerment at private and public levels. At the public (communal or national) level, the conflict between the Omu/Mkpitime and Emene under­ scores women’s attempt to resist being muted in the political arena. This conflict and the Omu’s subsequent exile from her land become the catalysts for a larger community crisis, which eventually destroys the king. At the private (personal) level, the king’s mother, Nneobi’s effort to alter her social marginalization

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by ‘murdering’ the rightful heir to the throne becomes the catalyst for larger political and public crises, which threaten to engulf the community. Indeed, the two conflicts are interrelated, for Nneobi’s personal actions set in motion the larger public turmoil. Sofola’s play suggests that Nneobi’s private protest against what she sees as her subalternity and the Omu’s public defiance of Emene’s orders are linked as acts of resistance against silencing or gendered subordination. The central conflict of the play, the Omu-Emene conflict, stems from the king’s assertion of patriarchal authority which consequently erodes women’s voices in the leadership and community. This conflict is also represented as a struggle between Emene and the goddess Mkpitime, whose priestess is the Omu, the representative of the women’s arm of the government. By challenging the Omu’s authority, Emene also questions that of the goddess Mkpitime as well as women’s right to speak publicly and politically. The political and spiritual are linked in this public conflict with the Omu, who is central to the maintenance of a balance of power in the community, which Emene’s actions threaten. Kamene Okonjo addresses the Omu’s centrality as a social and political figure in the community when she states that the female omu ‘in theory was the acknowledged mother of the whole community but in practice was charged with concern for the female section’ [of the society] (47). Thus, the Omu functions as the female counterpart to the king or ‘“Obi”, [who] in theory was the acknowledged head of the whole community but who in practice was concerned more with the male section of the community’ (47). Okonjo explains further that the ‘Omu was not a queen in the western sense. She was neither the wife of the king nor the reigning daughter of a king who died without a male heir. In fact, she did not derive her status in any way from an attachment or relationship to the king’ (48). Rather, the Omu, as an appointed representative and as the servant of the goddess Mkpitime speaks for the women and the goddess, the arch matriarch of the land. In addition, the king cannot carry out political decisions which affect the community without the Omu’s approval. Here, the Omu symbolizes the recognition of the cultural and political importance of women in traditional society. In Sofola’s play, then, the Omu represents a ‘third’ voice, occupying what Homi Bhabha has described as a ‘third space.’ On the one hand, she mediates between the community and its spiritual matriarch, the goddess Mkpitime. On the other hand, the Omu

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enunciates for Mkpitime and women within a patriarchal polity, thus, negotiating the gendered identity politics of the demarcated dual-sex political structure. The Omu’s location, therefore, suggests the possibilities of alternative or multiple perspectives rather than a unitary view of the social and political life of the community. Homi Bhabha, points out that these ‘in-between’ spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood – singular and communal – that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself’ (1994: 1-2). In fact, the Omu’s position as an alternative or complimentary voice to Emene, who perceives himself as the sole voice of his people suggests the possibility of a democratic process within an indigenous African political system, an all-inclusive system which recognizes even dissenting voices. Certainly, the Omu’s refusal to pacify the king by altering the goddess’s warnings underscores the Omu’s initiation of a trans­formative social process, one which privileges the people by locating them at the center of their communal or national politics. Her action also inscribes her as a speaking and a self-authoring subject. In enunciating for herself, the community and for other women, she speaks from a position which is sometimes supportive and at other times oppositional to Emene, but which attempts to ensure women’s agency while insisting on gender equity in local/communal and/or national spaces. Additionally, the conflict suggests that the ‘competing claims of communities’ have become ‘profoundly antagonistic, conflictual, and even incommensurable’ (ibid. 1994: 2). Thus, Emene’s resolution stifles the Omu’s oppositional voice. The Omu-Emene conflict first emerges in the scene in which the Omu tries to inform the king of the goddess Mkpitime’s warning, but he ignores her, accusing her of treason. Although Emene is innocent of the crime, he is tainted, guilty through his mother, and also because he disregards the message of the goddess. Seeing her as threat, he exiles her, symbolically slaying the messenger. As an emissary of the goddess, the spiritual ‘mother’ of the land, the Omu is theoretical mother of the community. In fulfilling her responsibility to the community, she reminds Emene that he sent her to consult the oracle and persists to deliver her message, even as he tries to silence her with ‘swallow the rest’ (Sofola 1974: 5). Furthermore, she emphasizes that it is not her ’concern’ to worry about Emene’s discontent with the message of the goddess. Her role is, therefore, to safeguard the community’s path into the future.

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Although Emene is aware of the Omu’s status in the community, he exiles her, arguing that her protest is the result of the Olinzele Council’s influence. Later, he informs Ojei, his godfather, ‘I know how the Omu in collaboration with the Olinzele people colluded to kill my father ...’ (11). For sure, Emene has sexualized public or political speech, especially because it is uttered by a woman who calls for his accountability. For instance, he indicates that the Omu, as a woman, even if she represents the gods and humans, cannot articulate difference without the help of men. In other words, the Omu (woman) is incapable of individual thought, an attitude which Sofola’s earlier observations about the representation of women confirm. Jigide, Emene’s confidante and the leader of the royal lineage, also confirms this masculinist attitude towards the Omu when he tells Emene, ‘She needed a strong and firm hand from you, your highness’ (15). To both men, the Omu could not authorize her own speech. They suggest instead that she must be a conduit for the articulation of the machinations of others; Emene comments to Ojei: ‘the Omu has foolishly allowed herself to be used as [the Olinzele Council’s] mouthpiece’ (11). In exiling the Omu, Emene treats her like an errant child, who needed to be taught a lesson. But, ironically, in acting hastily, he fails to realize that the Olinzele is fractured without the Omu, who is also one of the councillors, and the leading female voice.9 In punishing the Omu, Emene commits sacrilege, for by exiling her, he also violates indigenous mores which protect the messenger. Among the Igbos, it is taboo to kill or punish the bearer of a message, for the gods protect a messenger. Speaking for Oligbo people, Iyese, another councillor, reminds Emene of the messenger’s protected right when he says: ‘We have a saying that a message does not kill the messenger. The messenger only delivers his message, but whether or not the receiver likes it, is not the messenger’s problem’ (24). In The Broken Calabash, Tess Onwueme’s village crier warns, ‘a message does not kill its bearer’ (1998: 17). Emene’s actions remind us of Chinua Achebe’s Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart, who also violated the sanctity of the messenger when he struck and killed the District Commissioner’s messenger at the end of novel.10 Ironically, Emene seems unaware of the implications of his actions, for the Omu in the play speaks for the goddess Mkpitime, the symbol of peace, wisdom, and justice. As a protected servant of the goddess, the Omu cannot be punished by Emene or another human, and in punishing her, Emene symbolically punishes the goddess, thus, enraging her. Also,

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politically, Emene does not have authority over the Omu because she represents both community and women’s interests in the government; she is the king’s counterpart, an equal, and can only be replaced by the people or Mkpitime. In removing the Omu and appointing a surrogate in her place, Emene symbolically challenges, in particular, the authority and relevance of the goddess as the guiding spirit of the land, and in general, the women’s and community’s agency. Although concerned for his crown, Emene’s actions are informed by his masculinist perception of women as subordinates, voiceless, powerless, and dispensable. The contradictions in his perceptions are enormous. As a citizen of Oligbo, he acknowledges the supremacy of a female deity, Mkpitime, but as a public figure and when confronted by a woman who represents the deity, he silences her. He believes he is in the right because he is the king and male, while the Omu, even if she has divine protection and is his political counterpart, is wrong because of her gender. Furthermore, he believes that she is replaceable, although other male elders in his community warn him that his action violates traditions. It is useful to note that Emene does not punish Ezedibie, the king’s chief medicine person (healer), who opposes the exiling of the Omu, calling it ‘madness’ while describing Emene as young and errant. Furthermore, Ezedibie invokes the name of the community to register his disapproval of Emene’s actions: ‘Son Oligbo forbids what you are doing … Your highness, you have done the abominable … ’ (Sofola 1974: 6). Ezedibie’s renunciation of his courtly responsibility as an act of protest further confirms the legitimacy of the Omu’s actions. At the end of this scene (Act1:1), Emene’s refusal to heed his people’s call for restraint exposes his gradual transformation into a monocratic ruler. III Emene’s refusal to acknowledge the Omu’s authority and political right to speak for the people and the goddess, as well as his subse­ quent banishment of the Omu is tantamount to a coup, for he has abrogated the democratic process of the land. In replacing her with a surrogate, who is only a stooge, he signals his determination to silence any opposition or alternative voices. Believing that his actions are justified, Emene asserts that they will ‘purge the kingdom and save [him]self and [his] innocent citizens’ (6). But his actions seem to be retaliatory; the purge will remove particularly

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those whom he claims betrayed and killed his father. In the follow­ing scene with Ojei, the King’s godfather and a member of the Olinzele Council, Emene insists on the correctness of his decision despite Ojei’s warning that the people are troubled by the King’s exiling of the Omu. ‘I have done what I have done, and nothing can alter it,’ (10) he affirms. But, Ojei points out that Emene’s arbitrary selection of ‘another person, unconfirmed by our goddess, to consult the Oracle’ during peace week defiles the land and threatens the citizens. Besides, no other king has sent ‘a person of his choice to consult our goddess and the Oracle during the peace week’ (10), Ojei adds. Emene perceives himself as unique, perhaps, superior to other kings. ‘I am not any other king’ (11), he tells Ojei, who sardonically responds that Emene is marked by difference because he has failed to ‘follow the path of caution and good sense’ (11). Emene’s comment that ‘it is an iron hand they understand’ is paternalistic, if not dictatorial. Ojei’s parting remarks also underscore Emene’s alienation from his people: ‘a good king is not one who only provides his subjects with the blessings of life, but also one who has the power of a lion but chooses to walk on the side of the road. You have the power, but I fear that the sense behind the power is absent’ (12). The exchange reveals a leadership that is at war with its citizens. Indeed, the king is at war with the very people he struggles to protect. Emene’s consolidation of power denies the citizens a voice and consequently threatens the security of his community. If Sofola’s play allegorizes the turbulent political environment of civil war Nigeria, it also suggests that then leadership engendered retaliatory and repressive political acts locally, in war-torn areas, and nation­ ally against voices of dissent. A case in point is the detention of Nigerian Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka in 1967 because he had opposed the civil war.11 Soyinka acknowledged during the Nigerian civil war that the war ‘should never have been fought.’ He pointed out then that the price of keeping Nigeria as a nation by refusing to recognize the rights of minorities, specifically Igbos was too high. In an interview with ’Biyi Bandele-Thomas, Soyinka reiterates his perspective on the civil war, stating: ‘During the Civil War, I’m on record as having said that I’d rather Biafra broke away and created its own entity than have Nigeria stay together at the price that it must pay – especially the future consequences of that price, because that kind of price, you don’t pay it once and for all. The ramifications carry on for quite a long time’ (1994:153).

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Wole Soyinka’s comments highlight the terror of forced national belonging, where dissent is perceived as treasonous and minority voices are excluded from the nationalist discourse. Ironically, post-civil war Nigerian leaders have tended to repress voices of dissent. For instance, to date, there has not been any attempt at a national truth and reconciliation hearing to address the voices of those marginalized by the Nigerian civil war or even to consider the implications of Biafra and the civil war for the affected regions in particular or the nation in general. Internecine violence is currently rampant in the country.12 Also, post-civil war Nigerian leaders have failed to successfully address new issues of environmental violence and economic disenfranchisement stemming from national and global economic policies which have traumatized Nigerians, particularly those in the Niger Delta regions.13 Sofola’s play proposes that Emene’s actions impose a high price on his people, just as the refusal of contemporary Nigerian leaders to listen to the cries of the people threatens the survival of the country. But, Emene’s dilemma is tragic, for his tragedy stems from the fatal result of his well-intentioned acts. In her article, ‘The Concept of Tragedy in African Experience’, she asserts that ‘Tragedy may be broadly defined as a purposive volitional involvement in a serious action which is moral, noble and desirable, but whose consequences are painful, even fatal’ (1986: 59). Clarifying her definition, she adds, ‘It is an experience where man [woman] is thrown into critical dilemmas which are difficult or impossible to escape’ (59). Certainly, Emene’s dilemma is difficult and seemingly impossible to escape, primarily because his conflict with the Omu is also a confrontation with a deity. Thus, he seems ordained to fail from the beginning. Drawing from Edo (Bini) and Umu Ezechima cosmologies, Sofola formulates the idea of tragedy which informs King Emene. She states that tragedy in these cosmologies was ‘defined not simply as any human suffering, but that which arises in the process of executing a well-intentioned moral action’ (Sofola 1986: 64). Emene’s actions, of course, are ‘well-intentioned’, even if they have dire consequences for the community and for him. Sofola insists: The emphasis is on volitional involvement where the agent believes in the morality and desirability of his objective and course of action, expects approbation and acceptance but meets with disaster instead. As a finite being he embarks on a moral action not aware of the hidden and mysterious forces which might work against his objective. He

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is only fully aware of the force in him which propels him to thrust all his being into an abyss of a universe which in his moments of self-assessment and noble elevation he believes himself capable of controlling and overcoming but in which, at the moment of truth, he finds himself reduced to nothing. (1986: 64)

The definition above sheds light on the stubbornness which some critics note in Emene. From Emene’s perspective, his actions are moral, noble and well intentioned, for he believes that his purpose is to lead his people and save them from destruction. However, his goodwill is lost as his vision is clouded by a desire to protect his throne, thus, severing himself from his people and the gods. Commenting on Sofola’s tragic plays, Olu Obafemi states that ‘the heroes usually demonstrate a kind of total insensitivity to the voices of reason around them. The characters’ fates are sealed. They are therefore unaware of the dangers around them. They shun all advice and move on inexorably towards their destruction’ (1989: 61). Obafemi reads this feature as a weakness in Sofola’s drama, but Sofola sees this as her characters’ demonstration of volition. In the case of King Emene, Emene perceives his actions as wellintentioned; he pursues the ‘truth’, which eludes him, because he is unwittingly implicated in its undermining. Consequently, his actions become tyrannical, plunging him into the abyss. The nobility of his actions are, however, contestable, for his people do not perceive his actions as moral, noble, or desirable. Thus, Emene falls short of his own author’s criteria for a tragic hero. Emene sacrifices himself too late, however, to save his people. Besides, his suicide at the end of the play is not intended as a sacrifice to redeem his people. In fact, its significance is muted by his earlier refusal to investi­gate the frightening state of affairs in his community or to bring his people closer to their gods by purifying the court and the community. In the end, his death is anti-heroic. Furthermore, in dying without correcting the wrong against his people, he abdicates his responsi­bilities to them as their leader. He has not thrown himself into the abyss and darkness of the ‘transitional gulf,’ as a restorative act. Rather, his suicide compels his people to engage in additional cleansing rituals to correct the wrong committed against the land. Ojie instructs that ‘no-one cries’ for Emene ‘until after the rituals’ (1974: 46). Really, Emene’s tragedy is captured in Diopka’s proverbial speech, when the latter tries to tell Emene that the relationship between the king and his people is symbiotic:

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There is a saying that it is the trees that make the for­est, and the king of the trees does not grow in the desert. The people are the trees of Oligbo and our King must have the people to be a King. And when the very existence of the people is threatened, it is proper that the King as well as the people show some concern. But if the King, blinded by power and desire for supremacy among his council members, fails to see the impending disaster, it is morally binding on the people to speak directly with the King; and if they are not heard, to do something, whatever it may be, to save themselves from destruction. (18-19)

Emene, however, reads Diokpa’s cautionary comments as inso­ lences. ‘I told you that it is my desire to have direct c­ontact with my subjects, but I never meant it to be a license for inso­lence and disrespect’ (19), he tells Diokpa. The dialogue is important as it exposes Emene’s alienation from his people. While he sees the people as his subjects, therefore, his subordinates, Diokpa sees interdependence: the king exists only because of his people. The dialogue also depicts Diokpa in a more heroic and leadership role than Emene, the King. The former articulates the feelings of Oligbo people and calls the king to accountability, emphasizing the people’s right to remove errant leaders. Evidently as suggested in the exchange, the conflict between the Omu and Emene has created a rift between the king and his Olinzele Council. This rupture in turn becomes significant as the community begins to feature prominently in the debate over Emene’s refusal to exercise caution or to restore order and the legitimate Omu. For Diokpa, however, Emene’s actions are autocratic, destructive, and represent a betrayal of his people’s trust. The consequences of his actions are more ruinous than Emene had anticipated, for not only has he severed the people from their spiritual moorings and gods, but also, he has doomed them to destruction. Really, these actions foreshadow the attitude of Nigerian and several African leaders who have become alienated from their citizens. Frantz Fanon warned in his article ‘The Pitfalls of National Consciousness’ that the national bourgeoisie or leadership of postcolonial nations will turn against the people, transforming itself into a ‘bourgeois dictatorship’ (1995: 157). Although the fictional Emene is situated in the nineteenth century, the political leaders whom the play allegorizes are contemporary, located in a postcolonial Nigeria. Sofola does not shy away from pointing out the parallels between the postcolonial nation’s leaders and Emene. ‘Those men [pre-civil war leaders] did not listen to anyone’ (Eke

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1991). One should add, they still have not listened. Articulating the community’s perspective, an angry Diopka informs Emene that he has lost his people’s trust and that ‘The people have taken it upon themselves to stem the impending disaster’ (19). Indeed, the play becomes a trope for interrogating obsessive exercise of power that leads to what some may see as ‘monopartyism’, which threatens diverse voices, dissention, and queries individual exercise of citizenship or communality.

IV Although the play’s criticism seems to be directed at the nation’s leaders’ unawareness of their people’s growing discontent, it reveals the ways in which women are spoken for or ignored when they speak. On several occasions women speak or attempt to contribute to the conversation but are silenced. While Sofola’s critics lament that she upholds traditions, the play’s actions, on the contrary, seem to underscore the playwright’s critique of practices that render women as subalterns and even homeless. In her work ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’(2006) Gayatri Spivak addresses the way women’s speeches are rendered valueless or not heard, or even erased through the containment of women’s subject positions. The Omu speaks, but she is not heard. Other women also speak, but are equally silenced. Perhaps, their dilemma is also Sofola’s whose speaking/writing has been circumscribed by the ideological and political expectations of others. By banishing only the Omu, who is a female member of the Olinzele with voting and speaking rights, Emene denies her, and by extension other women, citizenship, signifying that she does not have a similar claim to community or citizenship as the men. I use citizenship here in the simplest terms to refer to the rights of membership in an organized group or collective, as in a member of Oligbo, the Omu’s community. Thus, the Omu like Emene and members of the Olinzele have the same rights of citizenship in Oligbo. However, Emene’s curtailing of the legitimate Omu’s powers by banishing her presents a gendered citizenship and complicates the notion of home, community, or nation in the play by undermining the construction of such identity based on shared experience or heritage. Thus, home (nation) represents a place of unbelonging, of estrangement and hostility for the

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Omu. Because I read Sofola’s play as an allegory, I use ‘nation’ here broadly to refer to a small community as in Oligbo and to a larger entity, Nigeria. While Benedict Anderson sees nation as an ‘imagined community’ or entity, Ernest Renan argues that what constitutes a nation is ‘the common possession of a rich heritage of memories’ and ‘the actual consent, the desire to live together, the will to preserve worthily the undivided inheritance which has been handed down’ (2001: 174). Thus, like the nation, writ large, communities are held together by ‘the style in which they are imagined’ (Anderson 1996: 6). Therefore, the Omu’s claim to citizenship or nation is unmistakable, for she imagines or shares with the male members of the Olinzele a common heritage of memories and desire to maintain peace, ensure justice, and safeguard the unity as well as the continuity of the community in the future. Unlike Emene, who seems determined to displace the Omu, other male members of Oligbo who are also part of the Olinzele acknowledge her right to citizenship and her importance in the community. In an exchange warning Emene of the dangers of his actions, Ojei, his godfather, informs him of Oligbo’s history as well as the spiritual and political significance of the Omu in that history: Ogugua, no king, with no matter what strength and influence, has the power to tell the Oracle who must receive messages from her. Omu has always consulted the oracles during the peace week as far as one can remember. Never has it happened that the King has done what you have done. Never has the Omu been banished from this kingdom. (Sofola 11)

Ojei’s construction of national belonging also emphasizes common history and memory as in Renan’s definition. For the Oligbo people, it is a history of a ’common motherhood‘ articulated at various times by several members of Oligbo. According to Ifi Amadiume, ‘the ideological base in a female gendered motherhood’ or the ‘ideology of umunne or Ibenne [mother’s children, brethren]’ (1997:18) when ‘reproduced in the wider political order’ in which the whole community is ‘bound as children of a common mother’ has great implications (18). Ama­diume indicates that this ideology of ‘common motherhood’ provides the people with a shared identity ‘as children of a common mother,’ often the deity worshipped by all members of the community. Amadiume’s theory of umunne or Ibenne also has

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Gender Politics, Home & Nation in Zulu Sofola’s King Emene   23

significance for reading citizenship in Sofola’s play. The people of Oligbo perceive themselves as Ibenne or umunne, children of a common mother, the goddess Mkpitime and the deity whom they worship. Throughout King Emene, either in their prayers or in their conversations, several citizens of Oligbo affirm a common motherhood through Mkpitime. For instance, in her prayer to the goddess, the queen pleads, ‘bless your children’ (Sofola 1). Later, Iyese, another member of the Olinzele, recalls their shared identity when he tells Emene: ‘We are only Mother Mkpitime’s messengers’ (24). As Amadiume informs us, ‘[a]dministratively and in political decision making, the human representatives of the goddess are the arch matriarchs, the Ekwe titled women, leaders of the marketplaces and the women’s council, a formal political organization of all women’ (1997: 18) of the particular community, ‘which excludes men’. The Omu in Sofola’s play belongs to this all-female collective and Emene’s action not only removes her from public space, but also undermines the participation of women as independent subjects in the community’s political space, thus threatening the equilibrium of the political structure. For instance, Jean O’Barr (1986) confirms that within this ‘dualsex’ system, ‘an official called the Omu among the Igbo of eastern Nigeria was in charge of women’s affairs, including the regulations of market trade.’ Scholars point out that colonialism destroyed the ‘dual-sex’ system when it by-passed women and paid salaries to males. In her interview with Adeola James, Sofola explains this impor­ tant administrative and political role of the Omu in her play: In King Emene, the Omu was there and she was the one who told the King, frankly and fearlessly, that he was the cause of the problem. That was her role in that play. Even though critics feel I was deliberately making a woman stronger, that was how she would have acted in real life. I have seen this very Omu-Ako confront the King at a festival. (James 1990: 148)

The Omu, as noted earlier is the leader of the women’s section of the government, as well as a priestess of the goddess Mkpitime. She also represents matriarchal power. As the leader of the ‘women’s council’ in the government, she has more authority than the male Olinzele councilors to question Emene’s decisions. She can also assume leadership in the event of the king’s death or downfall until a new king is installed. Furthermore, she alone can sanction the

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24  Maureen Eke

king’s entry into the peace week, for she alone consults the oracles for the community during this period. It is not surprising then that Emene perceives her as a threat, for she questions his legitimacy and assumed centrality in community politics. In other words, the Omu has a mouth, a status that interrogates the Beti proverb which opens this essay. But, Emene’s banishment of the legal Omu and appointment of a weak surrogate complicates the identity and responsibilities of this powerful representative of the female arm of government by reducing her to a subordinate position. A consequence of Emene’s action is its undermining of the community’s understanding and application of justice located in the power of the goddess Mkpitime. She is the female force of order. She symbolizes continuity; hence, she is associated with peace and the preservation of human life. For instance, Nneobi calls her ‘Water of life,’ and the queen refers to her as ‘Goddess of life.’ In her prayer for justice, Obiageli, the mother of the deceased heir to the throne, addresses Mkpitime: ‘Oh Mother of the rich and poor,/ You whose uncompromising/ Hatred of injustice has forced you to depart the company of Anwai and Oshimili’ (7). Mkpitime is the goddess of protest represented by her self-imposed alienation from the ‘unjust’ Anwai and Oshimili. Mkpitime is also a goddess of duality, for she can be both protective and vengeful. When her warnings are obeyed, the people of Oligbo are the ‘favourite of the gods.’ Diokpa warns about her wrath and reminds Emene of her goodness to the community during the previous king’s reign: ‘When your father was with us, we saw the best of things; Oligbo was the favourite of the gods; Our fields gave us more than we needed. . . . The rivers laughed and the trees clapped their hands! This is how your father left us, and this is what we want to retain’ (19-20). Besides the Omu’s expulsion, various incidents reveal the king’s gendering of power, curtailing especially women’s attempts to speak. For example, in Act 1:1 (6), Emene ignores the queen’s call for caution and renders her speech unimportant. Later in Act 2:2, she advises the king to show mercy, saying: ‘Your majesty, you must listen to the members of the Olinzele Council. They are the members of the governing body and must see you at any time about things that affect the lives of your subjects’ (21). He admonishes her instead with, ‘You are stepping beyond your bounds,’ to which she pleads, ‘Your forgiveness. But I am saying this because of what I know and what I have seen’ (21). In a similar vein, Emene admonishes his mother for her involvement in palace politics,

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when he warns, ‘you are getting too anxious for me, mother’ (23). For sure, Emene is correct in cautioning his mother to distance herself from the affairs of the state, for after all, he is the king. Still, his responses are informed by fear of being emasculated, even as his mother confesses her fears for his wellbeing. He reclaims his throne, insisting, ‘I will not be a king whom peo­ple call his mother’s tail. I don’t need you to rule Oligbo with me’ (23). Perhaps, a similar fear of power sharing with intrusive women or matriarchal figures informs his treatment of the Omu. V Whereas the central power struggle in Sofola’s play is between Emene and the Omu/Mkpitime, one does not wish to suggest that there is cohesion among the women. Women are often guilty of complicity in their own exclusion, when they do not challenge the subordinate positions ascribed to them by patriarchy or when women in positions of privilege help to marginalize other less privileged women.14 Within these already marginalized spaces, women further participate in their own disempowerment, through divisive rivalry as is demon­strated by that between the queen and Nneobi (Act 1:1) as they contest for limited resources. The conversa­tion between Nneobi and the queen at the palace exposes their antagonistic relationship, stemming from a distrust of each other and their individual desire to assert power through their association with the king. In this scene, the two women joust over who must fulfill the cleansing of the shrine during the peace week, culminating in their claims of social privileges through the king. The queen asserts, ‘I am the wife of the King,’ to which, the king’s mother Nneobi responds, (laughing derisively): ‘You make me laugh. Your husband or my son?’ (1). Ironically, the two women have a common interest, i.e., their desire to safeguard the success of the king. But, the queen sees her mother-in-law’s action as an intrusion into her domain: ‘never before has the mother of the King undertaken the responsibilities of the Queen’ (1–2). However, prompted by acute guilt over the murder she has committed, defiling the palace and the land, Nneobi appropriates the functions of the queen and chooses to purify the palace herself. Because of the nature of her crime, Mkpitime, the goddess of justice, demands public revela­tion of the crime and retribution.

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Another secondary plot of King Emene explores the confronta­tion between Nneobi and Obiageli, the mother of the murdered rightful king elect. Clearly, Obiageli is justified in her anger at Nneobi who has killed the former’s son to clear the path for Emene to ascend the throne. But the two women’s struggle has political implica­tions too, for each woman attempts to galvanize her position further by establish­ing herself as ‘mother’ of the king. Obiageli invokes the goddess, pleading for justice. But, bringing Nneobi to justice will expose her as a fraud, indirectly restore Obiageli’s claim as the rightful queen mother, and reclaim for her dead son his rightful title as king. Her relationship to power, therefore, parallels that of Nneobi, whose political position is dependent on her son’s occupation of the throne. In her study of women in Nigerian history, Halima Mohammed shows that queen mothers had political authority among various groups in Nigeria (Mohammed 1985: 47). Zulu Sofola states that in investigating the origins of Umuadah, that is, the Otuumu or female arm of the government, she also discovered that ‘Queen Motherhood in traditional African systems was a source of power’ (Eke 1991). She adds that in the Queen Motherhood system ‘the source, strength, and legitimacy of the man to the throne can be traced through the line of the wife or the mother’ (Eke 1991). Hence, in King Emene, the queen and Nneobi define themselves as extensions of the central male figure, the king. Nneobi identifies herself as the mother of the king and claims a stronger affiliation with the king than the queen, who sees him as her husband, her ‘lord.’ Nneobi’s status as the queen mother is a coveted position in traditional society, for often, kings establish their mothers, sisters or oldest daughters at the palace and bestow political positions on them (Mohammed 47). Jean O’Barr contends that ‘where women do not occupy official­ ly recognized positions in the society, they must influence the men they are personally connected to in order to influence policy’ (1986: 141). Nneobi measures her achievement in society through her role as queen mother, and like the queen, she sees her affilia­tion with Emene as a means of influencing decisions about the community. O’Barr continues: ‘women use their fathers, their brothers, and cousins, their husbands, or their sons to influence outcomes in the desired direction’ (141-2). Thus, the three women in Emene’s palace find themselves contesting for such limited power space, claiming rights only through the male figures in their lives.

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Sofola indicates that neither woman has the responsibility to perform the purification of the palace because traditionally it is the domain of the Omu. But because of the conflict between the Omu and the king, a power vacuum has been created by the refusal of the Omu and her Odogwu (assistant) to endorse the ushering in of the Peace Week by blessing the palace. It is this power vacuum that the queen and Nneobi attempt to fill (Eke 1991). The conflict between Nneobi and the queen can also be des­ cribed as the result of Nneobi’s awareness of her powerlessness as a woman. The regicide she commits is motivated by her desire for social upliftment and to secure a better social life for herself and her son Emene (Ogugua). At the end of the play, as the tragedy unfolds, engulfing her son, she explains her reason to him: (With subdued agitation) Ogugua my son, listen to me. The rat did not fall from the ceiling without a cause. … I suffered in my childhood with a poor mother of twelve children. I saw my mother cry bitterly night and day when she had no food for her hungry children. I could not bear this, so I started praying very early for a better life. My prayers were answered. Your father married me. My fortune and that of my children changed. I promised myself then never to return to those miserable days. (44)

Although the play suggests that Nneobi’s action is unethical, it presents us with an oppositional act. Nneobi challenges the position ascribed to her by society as a passive and subservient woman. Her action is a critique of patriarchal and traditional practices that relegate women to the status of second class citizens. Nneobi’s rebellion is, consequently, a protest against the society, which forced her mother into obligatory motherhood, leaving her with twelve starving children in poverty. Of course, murder is not the solution to Nneobi’s disempowerment or poverty. Still, her action is an exercise of agency, although flawed. It fails, because it violates the ethics of Mkpitime and the land, which forbid murder. VI Unlike their king, Oligbo people recognize the importance of a government which gives voice to all – men and women. When they rebel against their king, it is because he has attempted to silence their voices, challenged the legitimacy of their deity and spiritual mother, Mkpitime, ignored their call for a restoration of democracy

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and justice, especially the reinstallment of the rightful Omu to her place, even if that is only within the traditional context. For Oligbo people, their survival depends on the establishment of a balance between the various sections of the society and Emene’s actions have led to a state of psychic, spiritual, and political disequilibrium. In fear, they rebel against him, rejecting him as their intermediary with the gods and informing him, ‘We don’t want you to pray for us. We did not send you to pray . . .’ (42). For Sofola, and perhaps, Oligbo people, only a restorative act will save them from the imminent destruction which Nneobi’s act and Emene’s defiance have unleashed. Perhaps, a different type of justice would have been meted out had Emene exercised caution, recognized the Omu’s right to speak, and listened to other voices in his community, even if they are those of dissension. While Emene’s suicide at the end of the play ironically saves his people, it denies him the honor of a hero. Certainly, Sofola’s King Emene reveals a society engaged in redefining itself and in which women and other citizens with oppositional perspectives contest rigid and/or gendered restrictions by enunciating themselves differently, hence, initiating ‘new signs of identity.’ The Omu, Diopka, and Ojei who refuse to be bullied into submission by Emene’s exclusionary politics signal the emergence of a new consciousness and identity politics which challenge the limitations of gendered citizenship. How do women formulate agency in a society with competing interests and notions of citizenship, community or even nation? Sofola’s women speak, but do so differently. Turning to look at a young graduate student with her late twentieth-century feminist ideas one afternoon in the playwright’s room in Toronto some years ago, the statuesque author said to me: ‘Mba, adam. I cho aya. Ifuro na f’ekwugo nu.’ (‘No, my daughter; do you wish for or want war? Don’t you see they have already spoken…’). Sofola’s feminism wanted organized action, any women’s feminism without obfuscation. The size of the ‘f’ in feminism no longer matters when the goal is to challenge all forms of discrimination and violence against women, if the issue is about interrogating those structures which disempower women, deny them speech, or subject positions and agency. These conduits of violence do not ask whether one’s feminism is writ large or small! And, the exercise of agency or speech does not ask that either. Feminist agency just begins with small acts! Sofola was pointing out for us her women’s small acts

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within those confined spaces; but these small acts include her own small act in paving a path for contemporary Nigerian women in the theatre as dramatists or playwrights and directors. NOTES  1 Zulu (short for Nwazulu) Sofola was born at Anyocha, Nigeria. She has a BA (English) from the University of Richmond, Virginia; M.A. (Drama) from the Catholic University, Washington, DC; and PhD (Drama) from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Her works include King Emene (1968; 1974), Disturbed Peace of Christmas (1971, Wedlock of the Gods (1972), The Wizard of Law (1975), The Sweet Trap (1977), and Old Wines Are Tasty (1981).  2 At the 2011 African Literature Association conference in Athens, Ohio, during a discussion on a panel on women writers organized by Prof. Ernest Emenyonu where I also presented a paper on Zulu Sofola, Irene Salami-Agunloye raised the ‘standard’ criticism of Sofola, arguing that the playwright had not pushed enough in her fight for women. The different positions which we had taken seem to me to have been informed by differing relationships with the playwright whom I had met and interviewed in 1991 at the Second International Women Playwrights Conference in Toronto, Canada.  3 In this essay, I use Emene as the appellation for the King, from whom the play gains its title. He is also referred to as Ogugua by Nneobi and some members of the Olinzele Council.  4 One could claim that postcolonial Nigeria has brought to fruition the silencing or erosion of voices of protest or opposition. An example is the execution of Nigerian writer-activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995. Other examples abound, including Dela Giwa, founding editor of Newswatch, who was killed by a letter bomb in 1986.   5 See Ahmad, 1995.   6 The character of the Omu is based on an actual event that happened in Sofola’s home town, Anyocha, during the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970. The King abdicated the throne and was replaced by the Omu, the head of the women’s arm of government. See Adeola James, 1990.   7 See a detailed discussion of politics in Nigerian war-torn communities in Eke, 1999. Also, see Eke Interview 1991.   8 See Eke Interview 1991.  9 Traditionally, the Olinzele Council comprised of the Omu, Odogwu Omu (the Omu’s assistant, who does not have voting or speaking rights) and male councilors. Today, the term, ‘Olinzele’ is designated only for the male councillors, while the Omu retains her title, ‘Omu’. 10 See Achebe Things Fall Apart 1958; 1973. 11 Wole Soyinka was imprisoned for twenty months during the Nigerian civil war because of his outspoken opposition to the war. He recounts his experiences during that period in his prison memoir, The Man Died: Prison Notes 1972 (Ibadan, Nigeria: Spectrum Books, 1985). 12 Sectarian violence has been flaring up in various Nigerian cities (Jos, Kaduna, Kafanchan, and Kano) since the 1980s leaving hundreds dead and properties destroyed. For instance, on December 25, 2011, a series of coordinated attacks on Christian places of worship left dozens of people dead. On January 21, 2012, attacks by Boko Haram left about 150 people dead in Kano, Nigeria. See Mark Doyle, BBC

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30  Maureen Eke News, Kano at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa. See also http://latitude. blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/ethnic-violence-in-nigeria/ in which one person draws a parallel between current violence in Nigeria and events leading to the civil war. 13 Tess Onwueme explores the impact of environmental deracination and economic marginalization of communities in the Niger Delta regions stemming from globalization and the environmental destructive acts of big corporations in two plays: What Mama Said, 2003 and Then She Said It, 2002. 14 Tess Onwueme’s Tell It to Women highlights the antagonistic relationship between Western educated Nigerian women who claim class privilege to subordinate their economically marginalized sisters. See Onwueme 1995.

WORKS CITED Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. London: Heinemann, 1958; 1973. Ahmad, Aijaz. ‘Jameson’s Rhetoric of Otherness and the National Allegory’. In Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin (eds). The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 1995, 2006: 84-88. Amadiume, Ifi. Reinventing Africa: Matriarchy, Religion and Culture. New York: Zed Books, 1997. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London and New York: Verso, 1996. Bandele-Thomas, Biyi. ‘Wole Soyinka Interviewed’. In Maja-Pearce (ed.) Wole Soyinka: An Appraisal. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1994: 142-160. Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994. Eke, Maureen N. ‘Interview’. Second International Women Playwright Conference. Toronto, 1991. __ ‘Socio-Political Awakening in Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Soza Boy’. In Craig W. McLuckie and Aubrey McPhail (eds) Ken Saro-Wiwa: Writer and Political Activist. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000: 87-106. Fanon, Frantz. ‘The Pitfalls of National Consciousness’. In Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin (eds) The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 1995. Iloeje, Azubuike. ‘Usurpation & the Umbilical Victim in Zulu Sofola’s King Emene’. African Literature Today, 24: 156-167. James, Adeola (ed). In Their Own Voices: African Women Writers Talk. London: James Currey; Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1990. Jameson, Fredric. ‘Third World Literature in the Era of Multi-national Capitalism’, Social Text, 15. Mohammed, Halima D. ‘Women in Nigerian History: Examples from Borno Empire, Nupeland and Igboland’. In Women in Nigeria Today. London: Zed Books, Ltd., 1985. Mule, Katwiwa. Women’s Spaces, Women’s Vision. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2007 Nasiru, Akanji. ‘Folklore in Nigerian Drama: An Examination of the Works of Three Nigerian Dramatists’. Literary Half Yearly, 19, 1978: 51-63. Obafemi, Olu. ‘Zulu Sofola’s Theatre’. In Henrietta Otokune and Obiageli Nwodo (eds) Nigerian Female Writers: A Critical Perspective. Lagos: Malthouse Press, 1989: 60-67. O’Barr, Jean. ‘African Women in Politics’. In Hay, Margaret Jean and Sharon Stichter (eds) African Women South of the Sahara. New York: Longman, 1986: 144. Ogunyeme, Chikwenye Okonjo: Cited in Iloeje, Azubuike. ‘Usurpation and the Umblical Victim in Zulu Sofola’s King Emene.’ ALT 24: 156. Okonjo, Kamene. ‘The Dual-Sex Political System in Operation: Igbo Women and Community Politics in Midwestern Nigeria’. In Nancy Hafkin and Edna Bay (eds)

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Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1976: 45-58. Onwueme, Tess. The Broken Calabash. Ibadan, Nigeria: Heinemann Educational Books, 1988. __ Tell It To Women. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997. Renan, Ernest. ‘What is a Nation?’ In Vincent P. Pecora (ed.) Nations and Identities. Malden, MA and Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publ., 2001:162-76. Sofola, Zulu. King Emene: Tragedy of a Rebellion. London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1974. __ ‘The Concept of Tragedy in African Experience’. In Okpaku, Joseph O., Alfred E. Opubor, and Benjamin O. Oloruntimehin (eds) Black Civilization and Literature. Lagos: Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization, 1986: 59-68. __ ‘The Black Woman Playwright: African Heritage/Contemporary Challenges’. First International Women Playwrights Conference. Buffalo, NY: 1988. __ ‘Women Playwrights: Multiple Roles to Survive in the World’. First International Women Playwrights Conference. Buffalo, NY: 1988. __ ‘The Artist and the Tragedy of a Nation: An Inaugural Lecture’. Ilorin: University of Ilorin, 1991. Soyinka, Wole. The Man Died: Prison Notes. Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 1972; 1985. Spivak, Gayatri C. ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ In Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin (eds). The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 1995, 2006: 28-37.

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The Militant Writer in Sembène’s Early Fiction From Le Docker noir to L’Harmattan KWAWISI TEKPETEY

One of the most ardently discussed questions among writers and critics of modern African literature centered on the choice between artistic commitment and what Claude Wauthier called the ‘Ebony Tower’.1 The artist was called upon to rediscover the social and political role that he played in traditional Africa. In this view, it was deemed that he should assume responsibility for his people and that his work should reflect their aspirations. Thus, his work must not only describe the oppressive state in which his people find themselves but also encourage them to revolt against their untenable conditions. Besides, his work of art must lead to constructive action. Ousmane Sembène exemplifies this artistic ideal. Unlike most francophone writers, Ousmane Sembène’s formal education ended at the age of thirteen after only three years of primary school. From then on, he was engaged in as many as thirty-six different kinds of occupation. For this reason, it is mostly through extra- scholastic experience that he ‘graduated’ as a novelist, embracing his writing vocation partly because of his identification with the working class. What is noteworthy in his work is his sincere and constant devotion to those he calls his ‘beautiful people’, ‘his determination to be the spokesperson of ‘miseries which have no tongue’,3 to borrow the expression of the Martiniquan poet, Aimé Césaire. Sembène resolved to express misfortunes which are just as much his as those of the oppressed, and he cherished a keen desire to awaken the consciousness of his people. He subscribed to a militant form of art according to which the artist has a social mission to fulfill. He understood that the artist should be deeply rooted in the socio-political reality of his people which must be reflected in his work. Indeed, he committed 32

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himself to this avowed aim of maintaining close contact with African people and reality and; his work remains as a monument and moving testimony of his sincerity. At the historic colloquium held at the Université de Dakar in 1963 on the theme ‘African Literature and the University Curriculum’, Sembène reacted violently to a suggestion that literature should keep clear of politics: ‘We are speaking French and the word “politique” means the affairs of the city, and it is impossible to discuss the art and culture of living men in isolation from the men themselves.’4 For Sembène then, creating a work of art is not purely for aesthetics; he subordinates form to content: ‘When I write, I commit my responsi­bility of a writer with…my political, cultural opinions etc. … It is a form of participation in social action’.5 Clearly, he considers commitment as a sine qua non condition for artistic excellence. Although Sembène entered literature with poetry, he soon opted for the novel. This choice must be interpreted as ideological, for unlike poetry the novel has never flourished as a literary form reserved for the elite. According to the novelist, he started writing because he was really disappointed with the kind of African literature that he read in Marseilles, which failed to express themes of oppression and liberation, for example. A close examination of Sembène’s artistic production reveals that the Sartrian notion of the ‘other’ considered specifically in the light of the quotation: ‘Hell is other people’ finds expression in his early fiction, where the ‘other’ is perceived as the oppressor. The thematic structure of the works under consideration begins with oppression with an inevitable movement towards liberation; there are also such corollary themes as enslavement versus freedom and degrada­tion versus the rise of man. Oppression invariably engenders con­flict and the interest in the works centers on how various characters react to contradictions and move to a resolution, that is, liberation. The novelist explores diverse forms of oppression, confronting the condition of Blacks, the colonized, workers, women and domestic servants. In Sembène’s first novel, Black Docker, Pipo offers this pertinent advice to Diaw Falla, the protagonist: ‘You aspire to being a writer? You’ll never be a good one until you defend a cause.’7 Having suffered misfortunes, the latter ‘now … knew that life was a daily struggle. He learned to loathe the poets and painters who depicted only beauty and celebrated the glory of spring, forgetting the bitterness of the cold.’8 The writer must not shut his eyes to the

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34  Kwawisi Tekpetey

offensive aspects of life. This conception of realism is not so much psychological as social, for it is not the psychological development of characters which matters to Sembene, rather their development within a given social milieu. Sembène also asserted that he started writing because he wanted the outside world to correct its misconceptions about Africa. This ambition of rehabilitating the image of Africa is not far removed from one of the main objectives of the apostles of Negritude, and may lead one to conclude that the artist is an advocate of Negritude. However, in his preface to ‘White Genesis’, he makes one of his most vehement anti-negritude statements: The debility of AFRICAN MAN – which we call our AFRICANITY, our NEGRITUDE – and which, instead of fostering the subjection of nature by science, upholds oppression and engenders venality, nepotism, intrigue and all those weaknesses with which we try to conceal the base instincts of man – (may at least one of us shout it out before he dies) – is the great defect of our time.9

For Sembène, Negritude fell short of fulfilling the political needs that faced Africa, and this inadequacy lies at the heart of his disagreement with the movement, which he criticized because he believed it had outlived its usefulness. As a Marxist, Sembène viewed Negritude as a form of mystification, and his social conscience opposed the movement which he considered racist, retrogressive, and above all bourgeois. Besides, for him, the movement created counter myths. Sembène did not cultivate a narcissistic admiration of the past. Indeed, many Negritude poets acquiesced in themes which soon turned out to be sheer romanticism, an idealization of the past to an extent that it became a reactionary myth. Here is a declaration from the novelist: ‘I want to be a patent witness of the history of my people; I do not want to be outside the struggle; I want to be right in the middle of the struggle, not only to participate in it but ... to be able to recount history to those who have experienced it so that together we may turn over a new leaf.’10 The idea of the artist as a critic of his society is dramatized in Sembène’s novella ‘White Genesis’, in which the role of the griot is portrayed as the voice of conscience and truth in a village community. A chief has obtained his office by instigating fratricide. Only the griot dares raise objection and decides to leave the village. The voluntary exile of the village bard brings about the downfall of the illegitimate chief, and thus, the individual act of protest through

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the moral authority of the griot, restores sanity and harmony. The conception of the artist’s social role emerges more clearly in Sembène’s novel, L’Harmattan. The artist carries a double responsibility: his responsibilities as a citizen and his duty as an intellectual or thinker. Lèye is a famous writer, but because he believes he is misunderstood by the people, he is contemplating abandoning writing; he is raising the important issue of the artist and his audience. Lèye is searching for an immediate means of reaching his people and he thinks the solution will be found in painting, where the medium is ‘images’ rather than ‘words’. However, this in no way minimizes the importance of literature, for those interested in Lèye’s painting are not the ‘people’ as Attignon points out when he requests Lèye to reconsider his decision to abandon literature: Let’s take your paintings! Truly your paintings feed us. But who buys them? The Greek for resale! Who look at them? The semi-bourgeois Africans and European tourists for its exotic appeal … Who read what you write? The people. They are translated into hundred languages: in Dahomey, in Niger, in Chad, in Senegal, in Congo, and even in Mauritania. Everywhere girls recite ‘African Girl’. And in their eyes shines freedom.11

Further on, Aguémon defines the significance of literature and the writer in these terms: ‘… who will teach man through and through, his state of mind, his greatness, his weakness? He alone can dig into consciences, that of the agronomist, the doctor, the smith, the cobbler, our present leaders.’12 Lèye’s poem ‘African Girl’ which occurs as a leitmotif throughout the novel L’Harmattan underscores the impact a writer can have on the consciousness of his people. On the other hand, his oil painting ‘Harmattan’ equally represents a source of inspiration for the militants. Thus, no separation seems to exist between literary and picturesque forms of art with respect to their finality. Sembène believes that whether the artist is using ‘words’ or ‘images’, he must consider himself as the conscience of his people, the voice of vision in his own time. However, the artist needs to remain in contact with the people from whom he derives his strength. An interpretation of the part Sembène plays in his films provides a further revelation of his conception of the artist’s function in society. Although he himself indicated that he played these roles to ‘fill gaps’,13 they are nonetheless quite instructive. In his first appearance in the film Niaye,14 he features as a middleman between

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the colonial administrator and the indigenous population. This role should be viewed as a form of apprenticeship during which the oppressed familiarizes himself with the strategies of the oppressor. The words of the Most Royal Lady in Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s Ambiguous Adventure become relevant: ‘We must go to learn from them the art of conquering without being in the right.’15 Having mastered the art, Sembène is discovered in the film, La Noire de…, enacting a mass education instructor, a role which will be reinforced in Emitaï, where the film director appears as an enlightened soldier exposing the absurdity of the involvement of African troops in the Second World War. The artist’s most symbolic role is in Mandabi where he acts as a public letter-writer putting his writing at the service of the community. In Black Docker, the African immigrants in France are frustrated because they are refused integration into French society in spite of the loud promises of the assimilation policy.16 The crucial problem remains that of equality which Blacks are denied. Disillusioned, the African rebels, and it is in such a frame of mind that Paul, a character in the novel, refuses to be a Frenchman under any circumstance: ‘this French nationality business is a lot of nonsense. Even if they cut off a piece of my flesh every day, I’d still insist I wasn’t French.’17 However, in Black Docker, Diaw Falla’s rebellion is the main reaction against racial oppression. Realizing the dichotomy between the optimistic claims of the assimilation policy and the harsh realities facing the Africans in France, the protagonist, a true Sembenian hero, revolts. The racial aspect of the situation of the African immigrants does not escape him. He tells Ginette Tontisane who cheated him by stealing the novel he had written: ‘You took me for a “nigger”.’18 Diaw Falla’s violent confrontation with Ginette Tontisane, ‘was more than a struggle between the robber and the robbed. Two races stood face to face, centuries of hatred confronted each other’.19 For Diaw Falla, the white man becomes the ‘other’ whom he does not perceive as a totally different being. Theoretically, the assimilation policy postulated equality between Africans and Frenchmen. Of course, the protagonist understands that the African will have to prove himself worthy of equality. Thus, his action against racial oppression consists mainly in his effort to prove himself a man equal to others. He is aware Blacks have suffered denigration and humiliation from white oppressors mainly because they were considered inferior beings. Diaw Falla chooses literary creativity as a weapon to combat this inferiority.

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Racial oppression goes further than merely reducing the oppressed to the level of inferior beings. Césaire has underlined the rebelliousness implicit in literary production by the colonized: In colonial society, there is not only a hierarchy of master and servant. There is also implied a hierarchy of creator and consumer… The creator of cultural values, in good colonization is the colonizer. And the consumer is the colonized… Now cultural creativity precisely because it is creativity disturbs. It upsets. And first, the colonial hierarchy for it turns the colonized into a creator.20

Although literary production may be considered dangerous by the colonizer, according to Césaire’s analysis, it is reassuring for the colonized because it serves to unravel their inferiority complex and establish the fact that the theory of racial superiority is fraudulent. Diaw Falla’s novel strengthens the theme of racial equality. Indeed, in The Last Voyage of Slave Ship Sirius, nature makes no distinction between the two races. A quotation from the novel will suffice: ‘The conflict which divided black and white no longer seemed to exist. There was no more language, belief or difference in skin colour. They were all afraid of dying … They were no longer antagonists, only the hurricane ruled.’21 Besides, in adversity, the white man rediscovers his animal instincts, precisely those by which he had claimed superiority over Blacks. Diaw Falla’s novel denounces the inhumanity of the Slave Trade and attacks the theory of racial superiority stressing its insanity. Furthermore, by producing a literary work that wins the ‘Grand Prix of Literature’, Diaw Falla is able to demonstrate beyond doubt that the African is capable of literary excellence even by white standards, and thus he can claim incontestable equality to Whites. Within racial oppression, Blacks are supposed to accept their inferior status, and any ambition to rise above that position is considered subversive, for it constitutes an attack on the established hierarchy. Therefore, if it should be acknowledged that Diaw Falla is the author of the prize-winning The Last Voyage of the Slave Ship Sirius, more than an ‘insult to our literature’22 as the judge remarks during the trial, the status quo will be disturbed. Consequently, Ginette Tontisane is shamelessly allowed to rob him of his prize. In Black Docker, some superficial fraternization between the two races exists, but it cannot be construed as real commitment, which could come with significant relationships such as interracial romance and marriage, all of which white society would not tolerate.

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Dedée is expecting Paul Sonko’s child, but the sentiments of her parents are unequivocal: the offspring will be considered a bastard. Besides, Dedée’s father is a candidate for the prestigious ‘La Légion d’honneur’, and for his reputation, the daughter is forced into an abortion as a result of which she dies. Dedée is a victim of racial folly, but Diaw Falla appears as its principal victim in the novel. Overwhelmed by racial oppression, he kills Ginette Tontisane involuntarily, a crime which condemns him to life imprisonment without due consideration of mitigating circumstances While it is true that the protagonist has committed murder and the press is seeking justice, it is evident that he does not receive an equitable trial. Most of the witnesses are biased, a fact which does not prevent the white judge from pronouncing a guilty verdict, a foregone conclusion, for no attempt is made to trace the motives, including moral provocation, which compelled the accused to commit the crime. One may legitimately conclude that Diaw Falla is convicted just because he is Black. Sembène implies that racial inequality is not an isolated fact, but part of a more general system of social injustice. From Diaw Falla’s experiences in France, he gains a better understanding of social problems, and his letter from prison to his uncle attests to his social maturity. He writes that there are so many wrongs in society because ‘(t)he scales are tipped in favour of a ‘handful of men’ who have everything.’23 But if there is evil in society, man is responsible for it. When the doctor comes to visit the prisoner, the latter tells him he is suffering from ‘a man-made illness.’24 And to the priest who asks him if he believes in God, he responds: ‘Why turn to him when it is men who are hurting you?’25 To fight racial oppression, Diaw Falla chooses intellectual persuasion. While he hopes that literary excellence will oblige his oppressors to recognize him as an equal, Oumar Faye in Sembène’s second novel, O pays mon beau peuple, adopts another strategy. On his return journey from France to his native land on a boat, the Africans traveling as deck passengers seek cover to shelter themselves from rain. Imbued with racial superiority, a white passenger uses his cane indiscriminately on them and they submit to the abuse. After years of racial oppression and humiliation, the African has internalized the belief that the white man has the monopoly on striking at will. However, like a deus ex machina, Oumar sets out to destroy white arrogance. His assault on the white man constitutes an important aspect of his attack against racism,

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which his marriage to a white woman defies. Before his arrival in his fatherland, a group of progressive young men had organized themselves under the name ‘The Reds’ with obvious revolutionary connotations. After his return, Oumar plays a dominant role in this movement with his home ‘The Palm Grove’ serving as a meeting place for the young revolutionaries. Real progress in the society must be preceded by change in the colonial structure, at the core of which lies economic exploitation. The reformer-protagonist in O pays mon beau peuple strikes at this. We read that Itylima ‘was singing in the manner of the oppressed’26 at the harbor and the colonial rebel risks his life to liberate the poor girl. The African farmers, for their part, have been robbed of the wealth of their land by the colonial capitalists, who control trade. Against them, Oumar defines his position: ‘I will always count among those who refuse to recognize that our country is property bought by European countries.’27 The colonialists enjoy the monopoly of marketing raw materials produced by the African farmers, and Oumar reacts by creating an agricultural cooperative with a marketing office. He envisions challenging the foreign trade monopolies with his large cooperative movement and the magnitude of the task does not discourage him. Gradually, he becomes an important personality in the community, and the farmers begin to look up to him as their leader, selling their crops to him rather than to the big European trading firms. Realizing the threat that he poses, the colonialists murder him in order to maintain their monopoly. However, the martyrdom of the protagonist helps to increase his influence among his people, and this prepares for the triumph of the common cause, that is the fight against oppression. Oumar is liquidated partly because his revolutionary and visionary ideas are ahead of his time. But in spite of his untimely death, he has succeeded in awakening in his fellow African farmers a new consciousness, and a confidence hitherto unknown to them in a strength based on unity and mutual help. An important step has been taken in the struggle for their liberation. Even though the colonial powers choose to eliminate the spirit of the revolution, in the Sembenian universe, the thrust for revolution cannot fizzle out prematurely. Indeed, Oumar Faye expresses optimism about the struggle: ‘I do not want to compete with you, I simply want to fight. If I lose in advance [it] does not matter; those who will come after me will resist you till you sit at the same table.’28 Oumar’s hope is indeed realized by the workers in God’s Bits of Wood.

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The railroad strike constitutes the main plot in Sembène’s God’s Bits of Wood, his best literary achievement. In the critical situation developed in the novel, there is a general appraisal of the social order. Relationships between Whites and Blacks, colonizers and colonized, employers and employees are all scrutinized. The strike brings suffering for many, but is also offers an opportunity for reflection: For the strikers and their families, life became more difficult with each succeeding day. Their bodies grew weaker and the lines in their faces were etched more deeply; but for many of them the ordeal they were passing through was taking on an even greater significance than the rites of initiation to manhood that they had undergone in their youth.29

The comparison with ‘rites of initiation’ is very suggestive, for in many respects, this long strike with its enthusiastic and violent expressions, with its sacrifices and songs, resembles a modern rite of passage. The strike brings about a transformation of the society. This is, after all, still a colonial society and although the motives which led to the strike are economic in nature – salary increase, retirement benefits, family allowance – racial prejudice creates a serious obstacle: ‘to give in on the question of family allowances was much more than a matter of agreeing to a compromise with striking workers; it would amount to recognition of a racial aberrance, a ratification of the customs of inferior beings. It would be giving in, not to workers but to Negroes, and that Dejean could not do.’30 The conflict between Blacks and Whites rises to another level opposing colonized and colonizer. Inequality in the rights of the African and European workers exists precisely because the Africans are considered colonized people. This inequality is exposed concretely in the conditions of living of the two groups. At Thies, the villas of the colonial masters constitute a district apart called ‘The Vatican’, suggesting arrogant and infallible superiority. This geographical segregation marks the contrast between the comfortable lifestyle of the Europeans and the wretchedness of the Africans. The theme of oppression is revealed in the juxtaposition of the Europeans in their ‘Vatican’ and the starving Africans desperately looking for food and water. It is within this colonial context that the significance of the workers’ labor action must be grasped, for in colonial Africa, tradeunionism was closely linked with national liberation movements. A remark­able progress in African trade union organization can

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be observed from Black Docker to God’s Bits of Wood. The worst brutalization of workers in Sembène’s early fictional universe appears in Black Docker, in which men are looked upon as objects and even worse: ‘the equipment was treated better than the porters’31 These workers are only concerned about survival, and they experience hard labor without rest: ‘Plagued by the question of where tomorrow’s bread would come from, they knew neither the bliss of rest nor the pleasure of Sundays.’32 Like the African farmers in O pays mon beau peuple prior to Oumar’s arrival, the dockers appear as a mere exploited mass without any real consciousness of oppression. Diaw Falla in his literary aspiration also acquires awareness of the necessity of trade union action. But his fate limits his action. Oumar Faye, for his part, attempts to organize the indigenous farmers within an agricultural cooperative to defend their rights and to liberate them from the exploitation of the colonialists. Again, we know of the protagonist’s unfortunate demise. The most effective organization of workers in Sembène’s work appears in God’s Bits of Wood where the railroad strike serves as an instrument for the workers to gain awareness and dignity. A strong leader is required for organization and we find this leader in Bakayoko in contrasts with the other trade unionists who are armed with goodwill and fired with optimism but not well prepared for the struggle. Bakayoko, on the other hand, is a trained and effective militant leader, a man of few words who is nonetheless capable of moving crowds. He considers the strike to be of the utmost importance and therefore allows it to take precedence over all other considerations. His most important role is revealed in the way he stimulates solidarity among the strikers. Although ‘The Return of Bakayoko’ occurs after about two thirds of the novel, his presence or absence has been felt from the opening scenes. He is the man of the hour and Beaugosse wonders: ‘Who is this man whose shadow reached into every house touching every object. His words and his ideas were everywhere, and even his name filled the air like an echo.’33 Whereas the workers are committed to the success of their action, Bakayoko looks upon it as a stage in their development. As Anthony Brench puts it, ‘If it is successful, it will be a great step forward; if it is unsuccessful, it will still be a stepping stone toward future success.’34 In God’s Bits of Wood, then, a major theme evolves on the development from disunity among the workers to solidarity and awareness of their individual responsibility. A great part of

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the action takes place in the homes of the strikers, within the framework of their everyday lives. Events which they previously took for granted, such as the routine of getting up and going to work, buying their food at the market and the stores, going to the communal tap for water, are all disrupted and given a new significance by the strike. It is then that they realize that their lives are controlled by forces not interested in their welfare. Ramatoulaye laments: ‘Real misfortune is not just a matter of being hungry and thirsty; it is a matter of knowing that there are people who want you to be hungry and thirsty.’35 With growing poverty and aching stomachs, with water cut off by the colonial authorities, the workers and their families accept responsibility for their deprivations and seek a way to overcome them. At the beginning of the strike, there is no solidarity among the workers. Most of them are only concerned about their individual lives. But the strike helps them to overcome selfishness in the sense that it gives them deeper satisfaction than their little worlds, and they become united in the common cause. Men, women, and even children participate in the action making significant contributions. Magatte and his fellow apprentices organize themselves into a formidable revolutionary band, an important wing of the struggle. Even the sick join hands: Maimouna, the blind-one and Bakary, who in spite of his tuberculosis participates with whatever strength remains in his lungs. A whole chapter is devoted to Sounkaré’s biography – his miserable condition and tragic end. Salvation is not to be found in pursuit of individual interests and isolation but in solidarity. The victorious outcome of the strike allows the workers to regain selfconfidence. Sembène’s option of the crowd as the hero in God’s Bits of Wood is as much ideological as a sign of the times. What is in question is the destiny of the whole mass of people seeking a collective future which is, political in every sense of the word. The success of the railroad workers in God’s Bits of Wood is achieved to a large extent through the help and support provided by the women, and one of the major results of the strike will be a reappraisal of the relationship between men and women. The significant role assigned to women in the novel is part of Sembène’s agenda to rehabilitate the status of African women. Indeed, woman’s condition and development constitutes one of the recurrent themes in other artist’s work. Jarmila Ortova has rightly observed: ‘Sembene Ousmane has more than the great majority of African writers, sought to give a place to woman as a very

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important force of African society in his literary works.’36 Sembène explores woman’s oppression and her liberation, that is, the various positions of inequality in which woman is placed and exploited as well as her reaction to these situations. A distinction must be drawn between woman viewed as mother and woman in other roles. Through maternity, Sembenian women earn a right to consideration and veneration, and they are glorified. Maternal virtues are idealized in the short story ‘The Mother’: ‘Glory to thee, woman, boundless ocean of tenderness, blessed art thou by thy flow of gentleness.’37 Mothers show great attachment to their children and the latter reciprocate the affection to maintain the link binding mother and child. Black Docker, is dedicated to Sembène’s mother: This book is dedicated to my mother, although she cannot read Just knowing that she will run her hands over it is enough to make me happy

A mother receives great respect from her children. She represents a certain guarantee of stability in society, a source of peace, calm, and boundless love. Woman’s oppression begins when she is no longer playing her maternal role. In other roles, she ceases to be ‘sacred’; she becomes ‘profane’ and is made to suffer indignities. The traditional woman appears as a perpetual minor under someone’s control and authority. First, she submits to the authority of her father and later to that of her husband. A father can give his daughter in marriage to whomsoever he pleases, and does not have to answer to anyone. Besides, a father may not consult his daughter in the choice of a husband. In this respect, Assitan, Bakayoko’s wife in God’s Bits of Wood is portrayed as a classic example: Nine years before, she had been married to the eldest of the Bakayoko sons. Her parents, of course, had arranged everything, without even consulting her. One night her father had told her that her husband was named Sadikou Bakayoko, and two months later she had been turned over to a man whom she had never before seen.38

Assitan lived with Sadibou for only eleven months before he was killed in the first Thies railroad strike. After Sadibou’s death, ‘the old customs had taken control of her life’.39 She is remarried to Ibrahima, Sadibou’s younger brother, without any opposition: ‘Assitan continued to obey … her own lot as a woman was to accept things as they were and to remain silent, as she had been taught to do.’40

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Fathers dispose of their daughters as they like and women seem to be regarded as exploitable objects. Moussa, Oumar’s father in O pays mon beau peuple is decribed as follows: ‘his three wives rendered him more venerable in the eyes of believers.’41 Indeed, polygamy is also a means of displaying a man’s wealth and power. However, it lowers the status of wives, and since the institution is not based on equality, it may give rise to a contemptuous attitude towards woman. A verse in the Koran sanctions the practice of polygamy: ‘And if you fear that you cannot act equitably towards orphans, then marry such women as seem good to you, two and three and four, but if you fear that you will not do justice (between them) then (marry) only one or what your right hands possess.’42 Indications of woman’s subordination abound in the works under discussion. The traditional woman has no right to take part in men’s discussions. In O pays mon beau peuple Oumar counsels his foreign wife: ‘When men are talking, an educated woman must remain quiet.’43 He explains: ‘Here women must not disrespect their lord and master’,44 a significant metaphor, for the relationship between husband and wife borders on that of master and servant. Aida, betrothed to Oumar Faye, prostrates herself when she comes to greet him. The traditional woman is placed in a situation of close dependence on man, and she seems to accept it with equanimity. Witness this description of Bakayoko’s wife Assitan: ‘By the ancient standards of Africa, Assitan was a perfect wife: docile, submissive, and hard-working, she never spoke one word louder than another.’45 Another example of woman’s submission is found in Ngoné wa Thiandum, the heroine in ‘White Genesis’: Like all the women of these parts, Ngone wa Thiandum had her place in society, society sustained by maxims, wise sayings and recom­ mendations of passive docility: woman this, woman that, fidelity, unlimited devotion and total submission of body and soul to the husband who was her master after Yallah so that he might intercede in her favour for a place in paradise. The woman found herself a listener. Outside her domestic tasks she was never given the opportunity to express her point of view, to state her opinion. She had to listen and carry out what her husband said. Ngone wa Thiandum had come to believe that what a man said had more sense in it than her own tortuous ideas.46

Man as ‘lord and master’ has (debatably) a generally recognized right to inflict corporal punishment on his wife. When the ‘pious’

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protagonist of the short story ‘Souleyman’ in Voltaïque becomes intolerable and brutal towards his wives because his interest has shifted to younger women, the elderly women console his wives: ‘It’s our lot as women. We must be patient. Men are our masters after God. Which woman has never been beaten by her husband?’47 Generally then, a wife has no particular rights, only duties to perform. And she can only claim rights when she acquits herself creditably of her duties, which surpass by far what may be considered her rights to such an extent that one has the impression that her rights are nonexistent. Often, the pleasure and the will of the husband prevail. The relationship of woman to man may be described as that of an inferior to a superior, and woman’s inferiority borders on servility. However, thanks to colonial indoctrination, women are exposed to new Western ideas which tend to make them challenge their traditional position. The traditional African woman gradually begins to see through the distortion of perception imposed on her by her male counterpart, and she now demands equality. It is from this perspective that the Western-educated Sembenian female characters react. Agnes in O pays mon beau peuple projects herself as an emancipated African woman. She participates in the discussion of the men at ‘The Palm Grove’, and she can tell Diagne who entertains traditional ideas about the place of women in society: ‘the females say to hell with you’.48 The short story ‘In the Face of History’ in Tribal Scars illustrates two opposing attitudes – that of a traditional woman, on one hand, and that of a Western-educated woman, on the other. The action takes place in front of a cinema theatre where Abdoulaye, a school-teacher, and his wife, Sakinetou, a technical college graduate, are contemplating going to watch a film. Meanwhile, the family of a traditional man, accompanied by his two wives and five children arrive. Unlike Sakinetou, the polygamous wives leave the decision-making entirely to their husband. The first wife simply inquires: ‘What’s the film, uncle [meaning dear]?’49 The fact that she is addressing her husband as ‘uncle’ shows her subordinate status, and she can even be viewed as the husband’s servant as she is walking behind him and taking care of their children without any assistance from him. The anonymous ‘triple’ (as opposed to the couple) contrast with Abdoulaye and Sakinetou. The technical college graduate participates actively in the discussion with her husband and when they fail to reach an agreement she goes her separate way in a taxi.

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The traditional woman or wife no longer represents an accept­ able model for the new generation of Western-educated women like Agnès, Sakinetou, or Penda and N’Deye Touti in God’s Bits of Wood. Penda’s non-conformism with sexual freedom pleads in its own way for the emancipation of women. N’Deye Touti decides to choose her own husband; she will not follow traditional norms according to which men from other ethnic groups should be avoided in marriage. Although she is opposed to polygamy, she is prepared to consider it provided she is in love and has a voice in the choice of her marital partner. It is to be noted that Sembenian female characters do not have to undergo Western education before achieving their emancipation. In God’s Bits of Wood, we witness woman’s changing role in society. Old Niakoro outlines the functions of the traditional woman in society: her place is at home taking care of children, preparing meals, and generally concentrating on household business. Thus, traditional education for a woman consists in making her a good mother and housewife. This explains Old Niakoro’s inability to understand why Ad’jibid’ji is wasting her time studying: ‘Learning – learning what? … . To be a good mother you have no need of that.’50 For Old Niakoro, there should be no departure from established custom and tradition. But when the strike is declared, the women no longer remain in the margin of history: When a man came back from a meeting, with bowed head and empty pockets, the first things he saw were always the unfired stove, the useless cooking vessels, the bowls and gourds ranged in a corner, empty. Then they would seek the arms of a wife, without thinking, or caring, whether she was the first or the third. And seeing the burdened shoulders, the listless walk, the women became conscious that a change was coming for them as well.51

The women do not solely provide the men with moral support. In their absence, the women assume headship of family. Although Ramatoulaye complains ‘Being the head of family is a heavy burden – too heavy for a woman’,52 she nevertheless exhibits remarkable strength and inexhaustible will for action, because she understands ‘when you know that the life and the spirit of others depend on your life and your spirit, you have no right to be afraid – even when you are terribly afraid’.53 One recalls her dramatic killing of Mabigue’s avaricious ram. Ramatoulaye’s new strength is indeed astonishing:

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Where … had this violence been born? What was the source of this energy so suddenly unleashed. It was not the war; Ramatoulaye was not a man and knew nothing of the rancors that well up in soldiers on the march. It was not the factory; she had never been subject to the inhuman dictatorship of machines. It was not even in the too frequent association of men; she had known only those of her own family. Where then? The answer was as simple as the woman herself. It had been born beside the cold fireplace, in an empty kitchen.54

The women organize demonstrations to encourage their husbands and at critical moments during the strike, their songs lend epic quality to the action. One such culminating point of the novel is the women’s historic march from Thies to Dakar, during which they cover fifty miles on foot. This significant collaboration of the women obliges the men to revise their traditional conceptions about them. The strike leaders even impress upon the workers that it is not dishonourable to take a woman’s place in certain domestic activities. In Dakar, Bakayoko calls upon the men to fetch water. Leaving aside what Alioune refers to as ‘old feudal customs’,55 we read further on that ‘husbands, sons, and even fathers could be seen every morning, leaving their homes in search of water and returning at night, triumphantly pushing a barrel or carrying a sackful of bottles.’56 This redistribution of labor marks a little revolution in domestic work because until the strike, masculine and feminine roles were clearly demarcated and separate. With woman’s changing role, she acquires new rights, notably that of speaking in public. Penda takes the floor in Thies to make her unprecedented announcement of the women’s decision to march to Dakar: ‘It was the first time in living memory that a woman had spoken in public in Thies.’57 For self-empowerment, one unnamed woman intimates: ‘After the strike I’m going to do what the wives of the toubab’s do, and take my husband’s pay.’58 Ad’jibid’ji attends men’s meetings partly because she believes she has ‘to start learning what it means to be a man’.59 Her step-father, Bakayoko has told her that ‘men and women will be equal some day’.60Consequently, for her future occupation, she is seriously considering that of a locomotive driver. Mame Sofi recognizes that in future the women will count as a vital force: ‘You’ll see – the men will consult us before they go out on another strike. Before this, they thought they owned the earth just because they fed us, and now it is the women who are feeding them.’61 Mame Sofi’s conviction is confirmed in

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a letter from Lahbib to Bakayoko at the end of the novel: ‘we will have to reckon with them in whatever we do’.62 The emancipation of the workers in God’s Bits of Wood is accompanied by that of women. Ramatoulaye, Mame Sofi, Maïmouna, and Penda are all unforgettable names for their substantial contributions during the strike. Without fear of contradiction, the women can look forward and claim with pride: ‘We will have won the strike too.’� In moments of crisis, Sembenian female characters have shown their mettle in resourcefulness. In Sembène’s early film, Borom Sarret, when the protagonist returns home empty-handed at the end of a futile day’s work, his wife assumes responsibility; she hands him their child and leaves home saying: ‘I promise you that we will eat tonight’,64 words which recall a similar situation in God’s Bits of Wood: ‘The days were mournful, and the nights were mournful. … One morning a woman rose and wrapped her cloth firmly around her waist and said: “Today, I will bring back something to eat.”’65 The changing role of women in God’s Bits of Wood counteracts their oppression. An equally important reaction to the inferior status imposed on women is internal revolt, that is, revolt emanating from women without prompting from an external stimulus, such as the railroad strike. Human beings have always demonstrated the ability and capacity to act on their own and may rebel despite what their superiors tell them to do. Indeed, one finds impressive indications of woman’s refusal to accept male supremacy in early Sembenian fiction. Ouhigoué in L’Harmattan is a traditional woman in the sense that she believes ‘We women will never be equal to men.’66 How­ ever, overwhelmed by her husband, Joseph Koéboghi’s, inhuman treatment of their daughter, Tioumbé, she revolts against him: ‘She was moved by a new force. A kind of revolt which had been withheld for a long time finally burst out.’67 However, she is disturbed by her action because she finds it difficult to shake off the guilty feeling attached to opposing a male, and she confesses to her daughter: Toumbé, I am dying quietly. What do you expect from me? I do not understand life anymore … contemporary life. Formerly I knew what life, what family was. Now, I don’t know anymore. I put up a resistance against your father. Do you understand? I even raised my voice.

She wept as she stroked the bowed back of her daughter with her maternal fingers. It was true she had never in her life gone against her man’s order. Her confusion was as deep as an

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earthquake fault.68 Ouhigoué may be burdened by remorse, but other characters rebel fully convinced that they have done what is appropriate. A number of short-stories in Voltaïque center on female rebellion against male dominance. The die-hard polygamist in the short story, ‘Souleymane’, treats his wives with contempt and intolerable brutality. But his latest young wife, Yacine, rejects his persecution. Yacine asks no questions when her father announces to her that he has found her a life partner. However, when she subsequently discovers that her husband is a sexually incompetent old man, she does not hesitate to entertain a lover. Nafi, the heroine in ‘Letters from France’ reacts in a similar manner. She is shown a photograph of an African immigrant in France, and agrees to marry him, unaware that the picture, taken twenty years earlier, is being used to lure a young bride. On her arrival in France, she finds a disgusting old man in his seventies. In her ‘Letters from France’, Nafi confides in her best friend in Africa disclosing her innermost sentiments. Although at first Nafi’s attitude is that of patience and resignation, she finally undergoes a transformation and views the subservient wife as something obsolete, an ‘unobtrusive shadow’.69 In her youth, Nafi’s dream was that of an emancipated woman: ‘Do you remember our dreams, our ambition when we were girls? We wanted to be free of a husband’s domination, to be our own mistresses, be able to buy what we wished without having to give reasons for it or to wait for someone else to hand over the money to pay for it – in short, to be independent.’70 For Nafi, this dream of freedom does eventually materialize. Her old husband, Demba, is able to go on one last sailing voyage, leaving her in the care of his friend, Arona. Nafi takes her husband’s friend as a lover. She is not concerned about what others would think about her new relationship. She wonders: ‘Haven’t I the right to love, to laugh, to go out?71 The most notable illustration of female oppression and revolt in Voltaïque is found in the short story, ‘Her Three Days’, a pathetic account of a sick and aged woman who is deserted by her inconsiderate polygamous husband. The predicament is observed through the eyes of the victim whose hopes and despair are traced up until her final disillusionment. Noumbé, the protagonist, makes elaborate preparations for her three days of cohabitation with her husband as prescribed by Islamic law. A cardiac patient, she denies the ailment to avoid incurring her

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husband’s displeasure. But in spite of her painstaking efforts, she awaits in vain for her heartless husband Moustapha, who prefers the company of Voulimata, his younger fourth wife. Enraged with jealousy and despair, Noumbé meditates on her condition as a polygamous wife. She concludes that polygamy turns women into objects. Her deep aspiration is to liberate herself from this servitude, hence her outburst: ‘Why do we allow ourselves to be men’s playthings?’ Having waited for two consecutive days, Noumbé reaches the point where she can no longer submit to undeserved degradation. Finally, on the third evening when Moustapha arrives with two of his lieutenants and greets her nonchalantly as if he had been there all along, a tragi-comic scene ensues with Noumbé breaking the dishes. Limited as this act may be, it represents adequate liberation for the heroine. In the short story ‘Tribal Scars or The Voltaique’, Amoo’s unrelen­ting attempts to save his daughter from slavery symbolizes Sembène’s determination to preserve women from oppression at all costs. Amoo murders his wife to prevent her from being taken into slavery, and Iomé becomes her mother’s living image. For Amoo, Iomé symbolizes freedom difficult to achieve but an invaluable ideal. He does not hesitate to give his daughter scarifications on her body to avoid captivity, for the slave with the smoothest skin, perfect health, and excellent body structure is highly-prized. Before the scarification, Amoo tells her: ‘this is going to hurt, but you’ll never be a slave.’73 The theme of oppression and liberation is dramatized in the short story, ‘Tribal Scars or The Voltaique’, and this perhaps justifies the original title, Voltaïque, for Sembène’s collection of short-stories. The theme provides unity for the narratives which deal with various conditions of oppression, with that of woman featuring most prominently. With Sembène’s faith and confidence in the African woman, he has portrayed female characters endowed with qualities beyond the rotundity of their bodies and the pliancy of their minds; there is a nobility about his women. The progressive novelist endorses the idea that African renaissance will also depend on the positive contributions of African women. One may be tempted to include Sembène’s short story ‘Black Girl’74 in Voltaïque as an example of woman’s oppression. Indeed, Joaquin-Enrique Ciervide75 in an article cites ‘Black Girl’ in a section entitled ‘Voltaique or the Promotion of Woman’. However, the dominant theme in ‘Black Girl’ rather focuses on the oppressive

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condition of a servant, which is complicated because a black girl faces white employers. Sembène has adapted this short story for the screen, and he states his objective: ‘In my film, one must not see race relations, but class relations of individuals’.76 The story begins in Dakar, where Madame P, whose husband works with an aeronautical company, on the approach of their annual leave, remembers their last holiday in France which was nothing but resentful fatigue: ‘Madame, used to being served religiously had to submit to her uxorial duty, and she performed her mother’s role clumsily. As for the vacation strictly speaking, she hardly enjoyed it.’77 The choice for a colonial housewife back in France is either to employ an expensive caustic maid-servant, or to perform the household chores herself whilst a lazy husband looks on indifferently. When one gets accustomed to relying on house-girls, one may feel a sense of degradation when one has to replace a maid-servant. To forestall this distasteful eventuality, Madame P decides to take her house-girl along to France. Diouana will execute housekeeping duties as well as add an exotic touch to dinner receptions for family and friends. When Diouana sets her eyes on the Côte d’Azur riding in Monsieur P.’s car on her arrival in France, she is overjoyed and looks forward to many such delightful experiences of discovery. However, at Antibes, in the apartment of her employers on a street appropriately named ‘Hermit Way’, ‘Black Girl’finds her space limited to the kitchen, the children’s room, and the laundry room. In France, she is forced to live the life of a laborious recluse when she is not exhibited like an exotic object. She discharges a series of duties which would be shared in Dakar by several servants. ‘She was at the same time, cook, child caretaker, laundry and ironing woman.’78 Besides, Madame’s indolent sister has come to live with them, and Diouana is now responsible for seven people: ‘all fatigue duty fell on her’.79 Diouana begins to meditate on her condition. Even though living conditions may be mediocre back home, she does not have to labor like a slave in France. Besides, she is blamed for everything including others’ omissions. The last straw comes when she is accused of leaving a dirty ring in the bathtub. When she replies that the children did it, Madame calls her a liar implying all Blacks are liars. Diouana goes into the bathroom ostensibly to clean the tub, but locks the bathroom door, slices her throat and bleeds to death. Diouana had gradually become aware that she was a victim of

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exploitation. Couteline has noted that the condition of Blacks is synonymous with doing other people’s unpalatable work: One is always someone’s ‘nigger’. The Portuguese laborers are the ‘niggers’ of the construction industry in Europe, the North-Africans had been so before them, the Italian metal workers are the ‘niggers’ of Swiss industry, the Spanish maidservants are the ‘niggers’ of French petite bourgeoisie. The African street-sweepers are the ‘niggers’ of the French Department of Urban Roads.80

Diouana is African, but she could be a Spaniard, a Sicilian, a Portu­ guese, a Breton, or from any region in the world where a lower standard of living compels the nationals to become economic migrants elsewhere. In ‘Black Girl’, Sembène is exploring the problem of the relationship between master and servant. Diouana is a servant in all the degrading senses of the word. She is a drudge who accumulates all domestic duties: ‘I am cook, child caretaker, chambermaid, I wash, I iron,’ she says. She is an abused beast of burden. However, humane treatment is possible between master and servant. In this respect, Diouana’s condition contrasts with that of Itylima in O pays mon beau peuple, who receives kindness from both Oumar and Isabelle and is not considered a mere object to be exploited: …her strength had not been simply bought. On laundry days, for example, Madame remained with her. They washed together, dried the linen together, they shared the same meals in the kitchen. Itylima was not treated like a servant and she knew it. Sometimes when she happened to be the last to get up, she found her breakfast prepared for her.82

Itylima feels she is part of the family. Diouana, on the other hand, fails to find the necessary compassion, and she is greatly distressed in a world of selfish middle-class people, a situation which drives her to commit suicide. She is convinced she has been betrayed, and she revolts radically, carrying out her quiet and non-violent act of revolt firmly and with pride. Diouana’s reaction is self-destructive, but in her circumstances, that seems the only solution open to her to express her protest. Albert Cervoni underlines the significance of Diouana’s suicide: What Sembene Ousmane is showing through this news item from the press is not only the suicide of a young African, opening her veins in a bathtub because she could no longer endure exile, her removal from her usual surroundings, domestic servitude…it is absolute revolt,

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absolute refusal of servitude which is also quite absolute, it is class relationship.83

The major theme in ‘Black Girl’ dramatizes oppression and revolt of a servant, and the story acquires a universal significance. However, Sembène’s commitment to his ‘beautiful people’ is not drowned in universalism. In a lyrical poem, ‘Nostalgia’, at the end of the short story, Diouana’s fate is paralleled with that of the victims of the Slave Trade: Diouana ………………….. You are a victim like our ancestors Of the Slave Trade…

But Sembène announces the hope of an imminent liberation: Diouana Our sister Brightness of coming days One day – one very close day – We will say These forests These fields These rivers This earth Our flesh Our bones Are ours…84

The total liberation of Africa hinted in the poem is not to be expected as a gift from the oppressor. It has to be struggled for and won as the workers in God’s Bits of Wood have demonstrated. In Sembène’s first three novels as well as his collection of short stories, Africans have been systematically pursuing a program of liberating themselves from a state of mind as well as conditions which years of colonial domination had imposed on them. In L’Harmattan, they are ready to pursue political independence. The conflict in the novel dramatizes a country’s response to De Gaulle’s 1958 Proclamation, and each individual faces the decision of voting either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in the Referendum. The prologue, set apart from the nineteen chapters, presents the conflict in its most essential form. Digbe, ‘the most famous hunter in the land’85 symbolizes old Africa, which drew life directly from the environment. Digbe has been pursued for a year by Antoine Faure and Rémy Soglo,

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oppressed by the colonizer and his African collaborator. During his meeting with the prime minister, Lèye stresses the importance of the Referendum: ‘For once ... once only in four centuries, we are told: “yes” and you perpetuate slavery, “no” and you are free.’86 The fictional characters are either in favor of the ‘Yes’ vote, that is, a commitment to a continued even if tempered colonialism, or for the ‘No’ vote, meaning the assertion of nationalism. However, three options remain open. First, there is intransigent nationalism espoused by the members of the Front, who are actively campaigning to influence a ‘No’ vote. L’Harmattan relates to the moral and philosophical tale, ‘Community’, in Tribal Scars. El Hadji Niara, a cat, on his return from Mecca undertakes a campaign to persuade rats to form a community with cats. But in an alliance with cats, there will be no security for rats. The allegory throws light on Sembène’s views on the idea of a Franco-African community. Africa in search of its future will be engulfed by a great power like France under a deceptive label of a Franco-African Community. Africa first needs effective independence, and this is the stance of the militants of the Front. They consider themselves at war against foreign domination and their objective is to liberate Africa. The revolutionaries refuse to recognize the artificial boundaries imposed by the colonialists. The Front is made up of people from different ethnic groups and of diverse origins as indicated in the dedication of the novel: To my old comrades Emile Godagbe, doctor, Togo Tamore Doumbia, doctor, Mali Djibril Tamsir Niane, Historian, Guinea and for all of us to the memory of Ruben Um Niobe, Kamerun87

The setting of the novel is in an undefined locality, a town symbolic of all Africa. The imaginary country in the novel is committed to African unity, whilst the nationalism expressed by the militants extends beyond their limited territorial boundaries. The novel is set in the spirit of Pan- Africanism, even though the word is not mentioned. Besides, the freedom fighters refuse to accept the objections of those who think they are too much in a hurry in demanding immediate independence. The struggle may seem

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unequal, but the militants are well prepared and persevere till the very end. Their determination is inspired by these words of ‘Uncle Ho’ hanging on the wall at their headquarters: No work is easy. Only one thing is to be feared: lack of endurance Cutting the mountain and filling the sea. That is possible when one is determined to do it.88

The second group of Africans in L’Harmattan are in favor of the ‘Yes’ vote, that is, they approve of the idea of community as defined by France. This position is systematically condemned and ridiculed by the novelist. The African politicians fall into this category. Theoretically, the members of the Territorial Assembly are charged with the responsibility of preparing the ground for independence. However, the African leaders are accused of subservience. Besides, they are incompetent, pretentious, and self-centered. Doctor Tangara believes he can remain outside the conflict because of his privileged status, and he attempts to escape political involvement through mediation. The prime minister and Lèye, representatives of opposing factions, meet in his house despite the fact that their opposition is irreconcilable. Although Tangara wants to maintain his independence in politics, he firmly believes in a bright future for Africa; he is a nationalist in his own right. He is an honest patriot who takes his work seriously, and these, after all, are also essential qualities required of a militant. Tangara’s vision is that of gradual liberal development of the country as opposed to the radical transformation envisaged by the militants. However, the problem of the referendum is absolute, and Tangara’s efforts to remain politically uninvolved bring about his downfall, his dismissal from his post. After political independence, a new alliance, a more decent relationship between Africans and their former colonial masters must be sought. In this respect, a study of the European characters in the novel points to the kind of union that Sembène envisions between Blacks and Whites in the new independent African city. First, we find a group of European characters who represent an unjust cause and are therefore portrayed unsympathetically. Colonel Luc, a doctor with dubious credentials exploits his position for commerce to supplement his income. After thirty years in Africa, his knowledge of the African is built on a firm conviction of African inferiority. He is mostly motivated by the lucrative

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prospects in Africa. Captain Guy de Lombard, for his part, has a Manichean vision of the world: on one hand, there is the army, France and capitalism, and on the other the communists, liberals, and empire-breakers. Unlike Colonel Luc who preaches superficial and controlled Africanization, Captain Lombard solidly extols the glory of the French Empire and supports repression. Antoine Faure, in his capacity as director of forest reserves, may be described as being ‘more Catholic than the Pope’ in colonial times. During the Referendum campaign, the colonial government grants the Africans hunting rights. However, Antoine continues to guard the forest with excessive zeal even to the extent of disgracing Bita Hein, the chief hunter. When Digbé takes revenge by murdering the director of forest reserves, he completely destroys the impunity enjoyed by the white man. This act signifies the symbolic destruction of the image of the white man as dominator and oppressor. The experiences of Antoine’s wife, Charlotte, illustrate the relation­ship which Sembène would like to see develop between Africa and Europe. Admitted to the African hospital, she shares room with African patients, for whom her presence produces an effect of demystification: suffering knows no color distinction. Charlotte is able to appreciate the intrinsic values of Africans and her idea of the noble savage fades away to be replaced by that of an intelligent person. Beyond skin color, she is able to discover real individuals with problems, joys, and suffering – qualities which she realizes are, after all, universal. Sembène later develops extensively the bond between Tangara and Charlotte when the former invites Charlotte home during her period of convalescence to illustrate that the new alliance between Africans and Europeans must be built on mutual understanding and support. Meaningful dialogue is possible between the West and Africa, and this is what Sembène suggests in the cooperation between Tangara and Manh Kombéti at the hospital. Tangara is experimenting with merging Western medical knowledge with traditional medicine, in order to create a medical practice unique to modern Africa. Perhaps Doctor Tangara’s laboratory may be perceived as Senghor’s ‘meeting place of give and take’89 of which the Senegalese poet only had a romantic dream. The ideal Sembène pursues is a harmonious blending of what is modern with the traditional. In the so-called conflict between Africa and the West, science and technology must remain neutral to be of mutual benefit to both the West and Africa.

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For Africa, this cooperation would be crucial factor in her liberation from underdevelopment. L’Harmattan is a political novel of revolutionary inspiration. Africa on the day of the Referendum stands at the crossroads. It must choose, and its future depends on that choice. Independence will be synonymous with the idea of liberty, dignity, and progress. Certainly, the task is daunting. But that does not mean one should choose the easy way out, which would be tantamount to enslavement. The majority in the novel opt for the ‘Yes’ vote, a choice which is not really deliberate, for the colonialists use all possible means at their disposal to ‘buy’ the votes of corruptible Africans. The administrators, the military, and the clergy are all mobilized. Lavish promises are made: there will be modification of taxes; raw materials will be bought at higher prices; imported alcoholic beverages and essential commodities are freely distri­ buted. However, a minority respect their noble ideal. This minority is made up of Sembenian heroes: men of the people, workers, and poor intellectuals who choose communism not as an end in itself but as a means of attaining freedom and independence. The members of the Front are heralds of a free and united Africa. Even though they do not win, they turn their legitimate aspirations as well as those of all Africa to triumphant and free Guinea.90 In an apocalyptic vision, Sembène adopts the harmattan as his symbol for liberation. The harmattan is a dry wind that blows from the Sahara desert to West Africa between December and March. It symbolizes the dry period of African history, that is, slavery and colonialism. The child in Lèye’s painting faces the future like Tioumbé in the novel. But the father is looking on angrily, like Joseph, while the mother, like Ouhigoué, passively watches her daughter. The wind blowing across emerging African nations may well reduce Africans to more humiliation and suffering than they experienced under colonial rule. But the painting ‘Harmattan’ expresses hope: In sum, the painting means: the whole of Africa is a tomb for Africans. And above the heads, this red-violet like a cloud is the Harmattan. It is not only a dry and hot wind: it is a sob. One of the sobs from four centuries, blown by millions and millions of buried voices. An endless cry in our Ears, from nights of old, for radiant days. This is the meaning of Harmattan.91 Fousseynou also expresses this optimism on the strings of his kora: ‘Old days of ancient Africa! Days of the Ancestors reborn from the ashes of Harmattan.’92 The harmattan wind is paralleled with

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the phoenix of Egyptian mythology, that curious and fabulous creature which lived for five hundred years, then consumed itself in flames and was thereby reborn, purified, and regenerated. In L’Harmattan, Ousmane Sembène depicts Africa liberated from colonial humiliation and oppression and ready to embark on the highroad leading to African liberation. Sembène challenges social and political misdeeds in his early fiction, affirming the inevitability of revolt and resistance against injustice. His characters stand up for what they believe in claiming ownership of power and rebellion. The novelist’s love for his people is translated into a quest for their total liberation. However, Sembène transcends regional concerns and reaches universal heights, for beyond the liberation of his ‘beautiful people’ the artist pursues the salvation of man. In an interview, he noted ‘he himself has chosen his place in the struggle of his people, the struggle for man’. He is convinced that ‘art is nothing else than a means of bringing people together’.94 Even though Sembène is aware of the limitations of artistic commitment, his conception of the function of art is that it should raise questions, deliver messages for social and political awakening, and demystify the oppressed and exploited. His artistic commitment aims at providing a new revolutionary consciousness. Sembène’s specific interpretation of his notion of commitment and directing it to universal values of freedom and social justice makes his position permanent. After political independence, Ousmane Sembène adopted a new direction in his subsequent fictional as well as cinematographic productions, relating his social and political concerns to post-colonial African politics and social realities. NOTES  1 Wauthier  2 From the title of Sembène Ousmane’s second novel, O pays mon beau peuple (O Country My Beautiful People); there is no English translation for this novel.  3 Césaire, Return, p. 60   4 Moore (ed.), p.57   5 ‘Entretien avec Sembène Ousmane, le docker noir,’ p.49 [All quotations in French not taken from existing English translations have been translated into English by me]  6 Sartre, No Exit   7 Sembène Ousmane, Black Docker, pp.81-82   8 Ibid., p.84   9 Sembène Ousmane, The Money Order, p.6

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10 Maunick 11 Sembène Ousmane, L’Harmattan, pp. 135-136 12 Ibid., p.137 13 Author’s interview with Ousmane Sembène, Summer 1971 14 Sembène Ousmane, Niaye 15 Kane, Ambiguous Adventure, p. 33 16 The French Assimilation concept was based on the idea of expanding French culture to the colonies outside France in the 19th and 20th century. Indigenous people of these colonies were considered French citizens as long as the culture and customs were adopted. This also meant they would have the rights and duties of French citizens. 17 Black Docker, p. 15 18 Ibid., p. 106 19 Ibid. 20 Césaire, in Présence africaine, Nos. 24-25, pp. 117-118 21 Black Docker, p.30 22 Ibid., p. 34 23 Ibid., p.119 24 Ibid., p.115 25 Ibid., p.116 26 Sembène Ousmane, O pays, p. 109 27 Ibid., p.118 28 Ibid., p. 201 29 Sembène Ousmane, God’s Bits, p. 203 30 Ibid., p. 181 31 Black Docker, p. 70 32 Ibid., p. 71 33 God’s Bits, p. 64 34 Brench, p.112 35 God’s Bits, p. 53 36 Ortova 37 Sembène Ousmane, Tribal Scars, p. 35 38 God’s Bits, p. 106 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 O pays, p.17 42 The Koran IV, 3 43 O pays, p.31 44 Ibid., p. 37 45 God’s Bits, p.106 46 Money Order, pp. 14-15 47 Voltaïque, p. 135 48 O pays, p. 119 49 Tribal Scars, p. 19 50 God’s Bits, p. 4 51 Ibid., p. 33 52 Ibid., p. 69 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid., p. 74 55 Ibid., p. 203 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid., p. 185

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60  Kwawisi Tekpetey 58 Ibid., p. 210 59 Ibid., p. 97 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid., p. 47 62 Ibid., p. 226 63 Ibid., p. 201 64 Sembène Ousmane, Borom Sarett 65 God’s Bits, p. 34 66 L’Harmattan, p. 238 67 Ibid., p. 239 68 Ibid., p. 240 69 Tribal Scars, p. 75 70 Ibid., pp. 63-64 71 Ibid., p. 70 72 Ibid., p. 47 73 Ibid., p. 115 74 English translation of ‘La Noire de…’ in Voltaïque 75 Ciervide 76 Louis Marcorelles, p. 24 77 Voltaïque, p. 157 78 Ibid., p. 167 79 Ibid., p. 171 80 Quoted in L’Afrique Actuelle, p. 15 81 Voltaïque, p. 177 82 O pays, p. 146 83 Cervoni, ‘A propos de Dakar’ 84 Voltaïque, p. 177 85 L’Harmattan, p. 11 86 Ibid., p. 212 87 English translation of quotation by author of article 88 L’Harmattan, p. 82 89 Leopold Sédar Senghor’s concept of ‘Le rendez-vous du donner et du recevoir’ 90 Guinea in West Africa was the only French colony that voted ‘No’ in De Gaulle’s 1958 Referendum. 91 L’Harmattan, p. 203 92 Ibid., p.190 93 Bass 94 Ibid.

WORKS CITED Works by Ousmane Sembène fiction

The Black Docker, London: Heinemann, 1987. [English translation of Le Docker noir, Paris: Présence africaine (1973). First published by Nouvelles Editions Debresse, (1956) by Ros Schwartz] O pays mon beau peuple, Paris: Le livre contemporain, 1957 God’s Bits of Wood, London: Heinemann, 1976. [English translation of original French

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publication, Les bouts de bois de Dieu, Paris: Le livre contemporain (1960) by Francis Price] Tribal Scars, London: Heinemann, 1974 [English translation of some short-stories in Voltaïque, Paris: Présence africaine (1962) by Len Ortzen] L’Harmattan I: Référendum, Paris: Présence africaine, 1964 The Money Order with White Genesis, London: Heinemann, 1972 [English translation of the original French publication Véhi Ciosane ou Blanche Genèse suivi du Mandat, Paris: Présence africaine (1965) by Clive Wake] films

Borom sarret, 35 mm., 22 min. 1963 [In French] Emitaï, 35mm, Eastmancolour, 1hr. 35min. 1971 [In French] La Noire de…, 35 mm., 1 hr. 10 min., 1966 [In French with English subtitles] Mandabi/Le mandat, 35mm., Colour, 1 hr 45 min, 1968 [In Wolof and French with English subtitles] Niaye, 35 mm, 35 min, 1964 [In French with English subtitles]

Other Works Cited L’Afrique actuelle, Numéro Spécial: Jeune Cinéma d’Afrique, No. 15, février 1967 Bass, ‘Je ne milite dans aucun parti, je milite à travers mon oeuvre, nous affirme Ousmane Sembène’, Dakar-Matin, le 22 avril 1966 Brench, Anthony C. The Novelists Inheritance in French Africa. London: Oxford University Press (1967) Cervoni, Albert. ‘A propos de Dakar’, France nouvelle, No. 1067, 30 mars 1966 Césaire, Aimé. Return to My Nativeland, Présence Africaine 1971); [English translation of Cahier d’un retour au pays natal, Paris: Présence Africaine (1956) by Emile Snyder] Césaire, Aimé. ‘L’Homme de culture et ses responsabilités’, Présence africaine, Nos. 24-5 ‘Entretien avec Sembène Ousmane, le docker noir’, Afrique, No. 25 Ciervide, Joacquin-Enrique. ‘Sembène Ousmane: témoin de la cité’, Congo-Afrique, No. 20, déc. 1967 Kane, Cheikh Hamidou. Ambiguous Adventure. New York: Collier Books 1969 [English Translation of L’Aventure ambiguë, Paris: Juliard (1961) by Katherine Woods] Marcorelles, Louis. ‘Ousmane Sembène, romancier, cinéaste, poète’, Lettres françaises, no. 1177, 6-12 avril 1967 Maunick, Edouard. ‘Rencontres avec Ousmane Sembène’, Office de RadiodiffusionTélévision Française, Paris, in ‘Rencontres’ (Eight weekly series from June 19, 1970) No.2. ‘Ousmane Sembène: romancier et conteur) Moore, Gerald (ed.). African Literature and the Universities. Ibadan University Press, 1965 Ortova, Jarmila, ‘Les femmes dans l’oeuvre littéraire de Sembène Ousmane’, Présence africaine, No.71, 1969 Sartre, Jean-Paul. No Exit: A Play in One Act; English translation of Huis clos Wauthier, Claude. ‘No Ebony Tower for African Writers’, Optima, No. 18, 1968

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Psychological Violence in Bessie Head’s Maru & A Question of Power NI BLESSING DIALA-OGAMBA

THE NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL VIOLENCE IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN NOVEL Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognize others as people not by those who are oppressed, exploited, and unrecognized. It is not the unloved who cause disaffection but those who cannot love because they love only themselves. It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who with their power create the concrete situation which begets the rejects of life. (Freire 1972: 32)

Bessie Head is a South African writer who has written several novels and short stories. Her works helped to expose the dehuman­ization and inhuman treatments meted on the non-white South Africans in the era of apartheid. The apartheid policy and racism of the South African government at the time made life unbearable for the non-whites who were its victims, and these dehumanized people found it difficult to accept the white oppression. The regime also offered great challenges to South African writers who were not able to exercise their mental and emotional thoughts as much as they would want. However, Bessie Head, through her works Maru and A Question of Power exposes some aspects of the psychological violence meted to the non-whites in South Africa. Although South African writers of the apartheid era consistently pre-occupied themselves with themes of protest, apartheid, social injustice and equality, Bessie Head deviates a little from the norm by taking a look at life in general. This paper seeks to explore other aspects of violence in Head’s Maru and A Question of Power such as the socio-economic and cultural activities of the non-whites, and the myth associated with psychological and daily living of the people. A reading of a Bessie Head’s novel, is a plunge into a bizarre 62

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world where characters find themselves on the fringes of mad­ ness, but we find the reason for this mode of presentation when we relate the novels to her own life history. Bessie Head was born on 6 July, 1937, in a Pietermaritzburg mental hospital. The only thing known about her father is that he worked in her mother’s family’s stable taking care of the race horses. At birth, her mother’s mental derangement led to her being handed over to a colored foster mother, to whom she became deeply attached. This may explain why she states in her biographical notes that she has no string of relationship to anybody neither can she trace her emotional inheritance to any mother or grandmother. At thirteen, her foster mother became very wretched and she was transferred to an orphanage in Durban, where she came in contact with the missionaries and their hostility. There, she learned in a cruel manner the nature of her roots. She was constantly reminded by the missionary principal: ‘Your Mother was insane. If you are not careful you’ll get insane just like your mother. Your mother was a white woman. They had to lock her up as she was having a child by the stable boy who was a native’ (Emenyonu (ed.) 1986: 96). This made her hate the missionaries and the Christianity which they represented. After she left Durban she never again set foot in a church . She got to know of her background from a pathetic letter left by her mother in the mental hospital. Bessie Head was educated at Durban and she contributed to the periodical Drum, the pioneering journal for and by black Africans. In 1964, as a result of an unhappy marriage and pressures imposed under the South African regime, she followed the patterns of many South African writers by going into exile. She was granted an exit visa to allow her take up a teaching appointment in Botswana. Unlike some South African writers who have written novels protesting against oppression in South Africa from urban centers outside Africa, Bessie Head’s new life and literary career have been sustained by the desire to put down new roots within rural Africa. She realized that there are many ways in which Botswana was less traumatized by the colonial impact than many other African countries, so she made a new home there. When in an interview Head told Andrew Peek that as a writer ‘I seek to heal and mend’ (Peek 1985: 5), it was apparent that this statement assumed both private and public dimensions. Bessie Head wrote four novels and a collection of stories. Her works are: When Rain Clouds Gather (1969), Maru (1971), A Question of

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Power (1974), The Collector of Treasures (1977), Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind (1981). Bessie Head saw herself as a very plain and ordinary person, without any glamor or mystery, her earlier works were on the whole internal and private. She felt that people need to have a sense of alertness about their destiny and about their spiritual history. She believed that part of her work has been a kind of defining of goodness. According to her, some of her works gave her ‘a sense of peace, of fulfillment and achievement’ (Emenyonu, ed. 97). She did not see writing as therapeutic, rather ‘it was like using my inner strength, having it tested and having my experiences recorded, that was such great benefit to me’ (Peek 1985, 6). She saw writing as an outlet without which a writer would go insane. Bessie Head was influenced by Victorian writers, Brecht, a dram­a­tist, and Lawrence, a novelist. According to her, ‘Brecht gave me the license to put facts and figures into the novel form’ (ibid., 8). She read Asian and Indian philosophies and said that Moslems were mostly interested in Asian philosophy. She was also influenced by the Hindu view of rebirth and reincarnation. She saw an individual as a total embodiment of human history with a vast accumulation of knowledge and experience stored in the subconscious mind; thus, she saw her relationship to Africa. The African experience of slavery, colonialism and exploitation aroused feelings of intense anguish in her work. She associated evil with the acquisition of power. In Botswana, she was exposed to a life quite different from the South African situation. She found an atmosphere of peace which she had never known in people whose daily activities were carried out with ease and a sense of freedom She tried faithfully to express in her works the combination of her experiences in both South Africa and Botswana. Head found out that just like other African countries, Botswana has lost its image of ancient traditional Africa. In view of the fact that independence brought innovations, enough of the ancient way of African life has survived in rural parts of Botswana to enable the younger generations maintain their balance with ease. All Bessie Head’s works are set in Botswana where she lived and died in 1988 as an exile from South Africa.

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ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL VIOLENCE IN MARU Bessie Head’s first three novels form a trilogy. In those novels, she disapproves of the misuse of power by any individual or group. She portrays this misuse of power when she dramatizes the process of abdication of power which gets more complex from the first novel – When Rain Clouds Gather to the third – A Question of Power. As she explains the message she gives in the third novel explores : the naked display of power by the racists in South Africa or any other bigots elsewhere can only lead to disaster. There is no way of avoiding the rewards of oppression whether it is of blacks by whites, whites by blacks, whites by fellow whites or blacks by fellow blacks. The wise thing to do is to conceive of power in a progressive evolutionary manner. (Taiwo 1984:185)

In view of man’s insatiable lust for power, this is hardly possible. The novelist considers at length the psychological basis of power and finds that this has been largely eroded in a world dominated by conflict and the desire for political ascendancy. It is because of this stated position that Bessie Head is said to ‘express an indiscriminate repugnance for all political aspiration in all races’ (Heywood (ed.) 1979: 114). In Maru, Bessie Head focuses on the plight of Margaret Cadmore and by extension the Masarwa people who represent the outcasts. Being a qualified teacher, she is sent to Dilepe village to teach. The Masarwa or Bushmen are regarded in Botswana as a race of untouchables. Margaret, on arriving at Dilepe meets Dilekedi, one of the teachers in Leseding School who immediately assumes the role of a protector and a friend to her. The headmaster and other people in Dilepe think she is a half-caste and bear no animosity towards her until she lets them know she is in fact a Masarwa. Having been taught to take pride in her background by her missionary foster mother, she does not find it difficult to introduce herself. ‘I am a Masarwa’ (Maru 1972, 24). Dilekedi advises her not to mention to anyone that she is a Masarwa as she could easily pass as a colored. Margaret reasserts: ‘But I am not ashamed of being a Masarwa’ (24). Bessie Head uses this episode to show us the regenerating values of self-confidence. The children reject her as their teacher. She is

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subjected to all forms of humiliation despite her intelligence and skill as a professional teacher. This makes her a representative of all racially oppressed peoples everywhere. Her relationship with the influential members of the community such as Dilekedi, Moleka and Maru does not make things easier for her. She now relates this to her childhood experience of being an isolated outcast, ‘like the mad dog of the village, with tin cans tied to her tail’ (9). Margaret initially falls in love with Moleka who cannot make her happy. He pretends to admit all Masarwa to an artificial type of brotherhood by eating with them. His motives are suspected as he does nothing to remove Margaret’s social stigma. Maru moves against him because of his love for Margaret and to contain Moleka’s infinite capacity to do evil. Maru also realizes that the task of marrying Margaret will be a difficult one. He makes Moleka marry his sister Kikeledi so he marries Margaret. This arrangement causes Maru and Moleka to become sworn enemies. Maru knows that because his king­dom is of love, he has the strength to marry Margaret and live with the consequences. He knows too that: ‘Moleka would never have lived down the ridicule and malice and would in the end have des­troyed her from embarrassment’ (9). We are told that Maru like Moleka has been profligate in his sexual adventures with women, but, at the end of his affairs, Moleka comes out unhurt and happy while Maru becomes sick with an indefinable ailment. We find out that Maru always fell in love with his women. He’d choose them with great care and patience. There was always some outstanding quality; a special tenderness in the smile, a beautiful voice or something in the eyes which suggested mystery and hidden dreams … and earthly position of future paramount chief of a tribe. (35)

Maru falls in love with his women but Moleka sees them as toys to be used and discarded. From Ravenscroft’s point of view: ‘The difference between Maru and Moleka’s conduct of sexual escapades is symptomatic of the fundamental differences between their innermost beings.’ This marriage between Maru and Margaret brings freedom to the people of Masarwa, giving the people hope about the end of Apartheid. Abdication of Political Power The plot of Maru, takes us to other aspects of psychological violence portrayed by Head in her works. In her first novel When Rain Clouds

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Gather, we are presented with Makhaya, the protagonist who is affected psychologically by the oppression of non-whites by whites. He abandons his political responsibility for the struggle of the masses in South Africa and flees to Botswana where he takes up a heavier but more permanent yoke. The same thing happened in Maru which is both the title of the novel as well as the name of its hero. Maru, the protagonist, is a candidate for high office, a paramount chief elect, only waiting to step into the shoes of his predecessor. He abandons this office as he is affected psychologically by his love for Margaret who is an outcast. He is deeply involved in the administration of his kingdom and plays a leading role in the social and political life of his people. His close interaction with the villagers has only succeeded in impressing on him their personal and group inadequacies. He therefore resolves to bring about a change: Three quarters of the people on this continent are like Morafi, Seth and Pete – greedy, grasping, back-stabbing, a betrayal of all the good in mankind. I was not born to rule this mess. If I have a place it is to pull down the old structures and create the new. Not for me any sovereignty over my fellow men. I’d remove the blood money, the cruelty and crookery from the top, but that’s all. There’s a section of my life they will never claim or own. (Maru 68)

Before Maru takes thedecision of bringing about a change, he compares himself to his friend Moleka who is endowed with a different type of power: Moleka was a sun around which spun a billion satellites. All the sun had to do was radiate force, energy, light. Maru had no equivalent of it in his own kingdom. He had no sun like that, only an eternal and gentle interplay of shadows and light and peace. ‘He is greater than I in power’, he thought, at first stunned, taken back by the sight. (58)

Maru wants to be more powerful than Moleka in every way. Moleka lends Margaret Cadmore, the new Masarwa teacher, a bed and a mattress to use, and submits the list of items for Maru to sign. Maru says: I’m not like you, Moleka … I still own the Masarwa as slaves. All of my one hundred thousand cattle and fifty cattle posts are maintained by the Masarwa. They sleep on the ground, near outdoor fires. Their only blanket is the fire. When the fire warms them on one side, they turn around and warm themselves on the other side. I have seen this with my own eyes. What will they do when they hear that a certain

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Masarwa in my village is treated as an equal of the Botswana and given a bed from my office? Won’t they want beds too, and where do I find all these beds, overnight? I want the bed you loaned the Masarwa teacher returned, immediately. (59-60)

This shows us the extent of authority which Maru exhibits and his capabilities in the kingdom he rules. He uses his authority to further humiliate Margaret by taking her bed away and making her sleep on the floor. At a time he wonders: ‘How was it then that he had inherited so much blood money and so many slaves whose only blanket was an outdoor fire? Had they not all been a little like Morafi, with a few principles, and these principles had saved them from outright damnation’ (Maru 68)? Because he has principles, he is able to think and to see the down-trodden as fellow human beings. The gods therefore use him to set the Masarwa people free from bondage and to prove that: ‘there would be a day when everyone would be free and no one slave of another’ (69). Maru is a visionary who would have preferred to remain behind to reform his society, but he is also a man who ‘never doubted the voices of the gods in his heart’ (Maru 8). We are made to believe that it is these gods which lead him against his people and his friend Moleka. These gods also lead him to marry a Masarwa and renounce his chieftainship even though he is better suited to govern justly and wisely than the brother who will take his place. Maru is merely indulging in personal predilection for a carefree, untrammeled life. We are told: ‘It was different if his motivation was entirely self or self-centered, but the motivation came from the gods who spoke to him in his heart … He believed in his heart and the things in it … His methods were cold, calculating and ruthless’ (Maru 73). Maru’s method is ironic because being ‘cold, calculating and ruthless’ is the usual method of those who seek to wield power. His role in the novel is the very antithesis of power because he abandons his political power in favor of the kingdom of love and, the manipulation of the marriage between himself and Margaret and between his sister Dikeledi and his friend Moleka. Though Maru obeys and trusts the voices of the gods in his heart, he believes that the closed door in Moleka’s heart still hides an uncertainty: Perhaps he had seriously miscalculated Moleka’s power, that Moleka possessed some superior quality over which he had little control. Was it a superior kind of love? Or was it a superior kind of power? He’d

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trust the love but not the power because the power could parade as anything. (Maru 9-10)

This doubt and his willingness to give Margaret up despite his deep love for her, if he is proved wrong about Moleka, influences our view of Maru and his actions. Maru’s marriage to Margaret in the first place is a completely personal thing because he knows he ‘could not marry a tribe or race’ (Maru 109). On the other hand, the marriage carries a considerable political symbolism. Bessie Head makes a statement of hope and redemption for all oppressed people thereby portraying her vision, which is freedom and unity, irrespective of tribe, race or color. This marriage brings about that freedom. Maru abdicates his political responsibility in order to demonstrate his belief in freedom of action for the individual and help extend that freedom to people of all races. ‘When the people of Dilepe village heard about the marriage of Maru, they began to talk about him as if he had died’ (Maru 126). The marriage is an unpleasant surprise because it will not be possible again to treat a Masarwa in an inhuman way as it helps to elevate them and other oppressed groups in the society. While the people in Dilepe are unhappy about this development, the Masarwa see it as a relief and the narrator expresses the fact that: A door silently opened on the small, dark airless room in which their souls had been shut for a long time. The wind of freedom which was blowing throughout the world for all people turned and flowed into the room. As they breathed in the fresh clear air their humanity awakened … it would no longer be possible to treat Masarwa people in an inhuman way without getting killed yourself. (Maru 126-7)

Bessie Head uses the Masarwa as a symbol of all oppressed and rejected people of the world. By making Maru marry Margaret, the novelist hints at the type of understanding which can free man from self-imposed prejudices. Margaret’s self confidence and pride is not meant to portray her as arrogant. On the other hand, it is a symbolic indication that the oppressed and rejected can only remain so if they themselves accept labels of inferiority cast on them by others. Maru’s actions are manipulated by the gods who speak to him but Head’s creative power presents this inner personal vision and his political ambition in such a way that he is forced to adopt an uncertain lifestyle in a new land or location. Though he believes he has obeyed the voices of the gods in his heart, he is still uncertain of what motivates Moleka’s actions.

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Racism There has always been the problem of racism as a major theme in South African writing because it affects the downtrodden psychologically. Racism is portrayed in all South African writings because inter-racial love affairs and marriages are not allowed in the apartheid regime of South African government. In Too Late the Phalarope, Alan Paton explores the irony of legislating on aspects of life where legislations are always ineffective. Here, Paton ridicules the white miscegenation Act of 1927. Peter Abrahams in his Tell Freedom, Dark Testament and Path of Thunder also deals with the issue of racism and inter-racial love. Ezekiel Mphahlele and Alex La Guma portray this theme of racism in their short stories and novels. Richard Rive in his ‘Resurrection’ portrays the discriminatory attitude of the mulatto towards the real black people. A mother and her dark-skinned daughter are despised by the mother’s other lightskinned children who assign the kitchen and back door to them. The dark child explains the cold attitude of their dying mother: Because you are old and black, and your children want you out of the way. They want me out of the way too, Ma, because you made me black like you. I am also your child, Ma! I belong to you. They want us to stay in the kitchen and use the back door. We must not be seen, Ma, their friends must not see us. We embarrass them, Ma, so they hate us … because we’re black. You and I Ma. (Rive 1982, 44)

Racism is also portrayed in the works of Black American writers like Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, to mention a few. According to Nadine Gordimer, the black writer: Writes from inside about the experience of the black masses because the colour-bar keeps him steep in his circumstances, confined in a black township and carries a pass that regulates his movements from the day he is born to the status of ‘Piccanin’ to the day he is buried in a segregated cemetery. (Heywood 118)

The white writer, though privileged, has a limited view of the black because of segregation and in his writing, he presents the blacks as caricatures and non-humans. Blacks in their writings expose the social ills in South Africa and reassert the position of the black man in his motherland. Bessie Head found herself in Botswana not only because of political problems but because of the racial problems which have been associated with her life right from birth. In Maru, she

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presents Margaret who is portrayed as a symbol of oppression and a representative of the rejected and the despised. Margaret is humiliated by the people and the administration on hearing that she is a Masarwa. She is a highly qualified teacher but she is not treated as such, rather she is frustrated. The people direct to a fellow black, the type of prejudice and hatred they experience from the whites: ‘How universal was the language of oppression! They had said of the Masarwa what every white man had said of every black’ (Maru 109). This comment shows us where the writer’s sympathies lie. The blacks are complaining of racism, yet they are ironically treating a fellow black, a Masarwa who they regard as a ‘bushman’, as a second class citizen. Margaret’s sad experiences are probably essential for her to fulfill the ‘purpose and burden’ imposed on her from childhood by her foster mother: ‘One day, you will help your people’ (17). We therefore opine that like Maru, she too is destined to become an instrument of change and rejuvenation. Vanamali observes that: Historically speaking, the untouchables whose touch generates ritual pollution are whole classes of despised and dejected people carrying on various low-grade professions. On the face of it, the untouchables are recognizably like the other, high caste people, and yet unlike; some vital lack, some apparent sign degrades and downgrades him and proves of vicious power in the context. Sometimes it is colour, where the fair and the dark stand opposed; sometimes it is stature where the short and the tall operate as standards of superiority or otherwise … In South Africa as well as Botswana the operant force is racial discrimination. (Vanamali unpublished (1988): 5-6)

Gerald Moore in Twelve African Writers observes that the black South African is: ‘an outcast in his own country, he has to scrutinize every door way, every bench, every counter, to make sure that he has segregated himself correctly’ (Moore 1980, 41-42) Every nation seems to have evidence of the existence of groups who can be called concretization of the outcast or the untouchables, a group segregated against. Vanamali further observes that in Dilepe: ‘the ultimate differentiating factor amounts to existing physio­ logical realities, to trigger off unspeakable barbarities of man against man’ (Vanamali 5). Bessie Head x-rays the situation in Botswana when she says in Maru: You just have to look different from them, the way the facial features of a Sudra or Tamil do not resemble the facial features of a high caste Hindu, then seemingly anything can be said and done to you as your

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outer appearance reduced you to the status of a non-human being. (Maru 11)

In Margaret’s own case, she looks like a Chinese though she is beauti­ful, but she is isolated from the social context of Botswana because of her outcast state. To justify Maru’s marriage to Margaret we are led into the background of his thought, and are made to know that the decision is not entirely his but that of the gods who control his actions: But the conditions which surrounded him at the time forced him to think of her as a symbol of her tribe and through her, she sought to gain an understanding of the eventual liberation of an oppressed people … they had been a conquered tribe but the conquered were often absorbed through marriage. (Maru 108)

This marriage helps to elevate and liberate the position of the downtrodden and mellows the psychological effect of racism, thus bringing about freedom and awareness of the oppressed group. Oladele Taiwo believes that: ‘the message is for all those who treat others in an inhuman way. The racists in South Africa stand a good change of ‘getting killed’ unless they change their vicious apartheid laws before it is too late’ (Taiwo 193). EXILE AND ALIENATION Bessie Head also examines the theme of exile and alienation in her works, Maru and A Question of Power. We are using alienation here to show that one can also be an exile in his own home. Alienation is a state of man’s incompatibility with his milieu and it is easily noticeable in a colonized society. According to Ojo-Ade: ‘The master-slave relationship that exists in such a society, a relationship that has been adopted and carried forward into the neo-colonialist structure of the independent society, provides a classical setting for the dissipation of sanity and its replacement by dementia’ (OjoAde 134). Ojo-Ade distinguishes two types of alienated heroes, the one who has managed to stay on in spite of all odds, and does not belong to the mainstream of the social order but still remains sane; and the other who cannot adjust to the inhuman situation existing in his society. He becomes mentally ill as he gets to his limit (ibid.). We see Ezeulu in Arrow of God running mad because he is unwilling to submit himself to the power of collective wisdom. The god takes sides with the community against him, thus upholding the wisdom

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of the ancestors, against the individual. The man in The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born remains alienated, but he ironically eats what his wife gets from the corrupt society he rejects. In Fragments, Baako runs amok living as a non-existing figure in America, among so many whites. After his journalistic training, he comes back to face a more traumatic form of prejudice, emanating from his compatriots. F. E. Nwagba uses the term ‘exiled imagination’ for ‘alienation’. In explaining this, he says: When people think of exile they almost always confine it to physical displacement during which one leaves one geographical location for another. It is also possible to be an exile even when no physical displacement is involved. Perhaps some critics may prefer to call what I have in mind alienation but I choose to call it the exiled imagination because a writer in this type of situation creates in his works the ideal which is lacking in his daily experience. (Nwagba 22)

Ken Saro-Wiwa expressed the same opinion in an interview where he says: ‘I belong to the dispossessed the ethnic robbers keep rob­ bing me. The oil my home has produced, has not been used to better my home. I’m an exile in Nigeria.’ This type of exile can be called psychological exile while the real movement out of one’s country can be called physical exile for the purposes of this article. These defini­ tions and examples will help clarify the issue of exile and alienation in Bessie Head’s works and in South African writing in general. The characters in Bessie Head’s Maru are affected by the sociopolitical and economic deprivation of the black majority in South Africa. This has made life so unbearable for Margaret and contributed to her physical and psychological exile that she has to leave South Africa, her place of birth, out of frustration for Dikeledi where she gets a teaching appointment. She is later isolated on hearing that she is a Masarwa. The children in Leseding school cannot even bear to be taught by a Masarwa and so Margaret is driven frustrated out of the school. It is this discriminatory apartheid policy in South Africa that forces writers into exile. The legislative provision made for the censorship of black writing or any such protest literature, has left the blacks with no other option than to write in exile exposing the dehumanizing effects of apartheid policies of South Africa to the outside world. With Maru, Bessie Head has generally shown the struggles and plight of people who are faced with all sorts of humiliation through exile and alienation.

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ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL VIOLENCE IN A QUESTION OF POWER Bessie Head’s third novel A Question of Power like Maru, is complex in its structure, meaning, and significance. It is the narration of Elizabeth’s nightmare world of mental torment which originated in her traumatic experiences in South Africa and her daytime activities as a member of the cooperative venture. Bessie Head sees this story as a ‘soul journey’ of her heroine Elizabeth, while Arthur Ravenscroft observes that: ‘In A Question of Power we are taken nightmarishly into the central character’s process of mental breakdown, through lurid cascades of hallucination and a pathological blurring of the frontiers between insanity and any link of normalcy’ (Heywood 175). Elizabeth is a colored South African woman whose father worked in the stable of a rich white family, who impregnates her mother, a member of this rich household. Her mother is confined to a hospital asylum where she commits suicide after giving birth to her. Elizabeth grew up in a slum and marries a man straight out of jail with an interest in Buddhism. When the marriage collapses, she leaves South Africa on a one way ticket and settles in Botswana with her son. She gets a job in a school and loses it because of her mental derangement. She later joins the cooperative venture initiated by Eugene and becomes a successful vegetable grower. Elizabeth’s childhood is more or less identical to that of the novelist. Thus in a keynote address at an International Conference at Calabar, Nigeria in 1982, Bessie Head says: There must be many people like me in South Africa whose birth or beginnings are filled with calamity and disaster … The circumstances of my birth seemed to make it necessary to obliterate all traces of a family history. I have not a single known relative on earth, no long and ancient family trace to refer to, no links with heredity or a sense of having inherited a temperament, a certain emotional instability or the shape of the fingernail from a grandmother or a great grandmother. I have always just been me, with no frame of reference to anything beyond myself. (Emenyonu 1986: 97)

A careful assessment of this novel seems to prove the novelist’s own personal involvement. One is tempted to believe that she must have gone through similar experiences of hallucination and stresses of a deranged mind in a deranged society. Elizabeth’s nightmares and mental breakdown are caused mainly

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by two male characters, Sello and Dan, who dominate the novel. These two characters are in different ways agents of evil, even though at various times, Sello displays a certain capacity to do good. In the monk’s outfit, Sello is a symbol of goodness with spiritual obligations and when in the brown suit, he represents evil just as Medusa. Through Sello and Dan, the cruelty and inhumanity of the South African apartheid regime is exposed as Elizabeth is led into series of nightmares and mental agony. A Question of Power is structured in a way that devotes the first part mainly to Sello and the second part to Dan. Sello, the whiterobed monk, appears in Elizabeth’s room at night and throws her into a state of mental torment, aggravated by Dan’s obscene display of exploits with women with insatiable sexual appetites. His depth of depravity with women like Madame Loose-Bottom, Squelch Squelch, The womb, and Miss Pelican Beak is intended to highlight the social obscenity and political viciousness which dominate interpersonal relationships in racially disturbed areas like South Africa. This sexual cesspit is also seen as dredging up the deeply hidden horrors and deprivations that lie unacknowledged within every human consciousness. Dan’s greater responsibility in the matter of Elizabeth’s mental breakdown is acknowledged by the victim herself. ‘I am not a tribal African … He struck me such terrible blows, the pain made me lose my mind’ (AQP145). Medusa who is also an accomplice and whose ‘main priority … was the elimination of Elizabeth’ (62), is a symbol of obscenity and destruction. She does more to torment Elizabeth than the other figures that appear in her hallucinations. These forces help to alienate Elizabeth from the Botswana people. Elizabeth through a strong will-power extricates herself from these evils, and stops her soul from remaining an ‘open territory easily invaded by devils’ (192). Elizabeth recovers spiritually from the mental confusion she was has been in for a long period, feeling ‘more powerful and secure’ (202). The economic recovery is even more spectacular with the money she makes from the sale of gooseberry jam. She feels generally triumphant and hopeful and her confidence in man and the supremacy of reason are restored. She says: ‘There is only one God and his name is man. And Elizabeth is his prophet’ (206). She is now at peace with herself and puts the harassment and uncertainties of the past behind her. She commits herself solely to her country of sojourn. It is this commitment which makes it

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possible for her to join the group of foreign volunteers and local talents who bring lasting benefit to Botswana. The next three sections deal with the psychological Violence in Bessie Head’s A Question of Power. Misuse of Political Power The aspect of psychological violence which is the misuse of political power by the white authority represented by Sello and Dan, reaches its climax in A Question of Power. Here, the author criticizes the ‘questionable use of power’ by the present South African government and other oppressive regimes. Because of the law against inter-racial love affair instituted by the powerful white authority, Elizabeth suffers the mistake made by her mother who at the time was expressing her emotional involvement with the black stable boy against the apartheid policies. Unfortunately, her mother is sent away by the family to avoid disgrace. She ends up in a mental home where she later commits suicide. Elizabeth, the product of this miscegenation continues to suffer segregation and abuse because of her color. As a child in school, she once struck another child during a quarrel and the missionary principal orders: ‘isolate her for a week’ (16). As if that is not enough: The other children soon noticed something unusual about Elizabeth’s isolation periods. They could fight and scratch and bite each other, but if she did likewise she was locked up. They took to kicking at her with deliberate malice as she sat in a corner reading a book. None of the prefects would listen to her side of the story. (16)

Elizabeth could not do anything or report this abuse to anyone. She is made to understand from childhood that she is of a different breed. Her experience as she grew ‘was like living with permanent nervous tension, because you did not know why white people there had to go out of their way to hate you or loath you’ (AQP 19). Out of frustration, she goes to Botswana where she finds a new home. Her experience here is entirely new as people are ready to mix and teach one another: A person would actually put out her hand to say here? ‘Wait a bit. Where are you hurrying to?’ It was so totally new, so inconceivable, the extreme opposite of Hey, Kaffir, get out of the way; the sort of greeting one usually was given in South Africa. Surely there was a flow of feeling here from people to people. (AQP 20-21)

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As Elizabeth tries to settle down in Botswana the representatives of this white authority in the form of Sello, Dan ,and Medusa come to torment her in her dreams, and send her to the state of mental derangement. She once wakes up from sleep and tells Tom, another foreigner that Sello is prancing around in my nightmare with his face full of swollen green blotches. There is a little girl with her face-up-turned in death. And last night Madame Make-Love-On-The-Floor just raised her legs high in the air. There’s no escape for me. There’s nothing I can do to stop it. I’m going insane. (AQP 61)

In another development, Medusa puts her in a ‘torture-chamber’ (46), and Dan decides to add to her torment by playing a record in her head: ‘Someone had turned on a record inside her head. It went on and on in the same, stuck grove: ‘Dog, filth, the Africans will eat you to death … Dan later admitted that he had turned on the record’ (AQP 45-46). After suffering for so long Elizabeth realizes that the ‘people only function well when their inner lives are secure and peaceful. She was like a person driven out of her own house while demons rampaged within, turning everything upside down’ (AQP 49). She then determines to block her mind against the evils of apartheid, thus regaining her self-consciousness. Eugene, a white man who abandons his position in South Africa in sympathy for the blacks is forced into exile. He also moves to Botswana to join other foreigners in the rural agricultural development project. Elizabeth joins the work-group after losing her teaching job and gets positive response from the people of Motabeng. Thoko, who retells village gossips and brings gifts of water mellon and pumpkin to Elizabeth tells her of the fertility of the land and the food it can produce. This inspires Elizabeth’s choice of profession. The agricultural trainees, Small boy, Dintle, and Kepotho, share their new learned farming knowledge with Kenosi, who joins her as co-worker on the farm. The group brings a truly rewarding partnership in work and becomes the force that introduces and sustains a feeling of normalcy through all the seasons of mental troubles for Elizabeth. In this way, workers discover their vocation as laborers in one form of economic activity or the other. Eugene, occupies a prominent position, discovers and utilizes local talents, mobilizes opinion in favor of team work, and develops the people’s urge to create. He sets up local industries,

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projects and cooperative groups to produce and market goods. A sense of democratic interaction informs all the activities of the cooperative. Eugene is an Afrikaner refugee but takes credit for the work of social transformation at Motabeng. Ordinarily, he will be unacceptable to the people, but he has shared the fate of the blacks in South Africa, and has been kicked out of the country by the white authority. Like Elizabeth, he has developed a sense of commitment to his new home and decided to make it a comfortable place to live in. The author here may be emphasizing the equality in suffering between Eugene and the black man in much the same way that Margaret, the Masarwa become equal to Dikeledi, a girl of royal blood at a state in Maru. In both cases, political power has slipped from the hands of those born to wield it and is now being shared by others. The author clearly shows that she believes only in: ‘Power that belongs to all of mankind and in which all mankind can share’ (AQP 135). The agricultural experiment at Motabeng succeeds only in a situation of power-sharing in which the people exercise a sense of belonging. Daves, Tom, Thoko, Mrs Jones, Mrs Stanley and others who vigorously contribute to this effort do so as members of a team, not as overseers. This is Bessie Head’s vision of power and the concept of power she approves of. The Psychological Effect of Racism A Question of Power explores another aspect of violence which is racism and its traumatic effect on blacks. Elizabeth as a colored is segregated against in both South Africa and Botswana, her country of exile. Her upbringing and the apartheid racist South African regime gave rise to her mental trauma. ‘In South Africa she has been rigidly classified colored. There was no escape from it to the simple joy of being a human being with personality. There wasn’t any escape like that for anyone in South Africa. They were races, not people’ (AQP 44). The South African authority represented by Sello, Dan and Medusa aggravate Elizabeth’s mental disorder, since she is already affected by her background of rejection. These evil creatures, Sello, Dan and Medusa reveal the devilish nature of apartheid rulers. She withdraws as much as possible from sexual life as portrayed in the Sello action, just to avoid a repetition of her mother’s mistake with her father. Medusa’s hatred for Elizabeth can best be explained to represent the racial problems both at the tribal and international levels.

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The harsh realities of racial associations have made life meaning­ less to blacks in general. There are bound to be millions of unwanted children with the bitter experiences of Elizabeth and the author. Vanamali observes that: ‘In South Africa Elizabeth was a half caste and in Botswana she is an outcast. As a colored woman, Elizabeth could never attain the simple joy of being a human being with a personality’ (Vanamali 1988: 23). Elizabeth is also described as: a Masarwa, a half breed exiled from South African into Botswana, a stranger in her home and still a stranger in the place she would like to call a new home. A low bread. A bastard. Daughter of a madwoman. Her non-identity, statelessness, chronic loneliness, and life on the verge of her terrestrial hell, added to her inherited mental anguish, all make her logical guest of the mad house. She remains a victim to the end. (Heywood 34)

By means of some inexplicable, psychological image association, the colored men in South Africa turn out to be homosexuals and transvestites. An African man provides an explanation to the repulsive attitude adopted by the transvestites: ‘How can a man be a man when he is called a boy?’ (AQP 45). In Elizabeth’s nightmares the death of manhood imposed on Africans in South Africa assumes a horrifying image, in which all colored men lie down and die, their manhood revealed to all. Some who could not endure slow deaths toppled over the rivers. Her nightmare shows that racism in South Africa leads to death of manhood. In her process of mental trauma, Elizabeth hears another message: ‘you don’t really like Africans … you never really like Africans. You only pretend to. You have no place here. Why don’t you go away…’ (AQP 51). One recognizes modern brainwashing techniques here – Eliza­ beth grows hysterical and articulates the false message imprinted in her memory: ‘Oh, you bloody bastard Botswana’ (AQP 51). She breaks down and is taken to the hospital. Her traumatized state of mind is the inevitable conclusion to the nature and quality of life the disadvantaged sections of people lead in South Africa. The connection between racial justice and psychic disturbance is established. Eugene, Elizabeth’s friend and mentor, attributes the only possible meaning to the oppression people suffer in South Africa as: ‘some form of mental aberration’ (AQP 58). Elizabeth’s awareness of evil is the negation of all reality, codes of ethics, system of personal sanctity. At the crisis of impending psychic dissolution, Elizabeth wonders, in a moment of mental

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lucidity: ‘How did it all happen here, in so unsuspecting a climate, these silent tortured questions of power and love; of loss and sacrifice?’ (AQP 98). She prays’ ‘May I never contribute to creating dead world, only new worlds’ (AQP 100). Her private sufferings re-enact the sufferings of all the despised, the rejected and the oppressed of human history. Sello as God, remains ambivalent, passive, at times overwhelmed by the evil that strangely seems to be a function of himself. Some African tribes are seen as inferior by other African tribes as in the case of the Masarwa. The whites also regard the blacks as inferior. Head uses this to show that racism is a universal concept which could be overcome with a deeper understanding of each other’s feelings. It could be deduced that Bessie Head is strongly suggesting that both the physical and the psychological exile can experience peace under a climate of peace and social justice. The Traumatic Effect of Exile and Alienation The theme of exile and alienation is another aspect of violence portrayed in this novel. As shown in Maru, frustration caused by the apartheid racist regime leads South African blacks into exile, both physical and psychological. We should remember that psychological exile here is the same thing as alienation. Femi OjoAde tells us that some alienated characters remain sane while some reach their limit of endurance and become insane. In the case of Margaret, she is sane and eventually gets uplifted in her social status by marrying Maru who is supposed to be a chief. Elizabeth, because of the frustrations of the apartheid system, allows herself to be tormented by Sello and Dan who are agents of evil and apartheid, and so becomes insane. It is only when she becomes strong-willed that she is able to resist the torment and joins the work-group who helps to rehabilitate her. Elizabeth, like Bessie Head, the novelist, is an exile from South Africa and they have the same background right from birth. Elizabeth’s experiences in Botswana recreate her South African experiences. Her mental breakdown and stresses take her into complete isolation and eerie existence. Head, through Elizabeth’s hallucinations, conjours up mythical figures like Sello, Medusa and Dan who symbolize the good, obscene and evil in life. All these people dominate her nightmares and torture her. Her experiences further unveil the plight of the black race who are used by people and yet are hated. In a conversation, Eugene tries

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to tell her she is not very much wanted there but she readily answers: ‘It’s not that, people don’t care here whether foreigners get along with them or not. They are deeply absorbed in each other … I don’t care whether people like me or not. I am used to isolation’ (AQP 56). She is an exile but ironically she finds herself in her nightmares screaming that she hates black Africans. About Elizabeth’s arrival in Botswana, we are told that: ‘The whole population turned around and looked at her quietly with vague curiosity, almost disinterestedly’ (26). As far as the society is concerned, she is an outcast. She therefore wishes at the end of the novel to have her first peaceful and untortured night’s sleep in three years. Both spiritually and socially, she lacks the ‘gesture of belonging’. In one of her solitary phases, Eugene offers to help her: She had to choke back a rush of words. When had she not faced all the sorrows of life alone? There had never been anyone near when she had stood alone, on street corners in South Africa and stared forlornly at a life without love. There wasn’t anyone near her in the solitary, unfolding mental drama of torture in Motabeng village. The man’s instinctive sympathy and offer of help was the nearest any human being had approached her isolation and she could see that he was working on the simple theory that South Africans usually suffered from some form of mental aberration so she only nodded her head in agreement to his offer of assistance. (AQP 58)

Head uses the image of a homely South African plant to explain how Botswana’s peaceful environment appears to exiles. This episode is rendered symbolically as Elizabeth’s work at the garden proves very successful. The work had a melody like that – a complete stranger like the Cape Gooseberry settled down and became a part of the village of Motageng. It loved the hot, dry Botswana summers as they were a replica of the Mediterranean summers of its home in the cape. (AQP 153)

Head believes that for the South African political and cultural exiles, such a climate is most appropriate and exists only in Botswana. The yearning for peace of mind is always achieved by exiles, but it does not solve their problems. They get acquainted with their country of exile sometimes, but the apartheid system in South Africa still remains. Some characters as portrayed by some South African writers are haunted by nostalgia. In Chocolate for My Wife by Matshikiza, we see a family exiled in London feeling

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nostalgia for the home they have rejected. They become alienated from the society they fled, and from the surrounding in which they live. Bloke Modisane’s Blame Me on History, portrays the physical destruction of Sophiatown as a symbol of the destruction of the protagonist’s self and his past existence. The protagonist flees into exile but cannot enjoy the freedom that exile affords, and he nostalgically reflects: South Africa and everything I had known, loved and hated remained behind me. I was out of South Africa. But it was no victory, or solution, that compulsive agony was still with me, the problem was still with me, only its immediacy was removed. (Cartey 138)

From the experiences of Eugene, Tom, Elizabeth and other foreigners in the work group, we find out that exiled persons often discover after making a meaningful relationship that life is not full of hatred and violence. As Charles Larson would want us to believe: Head wants us to consider all of these variations of power as evils that thwart each individual’s desire to be part of the human race, part of the brotherhood of man. The fact of one’s race, colour, religion, education –these should not be considered prerequisites for membership in the human race …. (Larson 1976: 172-3)

In Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind and The Collector of Treasures, Head shows how African traditional religion is practiced side by side with Christian religion. This is the only way the people including their traditional ruler, Khama The Great, accept to practice Christian religion. These Christian churches like the Roman Catholic and the Anglican missions are also meant to build schools and hospitals for the people. With the abdication of Khama The Great, many people joined the ‘Faith Healing’ churches where they have free hand to combine traditional ceremonies like marriage and death ceremonies with Christian rites. The contradiction in these versions of Christianity lie in the fact that: ‘Europeans despised black people and yet wanted to embrace them in salvation at the same time’ (Head Maru: 27). Head sees the philosophy of African religion as similar to that expressed by Christianity. She sees suffering and pain as necessary evils which the oppressed must pass through. She makes a deliberate attempt to fuse personal experience with that which is common to humanity. Having been influenced by Hindu belief of rebirth and reincarnation, Head believes that: ‘each individual

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no matter what the origin and background may be, is really the total embodiment of humor. History becomes a vast accumulation of knowledge and experience stored in the subconscious mind’ (Emenyonu 101). CONCLUSION Generally, Head sees Maru and A Question of Power as having come directly from her living experiences. In Maru, she exhibits deeper insights into racial discrimination, going into roots and sources. There is a tremendous harmony and steadiness in the novel. She says, in reading Maru ‘the love story should be regarded as subservient to the work the book is doing’ (Peek 6), that is the exposure of the racial violence and oppression meted to the blacks. The same theme is extended in A Question of Power including the use of cooperative as a healing factor for the exiles like Elizabeth and the other foreigners in the work group. Unlike other African female writers such as Flora Nwapa, Ama Ata Aidoo and Buchi Emecheta who protested against the neglect of women in African society, Bessie Head was concerned not only with women but humanity as a whole. She confronted a different sordid reality because of her apartheid background. Head in her work raised issues that were both personal and universal such as love, racism, alienation, abdication of power and religion. Achebe observes that ‘universality can never come except through writing about what one knows thoroughly … And, though it is only too easy for a writer to be local without being universal; I doubt whether a poet or novelist can be universal without being local too’ (Achebe 1975: 17). Head sees discrimination as a world problem, thus, she manipulates her characters to show the need for reunion irrespective of race. This is exemplified in the marriage of Maru and Margaret in Maru and in the unit of the work group for a common purpose in A Question of Power and in the working together of Gilbert, a white and Makhaya, a black in When Rain Clouds Gather. Head demonstrated in her novels that inter-racial relationships could go a long way in promoting peace and understanding among the various races of South Africa and the world at large. This can only be achieved when people learn to relate meaningfully to each other. Thus, Bessie Head becomes: Naturally interested in the plight of the expatriate, the outsider, the

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outcast, and the underdog; and quite understandably her memorable characters are all outsiders engaged in a quest for that which had eluded them in their places of origin and constantly yearning to be totally absorbed in their new milieux. (Asein & Asholu 1986: 227)

The uplifting of the Masarwa through Margaret, the resilience of the exile which Elizabeth’s life symbolizes and the profitable cultivation of the Cape Gooseberry in a foreign land, are intended to dramatize the fact that the spirit of freedom cannot be permanently suppressed, even by the most brutal dictatorship. In other words, the oppressor has nothing to gain by his oppression. Bessie Head achieved a high sense of imaginative and intellectual ability in her works. Through her thematic vision, she exposed the psychological violence meted out to the non-white South Africans and its traumatic effect on them. WORKS CITED Abraham, Peter. Tell Freedom. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981. __ Path of Thunder. London: Faber & Faber, 1953. Achebe, Chinua. Morning Yet on Creation Day. London: Heinemann, 1975. __ Arrow of God. London: Heinemann, 1960. Asein, S. O. and Asholu (eds) Modern Essays on African Literature. Ibadan: Ibadan UP. 1986. Ayi Kwei Armah. The Beautyful Ones are not Yet Born. London: Heinemann, 1969. __ Fragments. London: Heinemann, 1995. Cartey, Wilfred. Whispers from a Continent. New York: Vintage Books, 1969. Emenyonu, Ernest (ed.) Literature and Society: Selected Essays on African Literature. Oguta: Zim Pan-African, 1986. __ Critical Theory and African Literature. Ibadan: Heinemann, 1987. __ Black Culture and Black Consciousness in Literature. Ibadan: Heinemann, 1987. Freire, Paulo. The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin, 1972. Head, Bessie. When Rain Clouds Gather. London: Heinemann, 1968 __ Maru. London: Heinemann, 1972. __ The Collector of Treasures. London: Heinemann, 1977. __ A Question of Power. London: Heinemann. 1979. __ Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind. London: Heinemann, 1981. Heywood, Christopher. Perspectives on African Literature. Cape Town: Oxford U.P., 1979. Jones, Norman C. ‘Acculturation and Character Portrayal in South African Novels’, in African Literature Today. No. 13, ed. Jones Eldred. London: Heinemann, 1983. La Guma, Alex. A Walk in the Night. London: Heinemann, 1967. Larson, Charles. ‘The Singular Consciousness’ The Novel in the Third World. Inscape: Washington, 1976. Moore, Gerald. Twelve African Writers. London: Hutchinson, 1980. Mphahlele, Ezekiel. Voices in the Whirlwind. London: Faber & Faber, 1973. Nwagba, F. E. ‘The Exiled Imagination in South Africa’, in International Fiction Review. University of New Brunswick, Vol.3, Fall, 1989.

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Ojo-Ade, Femi, ‘Madness in the African Novel: Awoonor’s This Earth My Brother’ in African Literature Today. No. 10. London: Heinemann, 1982. Paton, Alan. Too Late the Phalarope. New York: Mcmillan, 1985. Peek, Andrew. Interview with Bessie Head, in New Literary Review, No 14, 1985. Ravenscroft, Arthur, ‘The Novels of Bessie Head’, in Aspects of South African Literature ed. Christopher Heywood. London: Heinemann, 1976. Rive, Richard. Quartet. London: Heinemann, 1982. Taiwo, Oladele. Female Novelists of Modern Africa. London: Macmillan, 1984. Vanamali, Rukmini. ‘Bessie Head’s A Question of Power: Mythic Dimension’, in the Literary Criterium, Vol. XXXII, 1988.

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Constructing the Destructive City Representations of Lagos in Cyprian Ekwensi’s People of the City LOUISE UCHUM EGBUNIKE LOUISA UCHUM EGBUNIKE

The late Cyprian Ekwensi is an author whose oeuvre cannot easily be categorised in any single genre. Situating his works in various regions of Nigeria and writing for a readership that transcends age, the most comprehensive way to describe Ekwensi is as a Nigerian author in both his nationality and the scope of his literature. The gamut of his works covers the entire nation, through an assortment of protagonists, settings and cultures. The characters range from Fulani cattlemen to Lagos prostitutes and his literary works traverse the nation, guiding the reader through the vast landscapes of Nigeria. Encountering different cultures, cus­toms and religions, his readers are provided a platform on which to engage in a multiplicity of identities within the nation. Ekwensi’s pan-Nigerian literature reflects his life experience. Born in Minna, Northern Nigeria to Igbo parents (from Eastern Nigeria), he later studied at Ibadan and Lagos in Western Nigeria. As a proud Nigerian, Ekwensi had a good knowledge of the geography of the country. ‘…Every year I go round Nigeria two or three times by car, by road, so I know my country and I love it’ (Duerden and Pieterse 1972, 83). Driving the length and breadth of the nation, Ekwensi invites his readers on a similar journey, using his literature as a vehicle through which to negotiate Nigeria. In this sense, Ekwensi’s canon can be read as a national project as he presents the vastness of Nigeria in a way that no other single author has done. It is from this position of Ekwensi as a ‘national writer’ in his commitment to the nation, that I explore Ekwensi’s concerns and critiques of the then emerging independent Nigerian nation. With reference to Ekwensi’s Lagos novel People of the City (1954) I examine the juxtaposition of the construction of the Nigerian nation set against the destruction of moral codes and practices. 86

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At the time of writing People of the City, Lagos was the economic and administrative capital of Nigeria. As is common with most capital cities, Lagos attracted migrants from all over the nation. As a melting pot of cultures, languages, religions and economic classes, Lagos can be read as a microcosmic version of Nigeria as it is a place where many aspects of the nation converge. Presenting a snapshot of the nation, Lagos is captured as the fast paced epicentre of Nigeria. Every day, we are told, ‘the trains bring more and more people from the provinces’ (85). The city swells to accommodate people who are abandoning the agricultural lives of rural areas in favour of city life and the associated social mobility and wealth. Although the over-populated and chaotic landscape of People of the City is worlds apart from the open plains of Burning Grass, a novel set in pastoral land in Northern Nigeria, or the forests of An African Night’s Entertainment, in Ekwensi’s Lagos novels, we see the overlapping lives of the nation’s peoples and hear some of the many voices of Nigeria. It is not a coincidence that Ekwensi sets many of his novels in Lagos, as Lagos is described as ‘his first and last love’ (Okonkwo 1987, 23). His love for both Nigeria and its capital left Ekwensi in a constant state of dialogue with this city, exploring its character and its changing shape in the pages of his novels. Cyprian Ekwensi has remarked that when writing People of the City, he ‘did not mean it to be ‘a proletarian diatribe against the evils of urban culture.’ I just wrote, as I always do, for my own pleasure and because I enjoy life and feel like expressing it’ (Currey 2008, 44). The motivations behind Ekwensi’s works were ‘getting at the heart of the truth which the man in the street can recognize than just spinning words’ (Duerden and Pieterse 1972, 79). These assertions underline Ekwensi’s fundamental ideological positioning which provided the foundations for his works. It was of primary importance for Ekwensi that he was able to explore the issues of his society through his literature, but also write in a way that would be both of interest and accessible to the Nigerian people. For Ekwensi, this was a requisite quality of the African writer, who was ‘in a position to understand his own people’s aspirations and problems and to put them down the way he understands them. Then his writing becomes really African’ (Lindfors 1974, 34). As Ekwensi did not regard himself as ‘one of those sacred writers, writing for some audience locked up in the higher seats of learning’ (Lindfors 1974, 28), his preoccupation centred not on the reception of works by critics, but the desire to create fiction grounded in real

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experiences. The social relevance of his writing took precedence over everything else and it is his ability to explore society through the experiences of an array of characters that demonstrates how in tune Ekwensi was with the society in which he lived. In spite of numerous critiques of his work as ‘didactic’, ‘episodic’ and ‘polemic’, Ekwensi continued his prolific career as a popular writer, writing less to appease critics and more to titillate and captivate audiences. Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has described growing up reading Ekwensi’s works, particularly favouring the ‘less sedate urban novels’. Encapsulating the polarised reception between the general public in Nigeria and the critics, Adichie comments that We would have been startled to learn that his work was often marred by ‘disconcerting intrusions of bad writing and scenes of sheer silliness’, as John F Povey wrote in a 1965 review. Other critics generally agreed. His characters were flat. He was vulgar. He was too heavy on plot. He was too influenced by American popular crime fiction. The underlying assumption, it seems, was that because he was not sufficiently grave and dull, his claim to “literature” was suspect. (2008)

Other critiques of Ekwensi stemmed from his stark representa­ tions of Nigeria, and in particular Lagos, in which the complaining parties questioned what they felt was an excessive focus on the negative elements of Nigeria, to which Ekwensi responded: we are in an era now when we just want to see only what might be described as the prestige side of our lives but the true artist doesn’t look for the prestige side. He looks for life in its sordidness or life at its most glorious: true life still has its own particular fascination for the writer. (Duerden and Pieterse 1972, 78)

With a clear vision and purpose in his writing, Ekwensi was captured by the Nigerian people and environment which were the basis of his writings, and in turn he captured the Nigerian people with the literature he produced. Exploring the Lagos of the pre-independence era, People of the City presents a city of contradictions. As an overcrowded city with a chronic ‘shortage of space’ (69), Lagos is a city where people are literally living on top of each other, living ‘ten to a room’ (85) in some instances and ‘a hundred or more in this bedless open dormitory’ (73) in others. Despite the cramped conditions, Lagos is framed as a city of isolation, where individualism has overtaken community. The ‘people of the city’ are urban dwellers who do

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whatever is required to survive in the harsh environment of the city. Many of the value systems born out of communal living in rural areas become ‘non-values’ in urban settings. Ekwensi constructs a fairly rigid binary in People of the City in which city dwellers have abandoned their morals in favour of city ways which centre on financial improvement. The dichotomy of the urban and the rural is such; ‘In the village we still stick to the old concepts of respect for the elderly, love for children, morality. But in the city all these can go to hell as far as we have money’ (Ekwensi in Nichols 1981, 43). The ‘modernity’ of the city is reflected in the prioritisation of capital over kinship ties as ‘brotherhood ends where money begins’ (86). Money and material goods become the gods of the city, and the ‘people of the city’ are their worshippers. In foregrounding the chaotic and often tragic side of Lagos, within the course of this short novel, we encounter multiple counts of suicide and murder, as well as exploitation and fraud. Lives are increasingly disposable in a city where mother and child are brutally murdered ‘for a trifling reason’ as she ‘had endeavoured to assert her ownership of the gramophone’ (53). Sango, the protagonist of People of the City, guides the reader through the various scenes of the city. As a crime reporter by day and a band leader by night, Sango has access to various aspects of city life. Offering intermittent critiques, Sango identifies the impact scarcity has on the city and the nation, If everybody had enough food to buy, enough houses to rent, a fair chance into jobs by merit and not ‘recommendations’, then the vampires would pack up. Their merciless extortion would end because no one would need to pay extortion money. (42)

The politics of scarcity has created an environment in which the ‘have nots’ are constantly indebted to the ‘haves’, captured most vividly in the unscrupulous dealings of the character Lajide, one of the notorious landlords of the city. Lajide, the archetypal ‘big man’ figure, increases his tenants’ rent by three hundred per cent, yet still rations their electrical supply. As a figurative rendering of Lagos landlords, who are ‘out to make our lives a misery in this city’ (83) Lajide’s character is representative of a class of people who enrich themselves through exploiting others. An enterprising man, Lajide has numerous sources of income and is ‘hated all over the city for his greed and relentlessness’ (33). His methods of income generation involve fraudulent activities or profiteering.

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Despite this, when ‘he threw an open party such had not before been heard of in the city (...) Free drinks, beautiful women, bright lights, laughter and drinking till the late hours of the morning’ he is described as ‘a nice sort of bloke’ (156). The nature of the relationship between Lajide and the ‘people of the city’ is typical of one of the powerful and the powerless. Locked into a patron–client relationship with Lajide, the people curse the ill he does to them, but when eventually a little of his wealth trickles down to them they show gratitude for the little they have received. Dependent on such relationships, the ‘people of the city’ are locked into such bonds and must reap where they can. Ultimately, Lajide a self made man, also comes to symbolise the realisation of the dreams of those who flock to the ‘city of opportunities’ (11) in search of wealth. He is one of the few who takes on the city and triumphs over it. Lajide, a veteran of the city is described as having lived too long there to care about right or wrong. As a place of blurred boundaries which the characters must negotiate, the binaries of right and wrong or good and evil begin to break down. Lagos is the home of ‘official corruption’, where ‘bribery’, likened to prostitution, is seen as ‘a private thing between giver and taker. Nobody knows about it, nobody can prove it, nobody is hurt’ (40). So long as a veneer, however thin, is held up to mask the goings on it can and does continue. The referencing of bribery and prostitution in the same category is symptomatic of the interwoven forms of immorality that is characteristic of People of the City. In this novel we see the domestication of corruption, ‘We all take bribes. (...) No one can stop it. The very people shouting against it are the worst offenders’ (40). Through the normalisation of bribe taking, an environment is created in which it is not only socially acceptable to take a bribe, it becomes expected. This evolves into a scenario where a person refusing to engage in bribe giving/taking becomes an anomaly, and thus the city undergoes a moral inversion. Yet again we see how society is polarised along lines of wealth as those with money exist above the law whilst the petty criminals are caught and jailed. Sango finds this scenario both confusing and fascinating In the eyes of the city Aina was a thief because she had stolen a piece of cloth and had been caught and jailed. But there were women who got away with greater thefts. She was a slut because the city knew the men she associated with, because she exhibited her emotions without concealment. Yet there were women who had husbands and were the vessels of pleasure for the meanest and filthiest of men. Nobody knew,

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nobody could prove it; and so these men and women came forward to laugh at those who had been seen and caught and exhibited for everyone in the city to see. (60–61)

Despite Sangos’s intermittent critiques of the moral structure of society, his own moral standing in the novel is at best dubious. As a migrant to the city, he embodies the change that the rural migrant undergoes in the city and is presented as a victim of corrupting influences of the city. In the opening of the novel we learn that ‘Sango’s one desire in this city was peace and to forge ahead’ but that ‘no one would believe this, knowing the kind of life he led’ (11). Blinded by the lights of the city, Sango begins to lose focus of his aspirations, sporadically reminded by the cautionary letters his mother sends him from the Eastern Greens. Having access to rural and urban environments and moving between the two, a stark contrast is successfully depicted. Captured vividly in Ekwensi’s representation of urban and rural women, we meet Elina, the young woman Sango is engaged to who is essentially locked up in a convent in the Eastern Greens ; and Aina, a young woman who wants to marry Sango ends up locked up in a jail in Lagos. Sango ultimately rejects both women and marries Beatrice II, a woman of the city who seems to retain qualities associated with the rural. For the rural-urban migrant, the city is a hazardous place that threatens to devour. For the protagonist, Sango in People of the City, the city’s threat comes through its women. Warned numerous times about ‘the city women’ and told ‘They’re no good. They dress fine – you don’t know a thief from an honest one. You just be careful’ (27), Sango nevertheless embarks on frequent casual relationships which divert his time, energies and money from establishing himself. Whilst Sango becomes the prey of ‘city women’ and their ways, he too gains a reputation as a predatory ‘wolf’ as ‘No woman who passes along Molomo Street is safe. Every beautiful woman who comes to Molomo Street enters number twenty [Sango’s residence]’ (26–27). Sango also appears to have become integrated into the city’s corrupting influence. He poses a threat to young women. For Sango, women are disposable and replaceable sexual objects. His commitment lasts as long as the here and now as ‘yesterday was past. You made a promise to a girl yesterday, but that was because you were selfish and a man who wanted her yesterday’ (14). His first prey, Aina had recently come to the city and was attracted by the men, yet very

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suspicious of them. Not even the festive throbbing of the drums could break the restraint which her mother, and the countryside, had instilled in her. But Sango was the city man – fast with women, slick with his fairy tales, dexterous with eyes and fingers. (14-15)

Sango, in other words, has been amalgamated into the construct of the city as devourer. He is one of the ‘city men’ whom women will be warned against. In what seems to be a battle of the sexes, the city is a place where no one is wholly innocent in and no one is entirely safe. In this atmosphere, love is a dangerous emotion. The Romeo and Juliet style romance of Bayo and Zamil ends in the murder of both of them. Aina’s love of Sango is fiercly rejected, and even Lajide suffers at the hands of love as his favourite wife dies before his eyes. Sango, recognising the danger of the city, leaves Lagos for ‘the Gold Coast’ at the end of the novel in search of ‘a new life, a new place of opportunity’ after marrying Beatrice II. This move is temporary as the city and the nation are imbedded into Sango’s psyche. On leaving, Sango declares ‘we have our homeland here and we must come back’ (237), a declaration that is made in light of Nigeria’s forthcoming independence from Britain. They must come back and contribute to an independent Nigeria. Cyprian Ekwensi ‘was writing at a time when nationalist move­ ments and the struggle for independence were gaining ground in Nigeria. Many people had started to anticipate the golden era of freedom and emancipation’ (Emenyonu 1974, 29). The imminent independence of Nigeria provides a backdrop to the novel, as people look forward to the prospect of self governance. Projecting their aspirations onto post-independent society, the expectation of an improved quality of life in the post-independent nation is precariously established. When Sango questions Fento, a court clerk, over his exploitative practices, he retorts ‘How do I pay my rent, anyway? When the British go, that is a different thing. But now, I am hungry, I am a poor man, and I want this woman!’ (41). Fento’s assumed change in his practices in post-independent Nigeria is not interrogated. Fento explains his actions, through the politics of scarcity, as his salary is not enough to sustain him. This however is not his sole incentive. As Fento has decided to sexually exploit women through the limited power he holds, his motivations here are purely selfish. This blend of need and greed leave the city dwellers unable to distinguish clearly between the two and casts a shadow onto the prospects of the independent nation. Fento does

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not consider that his salary may remain the same or may even be depleted in an independent Nigeria. Independence equates in this construct to an improved standard of living and the subsequent improved quality of life. Fento’s contextualisation of corrupt practices within the frame­ work of colonial rule confines them to the pre-independence era. The political leaders are then looked upon in the light of a projected improvement of Nigeria. The assumption then is that on independence and under self governance people’s lives will transform. In this sense, post-independent improvements are expected to manifest from the top and trickle down to the masses. These politics of nationalism permeate the minds of people, and build aspirations for the independent nation. The death of De Periera, ‘the greatest nationalist of all time’ (164) strikes a blow on the city and the nation. Before gaining independence, the ‘inspiration of the Self Government Now Party’ and its ‘spiritual head’ passes away. His death leaves the city in a state of mourning for the loss of a leader, and questioning if his ideals have died with him also. De Periera is credited with having ‘made Africans on the West Coast nationally conscious’ (164), but in so far as the ‘people of the city’ have displayed, the vast majority of national consciousness is rooted in gaining independence, and not in practical efforts to improve the health of the nation. The nationalism visible in the novel is not self-reflective, centring on what the independent nation can do for the individual, and not vice versa. Nevertheless, Sango recognises the impact the death of this great man has had, primarily its ability to inspire a spirit of unity: Sango was seeing a new city: not just a collection of landlords and tenants, but something with spirit and feeling. The madness com­ municated itself to him, and in the heat of the moment he forgot his worldly desires, and threw himself with fervour into the spirit of the moment. (165)

If only temporarily the city undergoes a transformation. The unity we are presented is a physical manifestation of the nationalist rhetoric of De Periera. People unify in a way that causes Sango to re-evaluate his perceptions of the city. At De Periera’s funeral, a true nationalist spirit is invoked as differences are set aside and the ‘people of the city’ unite in their grief. National unity features again in this novel in response to another national tragedy. ‘The coal crisis’ of the Eastern Greens had resulted

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in ‘twenty-one miners (...) shot and killed by armed police in a labour dispute’ (123). In this excessive use of force and disregard for human life, the actions of the colonial government sheds light on the disregard for human life in its administrative centre. The disposability of life for the ‘people of the city’ correlates to the state sponsored violence taking place at the national level. Sango, sent to the Eastern Green to report on the events exclaims Policemen were everywhere. Not the friendly unarmed men he had been used to in the western city, but aggressive boot-stamping men who carried short guns, rifles or teargas equipment. There were African police and white officers and they all had that stern killer-look on their faces. (124)

As a stark reminder of the impact and powers of colonial rule, this episode also highlights the variations in the colonial government’s methods of law enforcement in the different parts of the nation. The police in the Eastern Greens are unrecognisable to Sango, marked by their aggression. Ekwensi’s commentary on these distinctions in colonial governance between Western Nigeria and Eastern Nigeria most likely alludes to ‘the broad anti-Igbo policy and distrust that Britain adopted as it began to construct the Nigerian federation particularly after 1914’ (Ekwe-Ekwe 2001, 126). The Igbo people and Igboland of Eastern Nigeria were regarded as ‘the most troublesome area in all of Nigeria’ (ibid., 96) and subsequently treated as such. Sango narrates that the story of the miners was ‘one of lament. They told how an outstanding allowance, amounting to thousands of pounds, had been denied them. How frequently labour disputes arose, and how the mine boss – an overbearing white man – would not listen’ (124). The regional distinctions enforced by colonial policy has the potential to undermine national unity, but actually has the opposite effect. The whole country, north, east and west of the great river, had united and with one voice had condemned the action of the British Government in being so hasty. Rival political parties had united in the emergency and were acting for the entire nation. It thrilled Sango to note that unity was possible in a country so vast. (125)

The potential for the nation is clear. The country has shown its ability to speak with a unified voice and condemn the actions of the British against their people. Prior to independence the nation has asserted a national consciousness and reprimanded the British

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Government for their actions. This provides an element of hope in the narrative as Nigeria has demonstrated its capability of speaking with one voice and moving as one people. It is questionable whether this ability will translate into a firmly rooted national unity. When the British leave, there will be no formidable figure to unite against, and the ruthlessness of city could extend and displace the unity of the country. The rhetoric of national unity gives birth to ‘The All Language Club’ which in the vision of its proprietor is established as a practical step towards world unity (...) where men and women of all languages and social classes could meet and get to know one another more intimately. It was his earnest desire that the spirit of fellowship created here would take root and expand. (78)

The task ‘The All Language Club’ undertakes is of a grand scale. In step with the nationalist rhetoric of the day, the proprietor wants to make the transition from theory to practice, to construct a place that reflects and encourages the unity that the nationalists advocate. Recognising the limitations of his ambition as ‘you cannot do very much without funds...’ (78), the club is still opened in the spirit of national unity. The rhetoric and ideology of the proprietor are challenged when political affiliations are expressed. When the manager of the club discovers that Sango has been playing music for the Realisation Party, which he does not support, Sango is expelled from the club. Through this incident we see how strong political affiliations are, but also we see how politics has the potential to create an environment of disunity. The concept of unity promoted by ‘The All Language Club’ is one that centres on ‘sameness’ and thus serious limitations are put in place as it negates the individual’s right to their own perspective. It is this problematic unity which relies on a lack of diversity that can prove dangerous. If promoted it would invariably be a source of conflict in a multicultural and multivocal nation. The call for unity is at times heard, but at times the message is confused or lost. In the intimate relations between the ‘people of the city’, minimal regard is held for each other, as individual interactions are not questioned in the context of unity. Postindependence Nigeria is supposed to usher in a golden era in which political emancipation leads to an economic emancipation. With their aspirations placed on the politicians’ shoulders, the ‘people of the city’ do not interrogate their own involvement with the nation’s

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destiny and do not query their involvement in shaping the country. The ever swelling city continues to highlight the changing face of the nation as new modes of living are desired and pursued. There remains a nagging question. At what cost? Ekwensi, as one of the ‘people of the city’ uses his texts to capture a moment in Nigerian history that is marred by institutionalised corruption, yet filled with hope and aspirations. The people, at times the embodiment of contradictions, negotiate their way through the changing land­ scapes of Nigeria in anticipation of an established position in the independent nation. Ekwensi’s People of the City, opened up a new genre as the pioneer novel of the West African city. In confronting the under­ belly of city life, in questioning the at times brutal colonial rule, and in demonstrating the capacity of the Nigerian people to unite, Ekwensi produces an unsentimental picture of Lagos in the 1950s. In its wake, novels such as Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born and Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease have followed, each engaging like Ekwensi with the complex character of the West African city. Ekwensi’s admiration and critique of Lagos con­ tinued throughout his career, suggesting that Lagos was a place he could never tire of writing about, and that it is a place in a con­stant state of transformation, a place full of stories waiting to be told. Recognising the city’s impact on shaping the nation, Ekwensi and all the ‘urban novelists’ who have followed him have written, and continue to write in a way that both celebrates and critiques these cities. African writers have continued to critique the hearts of their nations, critique the state sponsored corruption, and yet marvel at the resilience of the ‘people of the city’. WORKS CITED Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. 2008. ‘The Guardian: Review: Commentary: Sex in the City: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the joy of reading the late Nigerian novelist Cyprian Ekwensi.’ The Guardian, February 2. . Accessed 17 September 2011 Currey, James. 2008. Africa Writes Back: The African Writers Series & the Launch of African Literature. Oxford: James Currey. Duerden, Dennis, and Cosmo Pieterse (eds). 1972. African Writers Talking: A Collection of Interviews. Studies in African Literature. London: Heinemann, 75-83. Ekwe-Ekwe, Herbert. 2001. African Literature in Defence of History: An Essay on Chinua Achebe. Dakar: African Renaissance.

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Ekwensi, C. O. D. 1954. People of the City. London: Andrew Dakers. Emenyonu, E. N. 1974. Cyprian Ekwensi. London: Evans Brothers. Lindfors, Bernth (ed.). 1974. Dem-Say: Interviews with Eight Nigerian Writers: Michael J. C. Echeruo, Obi Egbuna, Cyprian Ekwensi, John Munonye, Gabriel Okara, Kole Omotoso, Ola Rotimi [and] Kalu Uka. Austin, Texas: African and Afro-American Research Institute, University of Texas at Austin, 24-34. Nichols, Lee (ed.). 1981. Conversations with African Writers: Interviews with Twenty-Six African Authors. Washington, D.C: Voice of America, 36-47. Okonkwo, Juliet I. 1987. Cyprian Ekwensi: Nigeria’s Master Popular-Novelist. In The Essential Ekwensi: A Literary Celebration of Cyprian Ekwensi’s Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Ernest N. Emenyonu, Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books (Nigeria), 20-28.

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History, Progress & Prospects in the Development of African Literature A Tribute to Dennis Brutus SOPHIE OGWUDE

It is towards the reunification of Africa tomorrow that Africans must work today if they wish to repair the damage done yesterday. History is a...guide to a better future. (Bernth Lindfors, ‘Armah’s Histories’)

In 1975, the year the African Literature Association (ALA) was founded and held its inaugural conference at the Austin campus of the University of Texas, Dennis Brutus was elected its first chair. That first beginning is of interest to me in the present enterprise for a number of reasons. The theme of that conference was simply contemporary black South African literature. Apparently, this is a far cry from what we had in 2011 when this paper was first conceived, the conference theme was: African literature, visual arts, and film in local and transnational spaces. The broad spectrum of the field now covered is in itself reflective of the growth and progress of the association. At that time also, about two hundred and fifty participants were in attendance but now we have multiples of that initial figure attending. Records show too that even as early as that, major exponents and practitioners in the discipline of African literary studies as well as others who were budding scholars at the time, graced that occasion. This is to say that ALA has grown over the years and is still growing. The point being made is obvious since as we are poised to pay tribute to Dennis Brutus we cannot but recall his pioneering role in the formation of ALA. Significantly, also in 1975, Wole Soyinka and the subject of the present study, Dennis Brutus in their Declaration of African Writers called for ‘the full retrieval of the African past in the quest for a contemporary self-apprehension and design for the future’ (1974, 8). The explicit reference to our history as a necessary tool in the forging of a better future is evident especially in the exploration of 98

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literature as a tool for socio-political activism and social change. Recently, Professor Ernest Emenyonu named a panel he was Chair of: Reflections and Retrospectives – the Legacies of Ezekiel Mphahlele, Dennis Brutus, Cyprian Ekwensi, TM Aluko and Ousmane Sembène. Reflections as well as retrospectives are grounded in history. After an action-packed life spanning eighty-five years, our once darkhaired but later hoary-haired troubadour gracefully took a bow going down in history as one of the very few who consistently lived and remained faithful to their convictions. But perhaps we should begin from the beginning. In 2010, South Africa hosted the world to the first ever world cup to be held on African soil. The significance of this fact can hardly be lost on African literary scholars and other scholars of African literature as well, especially for those conscious of history. Incontrovertibly, amidst the din of the sports fiesta and in the silence of many hearts, Dennis Brutus would have been remembered with thankful joy for his work as one of Africa’s greatest poets, whose love for humanity and justice caused him to bring to public knowledge apartheid’s obnoxious policies in sports. Dennis Brutus has earned his place in the annals of the history of resistance in South Africa from the Sharpeville massacres of 1960 onwards.. This paper is essentially a tribute to a man whose legacies in the fight for a free Africa will forever remain an integral part of our history. Numerous articles have examined history, myth and more recently, new historicism. It is only sensible to expect that for literary scholars especially, history ought to be viewed as Janus faced; which means that both the artist as well as the scholar critic must be adept at learning how to employ the past in the building of a better future as many scholars of African literature have argued and urged. A sense of history sharpens our consciousness and in the demonstration of historical knowledge, every fight for a better future is authentically legitimised. Milan Kundera puts this succinctly in his remarks that ‘the struggle against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting’; arguing further he concludes that ‘the only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past’ (1983, 22). This presentation has a very simple structure and will address only a few issues/questions. Why was Dennis Brutus relevant then? Why is he relevant now? And why will he continue to be relevant even in the future? Hopefully, the answer to the first question may have been hinted at and, we can glean the answers to the remaining

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questions from the content of his work, his style and aspects of the content of his personal life. His first published collection, Sirens Knuckles Boots (1963) was followed five years later by Letters to Martha and he continued to publish poetry steadily after that until 1985 when Salutes and Censures came out. Dennis Brutus was an activist and did much more than write poems. Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison (1968) brings the then brutal and inhumane apartheid South African prison conditions to light. In his words as captured in Postscripts 1, the poet wrote, ‘partly to wrench some ease for my own mind. /And partly that some world sometime may know.’ These were undoubtedly achieved and Nkosi was therefore right to observe that ‘Dennis Brutus was the first South African poet to acquire a reputation abroad both for his writing and for his opposition to South Africa’s race laws...’ (1981,166). The first two poems, ‘After the sentence’ and ‘One learns quite soon’ capture the ambiguous status of the South African willing to stand against the unjust system. The ‘exultation’ and ‘vague heroism’ which come with challenging the system soon translates to ‘apprehension’ at ‘the hints of brutality’ in jail. The brutality was from two different sources: one from prison officials and the other from inmates who were adept at fashioning menacing tools and implements which enforced the vulnerability of ‘naked flesh’ and these combined to register an ‘awareness of the proximity of death’. A warder’s unmotivated/senseless brutality’ ‘instigated’ with ‘shrewdness’, sexual perversion, sexual deprivation, the agony of not knowing, lack of music, fear/treachery, dashed hopes, visions of cruelties to be endured, indignities the sensitive spirit must fight and wounds the mind can be made to inflict on itself were among the daily hazards which must be borne in jail. Sirens Knuckles Boots and Other Poems contains about forty poems in all. ‘Sirens’, ‘Knuckles’ and ‘Boots’ are three powerfully evocative words suggestive of aggression and physical assault. Sirens announce either the presence of an ambulance or of a police patrol vehicle both suggestive of haste and impatience and neither of which has a friendly import in the African terrain. The life threatening menace of sirens is compounded and reinforced by knuckles and boots, making three indispensable weapons of oppression. Once the unfortunate victim(s) has/have been speedily identified and separated, blows and slaps, indicative of knuckles, follow in quick succession. ‘[T]he thunder at the door’ signifies an

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unapologetic violation of privacy and expectedly, in the wake of this movement what remains is: the shriek of nerves in pain Then the keening crescendo of faces split by pain the wordless, endless wail only the unfree know.

Poems such as these put in remembrance would enjoin successive governments in South Africa especially and the entire continent as a whole never to walk such shameful paths again. Therein lies the effect of a song: it does not die but lives on even after the demise of the singer. Another poem titled: ‘Of The Campus: Wits’ is germane to our topic for this was to be the poet’s Declaration of War against segregation in sports. In the first stanza the separation among the students is established in the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘they/their’. ‘Cowered’ and beaten down by the proud ‘raucous shouts’ of the ‘clean-limbed Nordics’ at play, their shouts turn on the adrenaline of ‘wracking tom-tom beat’ which goads the other non-white to retreat like the legendary Robin Hood and with his ‘glinting spear’ or pen, go on to battle this injustice until justice was gained. This poem shows the genesis of what was to become a major objective of the poet, that being to dismantle racism in sports worldwide. On this subject, Dave Zirin in an article entitled: ‘Dennis Brutus Smacks Down Hall of Fame’, divulges what may be termed the icing on the cake for the poet. Zirin intimates us that on 5 December 2007, Dennis Brutus had turned down induction to the South Africa Sports Hall of Fame. This was at the Johannesburg’s Emperor Palace where they had in attendance, one thousand people. Naturally, the poet gave his reasons for this rejection. His thought-provoking speech read thus: Being inducted to a sports hall of fame is an honor under most circumstances. In my case the honor is for helping rid South African sport of racism, making it open to all. So I cannot be party to an event where unapologetic racists are also honored, or to join a hall of fame alongside those who flourished under racist sport. Their inclusion is a deception because of their unfair advantage, as so many talented black athletes were excluded from sport opportunities. Moreover, this hall ignores the fact that some sports persons and administrators defended, supported and legitimized apartheid. There are indeed some famous South Africans who still belong in a sports hall of infamy. They still

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think they are sports heroes, without understanding and making amends for the context in which they became so heroic, namely a crime against humanity. So, case closed. It is incompatible to have those who championed racist sport alongside its genuine victims. It’s time-indeed long past time-for sports truth, apologies and reconciliation. (1976 Summer Olympics, Apartheid, Dave Zirin, Dennis Brutus, SAN-ROC, South Africa Sports Illustrated. Posted 14 January 2008.)

Evidently, the fall of apartheid did not signify the end of the struggle for the poet. And the reason for this is not far to find. Of the forty poems in the collection now under study, well over half this number deal with varied subjects showing that the poet is not a propagandist but just simply a man with his own loves and his own frustrations. Patriotic love for his native land ‘trafficked and raddled...by gross/undiscerning, occupying feet’ is given prominence in his poetry and it will not be wrong to surmise that this love is the motivating impetus fuelling his resistance and commitment towards freeing humanity from the shackles of all oppressive forces, be they internal, regional or international. Even ‘amid my world of knives’, he writes, ‘...my land takes precedence of all my love’. The much critiqued opening poem in the present collection, ‘A troubadour I traverse all my land’ is just one of such poems addressed to South Africa. In another, while yet lamenting the ‘investigating searchlights (which) rake/our naked unprotected contours;.../boots (that) club the peeling door..../severance, depriva­tion, loss/ Patrols.../hissing their menace to our lives,’ he concludes: ‘ Somehow we survive/and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither.../but somehow tenderness survives.’ It is therefore not surprising that Dennis Brutus continues his fight even after the official fall of apartheid, for as long as there were ills to decry or restitution to be sought, as a prisoner of good conscience such as he was, the fight had to continue until his beloved land is rendered not ‘unlovely and unlovable’. As has just been intimated, the fall of the apartheid regime did not mean that the vestiges of apartheid had been consciously repudiated even if segregation had been abrogated from the national records. It is common knowledge that Brutus fought segregation at various points before 1994 – in sports, in education and also in housing. Now after the official dismantling of apartheid, it is not surprising that aspects of that same policy continue especially with housing and water cuts in the largely black communities. A situation that the poet laments, thus ‘Many of the gross inequalities of the

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apartheid system – homelessness, lack of water, inadequate health services, the Bantu educational system, all originally based on racial distinctions – have actually worsened since 1994’ (Sustar and Karim, eds. Poetry and Protest (P&P), 329). And a year later with Ben Cashdan, he states that ‘Protective labour legislation, won during the anti-apartheid struggle, is currently being rolled back in the interest of international competitiveness’ (ibid., 335). Brutus was committed to giving voice to the voiceless oppressed and one might add, to the hapless many under the governance of compromised leaders whose interests prove to be fundamentally different from the aspirations of their subjects. For Dennis Brutus, the fight for justice becomes his apostolate. As he puts it: But the acceptance once made deep down remains. (Letters to Martha,16)

Many intellectuals from the nations of the third world, wary of the conditionality of the IMF and the World Bank, both of which combine for the demonic objective of controlling all the economies of the world, have written severally without much effect to protest the unhelpful intrusion of these bodies and their enforced obnoxious policies on our growing and emerging economies. Unfortunately it had seemed that South Africa was bent on following through like East and West Africa where erstwhile freedom fighters turn instant dictators as soon as the mantle of leadership is passed unto them. To further worsen matters, it would seem that these international bodies were able to win to their side public figures who ought to be resisting them. And so in answer to a question during an interview with Patrick Bond, Brutus had this to say, ‘...it looks like some South African former anti-apartheid leaders are now playing the role of useful idiots for global apartheid’ (ibid., 326). Continuing he asks: Why must we follow World Bank and IMF structural adjustment policies, which mean cutting services, privatizing, and putting up prices for the poor?....I believe this is criminal. As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, we are facing a global economic divide as profound as the racial divide which separated South Africans. This is global apartheid. (ibid., 332) [Emphasis added]

These financial bodies are far too gain-oriented; their policies once adopted affect us all; and what is most frightening about this

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is the fact that any state unwilling to accept their Greek gift often suffers a government change. It therefore needs no urging to agree with the poet’s submission that: It is hardly imaginable that anyone could knowingly devise such a ruthless, heartless system that is entirely devoted to increasing profit and largely indifferent to its human cost. This however is the system that is shaping life in Africa today, and it is the system that we challenge....the struggle for self- determination and human welfare must be a globally coordinated project. (ibid., 318-19)

That Brutus joined the fray to protest a design which makes the richer nations even richer and the poorer even more so is hardly surprising. His tolerance for injustice in every form or guise is zero and his life points the way forward for us all. Excerpts from the collaborative work by Lee Sustar and Aisha Karim entitled Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader, which was released in 2006 have already been used earlier on. The obvious usefulness of the book is that it affords the scholar- critic the opportunity to critique the poet on the basis of his historical and non-fictional works as well. The book comprises the memoirs of the poet and covers vast grounds, bringing together in a single volume, major aspects of the poet’s life and work. It opens up to the reader the life and passion of the poet and is especially interesting for it presents the figure of a man who was doggedly consistent in pursuing his convictions. The reader arrives at this conclusion not as a result of any authorial statements but solely from the biographical details contained therein. It proves outstandingly satisfying for many containing as it does earlier writings by the poet under the pen name, John Booth in Fighting Talk. Also, his major non fictional works as well as an outstanding collection of some of his poems appear in the volume. From his speeches and recorded interviews at various gatherings spanning a good number of years much is learnt of the artist as a social crusader and as an activist. Many critics have discussed the style of the poet and much of the earlier negative criticisms against him such as Bahadur Tejani’s (1973) and J.P Clark’s (1965) are now moribund. Gerald Moore (1969), Daniel Abasiekong (1965), M.J. Salt(1975), R. N. Egudu (1978), Akosu (1986) and Ezenwa-Ohaeto (2000) are on the other side of the divide. Obviously, in addition to his private innovative style of merging both his private and public concerns, referring at once to each and both in the same breathe, the poet can be said

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to be eclectic; he openly acknowledges the influences of Auden, Hopkins and Yeats. It is perhaps reasonable to contend then that if the poet succeeded at all in his stated objectives for writing then we may not be off the mark in concluding that his style may well have served the purpose or purposes to which it was employed. We had earlier on identified the purposes for which he wrote: as ‘partly to wrench some ease for my own mind./And partly that some world sometime may know’. Although we may not be able to assess the first objective on account of its subjectivity, we can evaluate Dennis Brutus on the second objective. Lewis Nkosi is not an East African like Bahadur; he is a black South African and as early as in 1981 he avowed that indeed Brutus had been able to cause the world out there to know. Let the point be made in addition that Brutus did not wait passively to be heard. He made every attempt to be heard and mobilised colleagues and students across America and Britain in his campaign against apartheid in his conviction that, ‘[C]commitment does not exist as an abstraction; it exists in action’ (P&P, 200). His activities with the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee, (SANROC) which he coined and chose to be its secretary rather than its chairman is now evidently too well known, to justify any further elaboration here. Art and commitment in terms of social responsibility and the evaluation of African writers especially, is polemic. Like the salt from two separate salt jars that mixed up in another become inseparable, so too the artistic medium and the purpose for any particular artistic production merge and become one. Art no matter how lofty or plain will in the final analysis be empty and even perverse if it were to exist of itself alone (assuming such was possible) not addressing topical issues whether these be private and existential or public and socio-political. South African writing from the ‘pioneers’ to the ‘moderns’, to use Nkosi’s terms, especially since before 1994, have had to walk the tightrope of having to use art to divulge social issues in such a manner as to demonstrate an understanding of Achebe’s golden statement which is to the effect that: all art is propaganda but all propaganda is not art. On art as propaganda, Brutus in an interview with Bernth Lindfors in 1970 is quoted as saying ‘I think it is immoral for an artist to import propaganda into his work. It shows lack of integrity’ (P&P, 180). Many South African writers who wrote in the period well before 1994 wore well the cap of social crusaders and history validates this summation.

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And now over two decades after the dismantling of the separatist apartheid regime, it is perhaps indeed timely to examine or better still, call to mind the legacies of these heroes of the African continent. At the outset of this presentation, attention was drawn to the formation of ALA. The story of its formation is well documented in section 2 of Poetry & Protest. However, there are two points that are of immediate interest. The first is that we learn that in the con­sti­tution of the Association, the opening clause commits to the liberation of the African people. This point is both interesting as well as insightful and also, this leads to my second point. As an Association, it welcomes as it has always done since its inception, all like minded individuals who are committed to the goals of the Association, irrespective of colour. Dennis Brutus has not fought against apartheid for narrowminded interests: his fundamental thesis is that ‘what the West has to offer is a deformation and a mutilation of humanity’ and that it is for us ‘to assert the singleness of the human race and the primacy of human values’ (P&P 200, 194). Hopefully we have all now come to the inevitable realisation that we must all have the will to live together and be ready to look out for one another. Dennis Brutus has left us legacies which can only duly be acknowledged. How can we forget and not remember? This paper has looked at the life and work of Dennis Brutus and it has argued that his works are not only ideological products but cultural constructs relevant in significant aspects to present day Africa as well. WORKS CITED Akosu, T. ‘Poetry in the Repressive State: The Example of Dennis Brutus’, Review of English and Literary Studies 3.1, June 1986: 37-52 Brutus, D. Sirens Knuckles Boots. Ibadan: Mbari Publishers, 1963 __ Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison. London: Heinemann, 1968 __ A Simple Lust: Collected: Poems of South African Jail and Exile including Letters to Martha. London: Heinemann (1963) rpt 1984 Clark, J P. ‘Themes of African Poetry of English Expression’, Presence Africaine XXVI, 54 1965: 80 Egudu, R. N. Modern African Poetry and the African Predicament. Basingstoke: The Mac­ millan Press Ltd, 1978 Kundera, Milan. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1983 Lindfors, B. ‘Armah’s Histories’ African Literature Today vol. 11 1980: 85-96 Moore, G. The Chosen Tongue: English Writing in the Tropical World. London: Longman, 1969.

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Nkosi, L. Tasks and Masks: Themes and Styles of African Literature. London: Longman, 1981 Ohaeto, E. ‘Shriek of Nerves: The Rational Voice of Dennis Brutus & the Poetry of Exile in Salutes and Censures’. Exile & African Literature vol. 22. 2000: 23-31 Tejani, B. ‘Can the Prisoner make Poet? Dennis Brutus’ African Literature Today vol. 6 1973: 134-5 Sustar, L and Karim, A (eds). Poetry & Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader. Chicago IL.: Haymarket Books, 2006 Soyinka, W and Brutus, D. Issue vol. IV no. 4, 1974: 8 Zirin, D. ‘Dennis Brutus Smacks Down Hall of Fame’ Posted 14 January 2008, p.13.

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Dispelling the Myth of the ‘Silent Woman’ The Nigerian Igbo Woman in Flora Nwapa’s Efuru (1966) SHALINI NADASWARAN

Flora Nwapa’s works mark the genesis of African women’s novels. Her novel Efuru (1966) was foundational in expressing the emerging female voice in African Literature. As such, Nwapa’s pioneering representation of female characters paved the way for reimaging women in industrious, independent and selfdetermined roles, a contrast from former depictions of inferior, subjugated and objectified women in African male writings such as the work of Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi and Elechi Amadi. This paper will analyse the genesis of Nigerian Igbo women’s writings in the works of Flora Nwapa’s Efuru (1966), a foundational novel in the African and Igbo literary tradition as Nwapa was also the first published Igbo female writer. The significance of Nwapa’s place in African women’s writing has not always been recognized. Critics such as Chimalum Nwankwo, Oladele Taiwo, Bernth Lindfors and J.I. Okonkwo criti­cized Nwapa’s works as less mature, focusing frivolously on women’s ‘small talk’. Bernth Lindfors describes Efuru as a novel focusing on an Ibo woman in distress … Nwapa tells this melancholic story in a lifeless monotone that robs it of all life and color … When her characters do act, they say and do things of little importance. Every chapter is littered with trivia, the detritus of an inexperienced novelist. (Lindfors 1967: 30-1)

Chimalum Nwankwo argues that ‘[Nwapa’s] early writings, Efuru and Idu, hold up a certain kind of experience limited by inadequate and thorough reflection’ (Nwankwo 1995: 43). Early critics of Nwapa’s works failed to recognize her intention to express the Nigerian Igbo woman’s struggle. Rather than ‘[opening] texts up to possibilities by addressing the complex issues in them’, these 108

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critics saw them as trivial (Nnaemeka 1994: 98). However, Nigerian women writers are indebted to Nwapa for opening the door to the possibility of women writers publishing their works and telling their stories. It is therefore the aim of this paper to highlight the beginnings of this legacy, which broke the silence of Igbo women. I will examine in Efuru (1966) the development of female Igbo identity as well as the significance of Nwapa’s work in introducing a female presence in the literary tradition. In my treatment of Nwapa’s work, I follow in the footsteps of Obioma Nnaemeka, Marie Umeh, Theodora Akachi Ezeigbo and Susan Andrade who have acknowledged and appreciated Nwapa’s fictional universe in presenting strong, industrious, articulate, self-defining and developing Igbo women. For this analysis we locate our discourse within the framework of womanist theory expounded by Chikewenye Okonjo Ogunyemi and Alice Walker. There are many varying epistemological positions in which Nigerian women’s writings may be visibly situated, an accretion of theories such as African feminism, stiwanism (from STIWA: Social Transformation Including Women in Africa), Africana Womanism and so on which ultimately conglomerate towards expressions of various scholars’ stances. Particularly con­ founding to this discussion is the location of African feminist theory within African women’s writings. Although African feminist theorists like Carol Boyce Davies, and Susan Arndt articulate African feminism as a theory that combines feminist concerns with African concerns, the viability of African feminism is challenged by Africana womanist theorist Clenora Hudson-Weems who articulates the impossibility of amalgamating feminism into African concerns as feminism was ‘conceptualized and adopted by White women, involves an agenda that was designed to meet the needs and demands of that particular group’ (Hudson-Weems 1993: 47). Although debatable, this perspective cannot be overlooked and we find first and second generation African women writers like Flora Nwapa, Ama Ata Aidoo, Buchi Emecheta and Mariama Ba themselves being defensive and indignant whenever they are referred to as feminist. Thus, embedded within the African female struggle for self-articulation, womanhood and empowerment is the greater battle to define evolving ideologies and theories which is hoped to be a process that will be progressively clarified and elucidated. As such, Ogunyemi and Walker’s womanist theory is used to argue that Nwapa’s representation of African women’s

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lives could be said to offer a perspective that laid the ground for what would become African Womanism in the 1980s. Her novels not only presented female characters very differently from the prevailing male stereotypes, but she reflected a sense of community and of the broader context of women’s lives that was to become crucial to womanism. Although Alice Walker’s womanist theory draws on the African-American experience, we find her definition of womanist theory useful in providing a wholesome definition of the female quest for womanhood and empowerment. Moreover, it is relevant to use Walker’s and Ogun­yemi’s discourse of womanist theory concurrently as their definitions overlap, implying a general concern for the develop­ment and self-definition of the Black female subject, in this context the emergence and development of the Igbo female character, epitomizing the womanist process towards selfactualization and agency. The African literary tradition before this had been dominated by male writings which portrayed gender stereotypes, ‘not [presenting] a realistic portfolio of the [African] woman, both in traditional and modern settings in African society’ (Nasser 1980: 28). In fact, Nwapa in an interview with Marie Umeh states that her works try to project the image of women positively. I attempt to correct our menfolks … where they wrote little or less of women, where female characters are prostitutes and ne’er-do-wells. I started writing to tell them that this is not so. When I do write about women in Nigeria, in Africa, I try to paint a positive picture about women because there are many women who are very, very positive in their thinking, who are very, very industrious … the male writers have disappointed us a great deal by not painting the female character as they should paint them … [women] are not only mothers; they are not only palm collectors; they are not only traders; but they are also wealthy people. Women can stand on their own. (Umeh 1995: 27)

It is within this framework that Nwapa’s writing finds its roots. African male literature often presented African women stereo­ typically as wives, mothers or rebellious women and Flora Nwapa wrote to redress these and other negative stereotypes of Nigerian Igbo women, portraying their ability to balance their domestic, social and economic roles, thus reversing and breaking ‘suffocating male constructed myths’ of Igbo women (Okereke 1997: 29). Nwapa’s female characters function as agents of change, forcing society to acknowledge and accept their strength, debunking claims of silence and invisibility.

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Nwapa’s Efuru (1966) reflects the many facets of Igbo traditional society in the early twentieth century and portrays Igbo women with positions and rights which show them to be both independent and industrious. Efuru (1966) focuses on women, family and community life. It is in this setting that Nwapa shows the industriousness and independence of Igbo women. My analysis of Efuru (1966) will focus on the three ways in which Nwapa dispels common stereotypical myths of women in silent, immobile and subservient positions. It will also reflect the libratory, self-empowered positions Igbo female characters occupy – a representation that can be regarded as the emerging seeds of womanism. The first way in which Nwapa dispels the myth of the ‘silent’ woman in these texts is through her female characterization. First, female characters are presented as strong, industrious and willful, actively seeking agency for themselves. Second, by imaging her female characters in this way, Nwapa breaks previous stereotypical representations of female characters like Jagua Nana, and Iluhoma found in Igbo male writings. Traditional Igbo women did not hear about womanism as defined and theorized in today’s understanding. However, they have always defended their rights and Nwapa chooses to highlight this inner strength and resilience in her representation of female characters. Theodora Akachi Ezeigbo’s ‘Traditional Women’s Institution in Igbo Society: Implications for the Igbo Female Writer’ (1990) states that ‘Igbo women right from the pre-colonial days had always risen and fought to defend their rights or enforce decisions … in the history of Nigeria, there is no other ethnic group where women wielded such collective power’ (Ezeigbo: 150). This is reiterated by Nwapa herself in her interview with Marie Umeh when she says that in Ugwuta, women have certain rights that women elsewhere, in other parts of the country, do not have. For instance, in Ugwuta, a woman can break the kola nut where men are. If she is old, or if she has achieved much or if she has paid the bride price for a male relation and that member of the family is there, she can break the kola nut. And everybody would eat the kola nut. (Umeh 1995: 26)

Similarly, Gloria Chuku states that ‘evidence suggests that women, in the past and present, have played a more important role in the economy of Igboland … they have also been responsive and receptive to a high degree of economic opportunities and innovations’ (Chuku 1995: 37). Dynamic Igbo women like Lady Mary Nzirimo, Lady

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Martha Onyenma Nwapa and Mrs Rosemary Inyama are examples of women throughout history who have distinguished themselves in fields of trade and commerce. It is significant here to mention that Flora Nwapa’s mother, Lady Onyenma Nwapa was a successful business woman herself, perhaps a compelling example of the female characters Nwapa portrays in her works: strong, intelligent and resilient. In understanding the historical context of Igbo women, it is understandable that Efuru (1966) sets out to redress stereotypical myths against Igbo women, instead portraying them as strong and industrious. In Efuru (1966) Nwapa describes Efuru as an independent woman who has chosen her own spouse and raises the money for her bride price with her husband Adizua through trading, reflecting her independent nature. Refusing to go to the farm with her husband, she chooses trading instead because ‘[She] [was] not cut out for farm work’, clearly showing her autonomous decision-making (Nwapa 1966: 10). Efuru decides and has a say in what she chooses to do, her choice of husband as well as livelihood, creating a foundation for Igbo female characters exhibiting womanist characteristics. This depiction of Efuru is contrary to Igbo women pictured in early published male works. In his critique of Nwapa’s work, Oladele Taiwo states that ‘Efuru is perhaps too good to be a convincing character’ (Taiwo 1984: 55). This response to Nwapa’s work is an ironic overstatement. Efuru’s strong and willful character is also seen in her relationship with the male characters in her life, Adizua and Eneberi. In her marriage to Adizua, Efuru is seen as the model of a traditional Igbo wife. She is hardworking, able to make profit from her trade and though with a bit of difficulty, bears Adizua a daughter, Ogonim. However, her discovery of Adizua’s infidelity makes her want to leave him because she feels that she should not ‘wait for a man to drive [her] out of his house. This is done to women who cannot stand by themselves, women who have no good homes, and not [her] the daughter of Nwashike Ogene’ (Nwapa: 63-4). Efuru’s characteristics reflect a woman who is able to stand on her own and refuses to take in infidelity as a self-imposed suffering, an early indication of the freedom of spirit Igbo women possessed within pre-colonial Igbo society. Although she chooses to temporarily remain in her marriage, Adizua’s disappearance during Ogonim’s funeral makes Efuru decide ‘I cannot wait indefinitely for Adizua, you can bear witness I have tried my best. I am still young and

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would wish to marry again’ (Nwapa 1966: 88). Efuru does not give up on her husband immediately but only when the situation becomes impossible. Efuru’s endurance is seen in this situation of waiting and searching patiently for her wayward husband. Yet, she is also self-willed, wanting to continue life with another person despite her disappointment with Adizua, Efuru did not want ‘merely to exist. She wanted to live and use the world for her advantage’ (Nwapa 1966: 78). Thus, Efuru’s resilient characteristics challenge previous representations of female characters in her ability to see beyond her plight and refuse to accept such circumstance as her lot in life, revealing this Igbo female character displaying qualities potentially identical to 1980s womanism. Efuru’s second marriage to Eneberi begins happily. Her motherin-law and husband are pleased with her since ‘any trade she put her hand to was profitable’ (Nwapa 1966: 136). However Efuru’s barrenness makes her the talk of the village women as she did ‘not fulfill the important function she [was] made to fulfill’ (Nwapa 1966: 138). It is apparent here that traditional Igbo society placed great importance in a woman’s biological function in having children. Socialized in this manner, Efuru feels pressured and asks Eneberi to take a second wife to bear him a child. Efuru’s action of conceding to polygamy here seems questionable when she herself left her marriage with Adizua for the same reasons. However, in Efuru’s rationale, she was not able to give Eneberi children whereas she had borne Ogonim with Adizua, so this decision ensured that Eneberi would have children. It is also about the time that Efuru discovers Eneberi has had a son with another woman and has kept this secret from her. Despite being angry with him, Efuru forgives him. Her patient and forgiving nature continues to be seen even when Eneberi disappears for months and does not attend her father’s funeral, only to find that he had been arrested and jailed for stealing. When Efuru is confronted with this, she is angry with Eneberi’s lies and his betrayal of her trust. She was ‘angry with her husband, with whom she lived for nearly six years, could, at that stage of their married life, hide something from her. Angry because she had again loved in vain. She had deceived herself when she was Adizua’s wife’ (Nwapa 1966: 209). Yet again, Efuru chooses to forgive Eneberi. However, at the end of the novel, the dibia interprets Efuru’s illness as a punishment for infidelity, and when Eneberi accuses Efuru of being ‘guilty of [this] adultery’, she finally leaves him (Nwapa 1966: 216).

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Critics have interpreted Efuru’s inability to leave her husband when she discovers his vices as a form of weakness, reflecting an archetypal Igbo woman who foolishly allows herself to be mistreated and taken for granted. But Efuru is not forced into independence because of her circumstances, rather she chooses independence, portraying a character to be emulated. Efuru’s only ‘tragedy is that she gave her love to a worthless man’ (Ezeigbo 1997: 65). The ambivalence in Efuru’s character is indicative of a traditional Igbo woman steeped in patriarchal tradition having to make a difficult decision to leave her husband. She does not leave her husband at the first signs of problems in her marriage. Yet neither does she accept accusations of infidelity. Efuru leaves Eneberi because he chooses to trust the dibia and accuse her on baseless grounds rather than stand by her, as she had done for him in the past. Efuru’s conflicting emotions in her marriage reflects the duality, humanity and complexity of her character, the capacity to forgive and the wisdom to come to a realization to leave her marriage when it has come to a dead end. Nwapa portrays in Efuru (1966) a complex female character who challenges stereotypical myths of subservience and docility. However, Nwapa describes Efuru as a radical woman but in a way that is reflective of a womanist. Efuru is not selfconsumed with her needs but in both her marriages considers the needs of her husband first. Efuru’s maturity reflects a woman with her own mind. Efuru’s growth from her early acceptance of societal definitions of female roles to a realization, questioning, choosing and a redefinition of her role as a woman indicates something of the womanist process. Efuru’s moral fortitude, emotional strength and independence free her from gender oppression, marginalization and exploitation in her marriage. Susan Andrade in ‘Rewriting History, Motherhood, and Rebellion: Naming an African Women’s Literary Tradition’ (1990) analyses ‘Nwapa’s creation of a feminist protagonist is an act of rebellion against an Igbo literary tradition dominated by male writers and by the figure of Jagua Nana’ (Andrade: 105). Nwapa’s placement of Efuru as a female protagonist challenges literary trends of male writers. Her portrayal of Efuru breaks the stereotype of ‘Jagua Nana’, in which strong independent women were seen as rebellious and loose. Nwapa describes Efuru as self-willed, industrious and independent. In Jagua Nana (1961), Ekwensi forces his heroine at the end of the novel to submit to motherhood, repenting from her wayward ways as a prostitute and living a life in the village

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as ‘housekeeper to the family’ (Ekwensi 1961: 180). However Efuru, at the end of the novel, happily lives a life independent of her husband, refusing to be defined only by her role as a wife and redefining her role as a woman, creating agency for herself in living an independent life. Unlike Jagua Nana who moves from a free life to that confined by the strictures of society, Efuru’s growth is outwards, resembling womanist tradition, defining and finding a place for herself beyond expected norms. The novel closes with Efuru as a worshipper of the lake goddess Uhamiri: In the end, Efuru slept soundly that night. She dreamt of the woman of the lake, her beauty, her long hair and her riches. She had lived for ages at the bottom of the lake. She was old as the lake itself. She was happy, she was wealthy. She was beautiful. She gave women beauty and wealth but she had no child. She had never experienced the joy of motherhood. Why then did the women worship her? (Nwapa 1966: 221)

Nwapa uses the myth of Uhamiri, the lake goddess worshiped by the Igbo people of Ugwuta to symbolize the importance of a female presence and independence within the Igbo community. The goddess Uhamiri is said to bestow wealth on women but does not bless them with children. Still the goddess of the lake is happy though not having the joyful experience of being a mother. Despite this, Ugwuta women worshipped her. Nwapa here indicates through Efuru’s worship of Uhamiri that there are possibilities for different types of joys in women’s life. An Igbo woman can be happy in the wealth brought by her industry. She does not need to feel less significant or meaningless if she does not have children as perpetuated by patriarchal doctrine. Nwapa in her interview with Adeola James states that ‘whatever happens in a woman’s life … marriage is not the end of this world; childlessness is not the end of everything. You must survive one way or the other, and there are a hundred and one other things to make you happy apart from marriage and children’ (James 1990: 114-15). Nwapa’s opinion in this matter is clearly reflected in Efuru. Efuru having tried her best to fulfill her role as an Igbo woman and wife chooses to look towards a different type of happiness offered in the symbolic presence of the Lake Goddess Uhamiri. Thus, the context within which Uhamiri is used in Efuru (1966) again emphasizes the significance of Igbo female principle and presence, their ability

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to live an independent life rather than be mere appendages to men, in silent, subjugated positions. Unlike Ekwensi’s Ihuoma, trapped as wife to the sea god to live a miserable life, Efuru in worshiping the Lake Goddess Uhamiri, is bestowed freedom and happiness. Nwapa uses Uhamiri’s benevolent female presence to counter stereotypes of male dominance of female characters. The feminine principle in womanism is again reflected in Uhamiri, a female goddess who bestows on Efuru wealth, freedom, happiness and peace. By representing Efuru as a strong, industrious, selfwilled character in her relationships with the men in her life and in her decision making, Nwapa begins to dispel the myth of the ‘silent’ woman, challenging previous stereotypical images, creating a foundation for the seeds of womanism. The second way Nwapa breaks the myth of the ‘silent’ woman is in her representation of male characters. She shatters common archetypal constructions of Igbo male characters as strong male protectors by giving a realistic portrayal of their limitations. Male characters like Adizua and Eneberi in Efuru (1966) are presented as flawed characters, men consumed with their own needs rather than being protectors of the Igbo women in their lives. Their inabilities and actions leave Igbo female characters to fend for themselves- breaking the myth that Igbo women are helpless and ‘silent’, rendering them ‘feminized men’ (Ogunyemi 1996: 148). Efuru (1966) is set in pre-colonial Nigeria, but the presence of impending colonial rule is present in the novel. Male characters in Efuru (1966) begin to show signs of the corruption of the Nigerian male through the effects of colonialism, reflected in Adizua’s irresponsibility and Eneberi’s imprisonment because of alleged theft. Nwapa presents them as limited characters. Adizua is exactly like his father, an irresponsible man who left his mother for another woman. This ‘waywardness … in his blood’ is indicative of the existence of irresponsible Igbo men in society, contrary to prevalent depictions of Igbo male perfection, superiority and supremacy (Nwapa 1966: 61). Adizua leaves Efuru to care for herself and Ogonim. He ‘did not return’ for Ogonim’s funeral, leaving Efuru to ‘[wash] Ogonim’s corpse and… [handle] the burial’ herself (Nwapa 1966: 77). In Eneberi, Nwapa depicts Igbo male weakness and fear. Eneberi ‘[doesn’t] have the courage’ to tell Efuru that he has a son born from an affair with another woman (Nwapa 1966: 190). He also avoids explaining his jail sentencing to Efuru because of fear, ‘fear that [she] would

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desert [him]’ (Nwapa 1966: 210). It is because of his weakness and fears that Efuru had to deal with the truth of his son and the death of her father on her own. Nwapa shows that, while outward representations of Igbo male characters in male writings depict strength and courage, Igbo male characters do possess limitations. This is highlighted to give a sense of the reality female characters experience with the male figures in their lives, to counter dispose ‘silence’ in them. Yet, Nwapa does not analyse her male characters in a disparaging manner, rather she tries to reflect a deeper reason in their behavior, beyond mere callousness on the part of male characters shedding their duty. This is in keeping with womanist characteristics, where Nwapa reflects a womanist understanding of reading Igbo society collectively. While she represents the limitations of her male characters to show the weight her female characters have to bear in their previously perceived ‘silent’ state, Nwapa also depicts the larger context from within which these male characters operate. The third way Nwapa breaks the myth of ‘silence’ in Igbo female characters is by showing the changing gender relations in Igbo society. Nwapa shows that women are no longer silent in the face of male subjugation and struggle against these assertions of domination. They challenge gender relations, redefining their rights and identities as Igbo women in relation to their men. An example of this can be seen in Ajanupu’s physical and verbal retaliation to Eneberi’s. When Efuru is accused of infidelity, she calls on Ajanupu for help. Nwapa’s treatment of Ajanupu not only reveals the strength and female solidarity among Igbo women, but it also shows Igbo women beyond passive roles, standing up against Igbo men to defend themselves. When Eneberi tells Ajanupu his accusations of Efuru’s infidelity, Ajanupu in her anger upbraids him: Eneberi, nothing will be good for you henceforth … Our ancestors will punish you. Our Uhamiri will drown you in the lake. Our Okia will drown you in the Great River … That Efuru, the daughter of Nwashike Ogene, the good, is an adulterous woman…who are you? Who is your father, who is mother? What have you got to be proud of?...Eneberi what happened at Onicha? Tell me what happened at Onicha? You don’t know that we know that you were jailed. And here you are accusing Efuru, the daughter of Nwashike Ogene of adultery. (Nwapa 1966: 217)

Nwapa through Ajanupu’s long speech carves a new image of the Igbo woman and gender relations in Igbo society. Ajanupu stands

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up for Efuru and rebukes Eneberi for accusing Efuru. Instead, she reminds him of his own misdeeds. When Eneberi slaps Ajanupu for this, she takes the ‘mortar pestle and [breaks] it on [his] head. Blood filled [his] eyes’ (Nwapa: 217). Unlike Okonkwo’s docile wives in Things Fall Apart (1958), Ajanupu’s character reflects an Igbo woman who will not keep silent in the face of oppression. She not only dares to interfere when Eneberi mistreats Efuru, but when he asserts his male authority by hitting her, she retaliates with a mortar pestle. The use of this domestic tool is significant. Susan Andrade observes that ‘the pestle is not only an important domestic tool, but the same instrument brandished by angry Igbo women during ‘sitting on’ a man, used as a weapon for women to defend themselves’ (Andrade 1990: 100). Ajanupu’s refusal to remain silent and defend herself against Eneberi’s violence echoes the Women’s War, the Aba Riots in 1929, when Igbo women rose to their defense to protect themselves. This demonstrates that gender relations in Igbo society have not always been one sided as portrayed in male writings, rather there exist ‘flexible relationships between men and women’, where Igbo women express their dissatisfaction physically and verbally (Nwankwo 1995: 46). Obioma Nnaemeka states that Ajanupu’s ‘greatest strength is … her tongue, her power of speech’ (1994: 145). Ajanupu speaks in defense of Efuru and dispels the silence on Efuru’s part. She reflects the power within Igbo women to stand up for their rights in the face of oppression and subjugation. Nwapa’s central placement of female characters like Ajanupu in her text, demonstrates stylistically her intention of allowing women to express their experiences. Her placement of ‘women’s verbal presence within the text’ denotes the existence of Igbo women’s everyday life as an important aspect to be understood and accepted within African and Nigerian Igbo literature (Boehmer 2005: 96). She highlights that Igbo women are not merely conditioned by their traditional roles in society but also strive to define their rights and identities as women in relation to their men. Ajanupu and Efuru’s relationship reflects the significance of female solidarity. Nigerian Igbo society places emphases on coidentification and Igbo women have always drawn help as well as strength from each other. Their collective strength has always voiced the needs of the women in their society like Ajanupu who aids her female counterpart Efuru. This idea is in keeping with the womanist idea of female kinship, women who have a healthy love for their sisters within their community (Walker). Nwapa’s works reflects this,

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the early seeds of womanist characteristics, its roots embedded in Igbo society. Ajanupu’s protective instinct for Efuru is characteristic of the womanist idea of female solidarity. Through­out the text, Ajanupu is Efuru’s confidante through her pregnancy, her help in Ogonim’s sickness and death, her informant of Adizua’s infidelity, as well as her comforter in her barrenness and grief over her father’s death. Their friendship clearly reflects solidarity found within traditional Igbo women’s community, placing Ajanupu as representative of female wisdom within the Igbo community which Efuru draws support. Nwapa’s emphasis on female solidarity between Ajanupu and Efuru fills in the gaps in Nigerian Igbo literary tradition, communicating the collective importance of keeping the female communal voice present in Igbo society. Flora Nwapa’s writings paved the way to redress the silencing of Igbo women. Nwapa’s writing inscribes ‘independent, strong, and admirable [women] … whose presence gave dignity and mean­­ ing to precolonial and colonial African society … whose exis­tence and relevance are such an important part of African reality today’ (Nnaemeka 1994: 141). Nwapa saw the importance of highlighting the Igbo woman’s position, opening the way for other African women writers to express the importance of women in their communities. Efuru (1966) began to voice the presence of Igbo women amidst their absence in the early African male literary tradition, reflecting Nwapa’s need to paint a positive image of Igbo women because these women existed. Her characters rise above their challenges and reconstruct myths of Igbo women’s silence. The beginnings of womanist characteristics frame the depiction of female characters in Nwapa’s works. These Igbo female charac­ ters differ from previous images of women in Achebe, Amadi and Ekwensi’s novels. Nwapa’s characters break stereotypical images of women as ‘the good wife’, ‘the silenced woman’, ‘the stigmatized barren woman’ and ‘the loose woman’. They challenge male stereotypes, to gain agency and self definition for themselves in the same manner of womanist characteristics of independence, courage and strength. Nwapa’s female characters are revolutionary in redressing gendered stereotypes created in the African male literary tradition. Their actions reflect qualities of womanists, challenging conventional images of womanhood and supporting and comforting their female compatriots.

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WORKS CITED Allan, Tuzyline Jita. ‘We Will Be Heard.’ Black Issues Book Review 3.2 (2001): 53-5. Andrade, Susan Z. ‘Rewriting History, Motherhood, and Rebellion: Naming an African Women’s Literary Tradition.’ Research in African Literatures 21.1 (1990): 91-110. Apena, Adeline. ‘Bearing the Burden of Change: Colonial and Post-Colonial Experiences in Flora Nwapa’s Women are Different’. ed. Marie Umeh. Emerging Perspectives on Flora Nwapa: Crtical and Theoretical Essays. Africa World Press: Trenton, 1998. Azodo, Ada Uzoamaka. ‘Efuru and Idu: Rejecting Women’s Subjugation’. ed. Marie Umeh. Emerging Perspectives on Flora Nwapa: Crtical and Theoretical Essays. Africa World Press: Trenton, 1998. Berrian, Brenda F. ‘Postcolonial, Emergent, and Indigenous Feminisms,’ Signs 20.4 (1995): 996-9. Boehmer, Elleke. ‘Stories of Women and Mother: Gender and Nationalism in the Early Fiction of Flora Nwapa’. Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial Nation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005. Chuku, Gloria. ‘Women in the Economy of Igboland, 1900 to 1970: A Survey.’ African Economic History 23 (1995): 37-50. __ ‘From Petty Traders to International Merchants: Historical Account of Three IGBO Women of Nigeria in Trade and Commerce, 1886 to 1970.’ African Economic History 27 (1999): 1-22. Eko, Ebele. ‘Changes in the Image of the African Woman: A Celebration.’ Phylon 47.3 (1986): 210-18. Ekwensi, Cyprian. Jagua Nana. London: Heinemann, 1961. Etim, James. ‘Themes in Female-Authored YA Novels by Nigerian Secondary School Students.’ Journal of Reading 36.4 (1992): 270-75. Ezeigbo, Theodora Akachi. ‘Gender Conflict in Flora Nwapa’s Novels.’ Writing African Women: Gender, Popular Culture and Literature in West Africa. London: Zed Books, 1997. __ ‘Traditional Women’s Institution in Igbo Society: Implications for the Igbo Female Writer.’ African Languages and Cultures 3.2 (1990): 149-65. __ ‘A Chat with Flora Nwapa.’ ed. Marie Umeh. Emerging Perspectives on Flora Nwapa: Crtical and Theoretical Essays. Africa World Press: Trenton, 1998. Gardner, Susan. ‘The World of Flora Nwapa.’ The Women’s Review of Books 11.6 (1994): 9-10. Griffiths, Garreth. ‘Women’s Voices: Gendered Pasts, Liberated Futures.’ African Literature in English: East and West. Harlow: Longman, 2000. Griswold, Wendy. Bearing Witness: Readers, Writers, and the Novel in Nigeria. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Hudson-Weems, Clenora. Africana Womanism (1993). Ed. Philips, Layli.The Womanist Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006. James, Adeola. ‘Flora Nwapa.’ In Their Own Voices: African Women Writers Talk. London: James Currey, 1990. Kolawole, Mary E. Womanism and African Consciousness. Trenton: Africa World Press, 1997. Lindfors, Bernth. ‘Nigerian Novels of 1966.’ Africa Today 14.5 (1967): 27-31. Nasser, Merun. ‘Achebe and His Women: A Social Science Perspective.’ Africa Today 27.3 (1980): 21-8. Nikiforova, Irina D. ‘The Development and Distinctive Features of Forms of the Novel in

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African Literatures.’ Research in African Literatures 18.4 (1987): 422-33. Nnaemeka, Obioma. ‘From Orality to Writing: African Women Writers and the (Re) Inscriptions of Womanhood.’ Research in African Literatures 25.4 (1994): 137-57. __ ‘Gender Relations and Critical Mediation: From Things Fall Apart to Anthills of the Savannah’. eds, Podis, Leonard A. and Saaka, Yakubu. Challenging Hierarchies: Issues and Themes in Colonial and Postcolonial African Literature. Peter Lang: New York, 1998. Nwankwo, Chimalum. ‘The Igbo Word in Flora Nwapa’s Craft.’ Research in African Literatures 26.2 (1995): 42-52. Nwapa, Flora. Efuru. London: Heinemann, 1966. Nwapa, Flora. Women are Different. London: Heinemann, 1986. Ogunyemi, Chikwenye Okonjo. ‘Womanism: The Dynamics of the Contemporary Black Novel in English.’ Signs 3 (1985): 63-80. __ ‘Flora Nwapa: Genesis and Matrix’. Africa Wo/Man Palava: The Nigerian Novel By Women. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996. __ ‘Introduction: The Invalid, Dea(r)th, and the Author: The Case of Flora Nwapa, aka Professor (Mrs) Flora Nwanzuruahu Nwakuche.’ Research in African Literatures 26.2 (1995): 1-16. Okereke, Grace E. ‘Raising Women’s Consciousness Towards Transformation in Nigeria: The Role in Literature.’ Journal of Opinion 25.2 (1997): 28-30. Okonkwo, J.I. ‘Nuruddin Farah and the Changing Roles of Women.’ World Literature Today 58.2 (1984): 215-21. Onwueme, Osonye Tess. ‘Shifting Paradigms of Profit and Loss: Men in Flora Nwapa’s Fiction’. Ed. Marie Umeh. Emerging Perspectives on Flora Nwapa: Crtical and Theoretical Essays. Africa World Press: Trenton, 1998. Opara, Chioma. ‘From Stereotype to Individuality: Womanhood in Chinua Achebe’s Novels’. Ed. Podis, Leonard A. and Saaka, Yakubu. Challenging Hierarchies: Issues and Themes in Colonial and Postcolonial African Literature. Peter Lang: New York, 1998. Stratton, Florence. Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender. London: Routledge, 1994. Taiwo, Oladele.. ‘Flora Nwapa’. Female Novelist of Modern Africa. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1984. Umeh, Marie. ‘Finale: Signifyin(g) the Griottes: Flora Nwapa’s Legacy of (Re)Vision and Voice.’ Research in African Literatures 26.2 (1995): 114-23. __ ‘The Poetics of Economic Independence for Female Empowerment: An Interview with Flora Nwapa.’ Research in African Literatures 26.2 (1995): 22-9. __ ed. Emerging Perspectives on Flora Nwapa: Crtical and Theoretical Essays. Africa World Press: Trenton, 1998. Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983. Walters, Wendy W. ‘“More Than ‘Girl Talk”: Language as Marker in Two Novels by Women of African Descent.’ Pacific Coast Philology 27.1 (1992): 159-65.

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Interrogating Dichotomies, Reconstructing Emancipation Bessie Head’s Vision on Gender Issues HELLEN ROSELYNE SHIGALI

While I stand committed to pro-women politics, I resist the label feminism… The definitions, the terminology, the assumptions even the issues, the forms of struggle and institutions are exported from West to East, and often we are expected to be the echo of what are assumed to be more advanced women’s movements in the West. (Madhu Kishwar ‘A Horror of Isms’ 1970) African literary texts are complex; it is our selective and one-dimen­ sional readings that are superficial. Instead of taking into account the complex, and sometimes conflictive, issues that are apparent in the texts, some feminist critics choose to engage in questionable selectivity. (Obioma Nnaemeka ‘Insider/Outsider: Decoding Context, Encoding Knowledge’ 1995) All this does not mean that I do not have ideology. I do, although it does not have a name – I would like to see a world in which the means for a dignified life are available to all human beings equally. (Madhu Kishwar, ibid.)

The compilers of Bessie Head: A Bibliography note that literary critics have summed up Head’s authorial vision as ‘concern for women’ and ‘an inspiration to women writers of Africa’ (Mackenzie and Woeber 1992: 1). This summary presents Head as the voice of women. Several scholars have interpreted her works from a feminist perspective (Flewellen 1985, Barzin 1989, Stratton 1994). But Head disclaims feminism. In a posthumous publication, A Woman Alone: Autobiographical Writings, she argues that; ‘My femaleness was never a problem to me, not now, not in our age – I do not have to be a feminist. The world of intellect is impersonal, sexless’ (Mackenzie 1992: 95). This disclaimer disrupts the presumed equation between femaleness and feminism. It implies that concern 122

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for women is not axiomatically a feminist stance even though it is a critique of patriarchy. This in turn questions the definition of ‘feminism’. The term has been universalised and yet it is not homogeneous because the very patriarchal culture it targets exists in many variations all over the world. Consequently, there are various emancipatory options advanced by women’s movements globally. The options translate into feminist schools of thought rather than a single ideological strand. Non-western emancipatory ideologies such as Womanism, Motherism, Stiwanism and Nego-feminism are virtually invisible in global feminist discourse. Scrutiny of emancipatory strategies advanced by the universalised ‘feminism’ reveals that it is basically a sectarian Euro-American radical school of feminist thought. Critics from this school would view Head’s ‘concern for women’ from a woman-centred viewpoint which is explicitly pro-female community and anti-male oppression. Head’s disclaimer calls for re-examination of this either/or vision imposed on the so-defined feminist writer, with the aim of discovering the alternative perspective she demonstrates. She suggests that she is not constricted to depicting dichotomies that originate in the female­ness versus maleness binary opposition. For her, biological identities are not problematic. On the contrary it is the socially constructed masculinity and femininity identities that engender discriminatory dichotomous gender roles. Incidentally, feminists focus mainly on dichotomies in conjugal relations to the exclusion of other gender relations in which all people are involved as parents, siblings and so on. Recent studies by African critics contesting monolithic Euro­cen­ tric criticism of African literature (D’Almeida 1994, Nnaemeka, 1995, Zongo, 1996, Shigali 2010) justify critical analysis of female writers’ disclaimers. As Shigali 2010 argues, there is urgency because answers to the questions above constitute African female writers’ crucial contribution to contemporary emancipatory dis­course. In this paper I examine Head’s interrogation of dichotomies in conjugal relations because it is in this space that the distinction between African gender perspective and Western feminism is most pronounced. Definition of feminism remains controversial, but currently there is consensual recognition of variants of the concept whose basic aim is to resist variants of patriarchy worldwide and achieve social transformation. Despite this acknowledgement, the perception of the term by the general public remains a universalised term that is often applied to any woman who voices opposition against patriarchy irrespective of the

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specific context and the particular emancipatory option she advocates. At its vulgar end, the universalized term is associated with anti-men, anti-establishment rebellious traits. During much of Head’s writing career, feminism was constricted to this simplistic and essentially Euro-American definition which tends to conflate all human conflicts into gender oppression. This view obfuscates other human conflicts including racial, class, ethnicity which are equally discriminatory and definitely central to emancipatory struggles in southern regions of the world. The latter are major themes in African literature. This explains why Head would question a purely woman-centered approach to literary art despite her demonstrated critique of African variant of patriarchy. Considering the lopsided definition, it is understandable that many of Head’s compatriots also distanced themselves from an emancipatory ideology that did not reflect African reality where both men and women experience multiple forms of oppression (Emecheta 1986, Ncgobo 1986, Nwapa 1992).

African female writers generally espouse a holistic view of oppression and emancipation. In this sense, the African female writer’s vision is multidimensional. This complex intellectual loca­ tion of the literary artist was aptly described by Per Wastberg at the Second Stockholm Conference for African Writers 1986: ‘The writer is a connoisseur of power. In his very profession lies the power to influence… He knows the attraction of power but also knows life in the shadow of big power. On his insight in these matters depends the weight of his words.’ (Petersen 1988: 19-20). This does not require a writer to be non-committal but it obliges him to examine the inter-connectedness of the various spheres of the world he fictionalises. In the case of the African female writer, this means that the intellectual in her stands above both genders and therefore interrogates patriarchy from a ‘sexless’ pedestal. This is what distinguishes a genuinely gender perspective from a purely woman-centered one. The concept of gender was not in vogue before the 1990s, but analysis of African female writers’ disclaimers reveals that it is gender perspective rather than ‘feminist’ ideology that best illuminates their standpoint in art. Gender underpins the conceptual framework con­ structed from African feminist theorists for critical analysis of Head’s short stories in The Collector of Treasures. However, it is neces­sary to justify our rejection of a ‘feminist’ reading of this text before discussing the parameters for an alternative reading. From the discussion above it is clear that woman-centered definitions of ideologies, literary art, and criticism are Eurocentric and sectarian. Interestingly, the isms are

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challenged by some Western literary critics whose counter-feminist arguments are very logical, their acknowledgement of a patriarchy, notwithstanding. In ‘Towards Definitions of Feminist Writing’, Mary Eagleton prompts readers to rethink the definition of a feminist by posing the following critical questions: How would a reader recognize an example of feminist imagina­tive writing? Are there certain definable characteristics that mark ‘x’ as a feminist and ‘y’ as a non-feminist text? Can we say that a tradition of women’s writing is one of the feminist writing? ... Can we at least establish that the writing of declared feminists must be feminist? In short, is authorial intention everything? On the other hand, does the feminism lie in interpretation; could feminists agree on a definitive list of books that are more open than others to a feminist reading? ... Or does the problem ultimately resolve itself as one of content? Does the placing women’s experience, ideas, visions, achievements at the centre of a piece of writing, or as in Michele Barrett’s example, in art exhibition, make that work feminist? (Eagleton: [1986] 1990: 149)

These questions may appear straightforward but their answers unsettle the superficial readings and labels appended to women’s writing generally. In sum, ‘feminist writing’ does not mean fiction about women by a woman seeing the world through the eyes of oppressed women only. Therein lies the complexity emphasized by Nnaemeka in the epigram above. And one may add more questions: Can fiction by gender sensitive male writers fit in this category? How do we define male writers’ novels which oppose intra-male gender class, racial and ethnic oppression? In Problems for Feminist Criticism, Sally Minogue scrutinizes defini­tions of ‘feminist’ art and unwritten rules for ‘feminist’ criti­ cism as perceived by confessed radical feminist Jan Clausen. The seven rules include: (i) feminist poetry should be (politically) useful, (ii) that it should be accessible in form and content, (iii) that it should be non-traditional in form and (first-) personal in address (iv) the subject matter should be feminist; that is either anti-male oppression or pro- female strength and community, (v) a collective awareness should inform it, minimizing the role of the author as important individually, (vi) it should be self sufficient, and (vii) it should be unconcerned with criticism, or should view criticism as patriarchally based and thus suspect. (Minogue 1990: 191)

Minogue calls these rules prescriptions and proscriptions and indeed they are. They encapsulate illogical assumptions about

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reality and its subsequent representation in art. Reality is viewed in terms of All male oppressors versus All female oppressed, and all ideas in this experience – including aesthetics – are male-made and therefore anti-women. Axiomatically literary art either affirms or negates these static dichotomies. All literary artists are either gender sensitive females or gender insensitive male. There is no mention of male writers’ representation of fellow male oppressors. One wonders where the oppressed male writers – the Ngugis and Soyinkas fit in the gendered matrix. No thought is given to Aristotle’s proposal for portraits of reality as equal to, better, or worse. (I shall be told that he was a man therefore his poetics is suspect). Ultimately the feminist poetics above nullify poetic license. No artist can submit to this orthodoxy that compels her to become the political spokeswoman who idealizes (as distinct from representing) one section of society to the exclusion of all others despite stark reality to the contrary. As Minogue correctly concludes ‘political correctness is not (yet) critical criterion’ (ibid.: 180). Reality militates against a version of correctness that configures a fictional world in which all women are good and men bad. Characters in the world of fiction embody virtues and vices. To demand a gendered portrait of the same is utopian to the extreme. In the African context these rules are simply not applicable. Woman-centered prescriptions imposed on African texts can only elicit misreadings such as Katherine Frank’s ‘Women Without Men: The Feminist Novel in Africa’ (1987). Needless to mention, such readings are imposed on texts that have many characters of both gender including Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter (1980). To achieve such misinterpretation, the feminist critics silence all evidence that contradicts the rule such as portraits of bad women and good men. In The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism, Catherine Belsey and Jane Moore offer the following directives for the feminist reader: The feminist reader is enlisted in the process of changing the gender relations which prevail in our society, and she regards the practice of reading as one of the sites in the struggle for change. For the feminist reader there is no innocent or neutral approach to literature: all interpretation is political. Specific ways of reading inevitably militate for or against the process of change. To interpret a work is always to address, whether explicitly or implicitly, certain kinds of issues about what it says. The feminist reader might ask,

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among other questions, how the text represents women, what it says about gender relations… A feminist does not necessarily read in order to praise or to blame, to judge or to censor. More commonly she sets out to assess how the text invites its readers to be a woman or a man, and so encourages them to reaffirm or to challenge existing cultural norms. (Belsey and Moore 1989: 1)

All readers need not to be practicing or confessed feminists. Suffice it to clarify at this point that any literary artist envisages extended audience far beyond a specific category of ideologues. Reference to the concept of gender means that women’s experience can only be analyzed in relationship to men’s. This interconnectedness defies a woman-centered analysis if it is to be critical. This point provides some connection to the African perspectives which underpin the alternative conceptual framework applied to Head’s stories in this article. It is borrowed from Nigerian poet and critic Molara Ogundipe-Leslie’s Stiwanism and triangulated with African feminism as articulated by Sierra Leonian anthropologist Filomina Chioma Steady. In Recreating Ourselves: African Women and Critical Trans­forma­ tions, Ogundipe-Leslie affirms that it is the ‘holistic attitude of African Women to feminism which often separates them from their Western sisters’ (Ogundipe-Leslie: 1994: 226). She advocates ‘“Stiwanism” instead of feminism – to bypass the combative discourses that ensue whenever one raises the issue of feminism in Africa’ (ibid.: 229). She lists a number of African female scholars who have advanced African perspectives. One wonders why there is yet no analytical framework for interpreting the literature produced by the very theorists among other female artists on the continent. If this is done, the question of Western feminist ideologies dominating criticism of African literature would fizzle into a non-issue. In my view, Stiwanism which advocates ‘inclusion of African women in the contemporary social and political transformation of Africa’ (ibid.: 230), encompasses the various aspects that can constitute a theoretical framework. Underpinning Stiwanism is recognition of the multiple forms of oppression on the continent. The author calls them the metaphorical six mountains, namely: foreign intrusions, the heritage of tradition, the backwardness of the African woman, men, race, and the African woman herself. For Ogundipe-Leslie the latter is ‘the most important. Women

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are shackled by their own negative self-image, by centuries of the internalization of the ideologies of patriarchy and gender hierarchy. Their own reactions to objective problems therefore are often selfdefeating and self-crippling’ (ibid.). She concludes that ‘both men and women need conscientization’ (ibid.: 36). This formulation exposes stereotypical aggressive male oppression versus passive female oppressed as simplistic. It is clear that both genders are victims as well as accomplices in sustaining patriarchy. In the African context the status quo is complex. It is this very complexity that eludes a hasty reading bent on affirmation of stereotypical dichotomies. In ‘African Feminism: A Worldwide Perspective’ Steady locates the origin of the holistic attitude in the African worldview which conceptualizes ‘human life from a total, rather than dichotomous and exclusive perspective. For the woman male is not “the other” but part of the human same. Each gender constitutes the critical half that makes the human whole’ (Steady 1998: 8). A number of critical parameters can be inferred from both Ogundipe-Leslie and Steady’s formulations. In sum, the parameters unsettle the stereotypical dichotomies that bedevil human relations including gender relationships. Steady’s description challenges the ubiquitous concept of ‘otherness’ in contemporary feminist discourse and its subsequent omnipresence in literary criticism. The holistic approach to life translated into literary criticism transcends the fixation with gendered dichotomies that define ‘feminist’ criticism of African literature. Engagement with Head’s short stories in The Collector of Treasures adopts the holistic approach. This article focuses on Head’s stories that grapple with central themes in contemporary emancipatory discourse, which best delineate the distinction between Eurocentric feminisms and Afrocentric gender perspective, notably sexism against women in African traditional culture and violence against women. Indicators of Head’s vision on these issues can be inferred from her artistic use of literary techniques and stylish devices rather than content per se. A feminist interpretation armed with the unwritten rule against supposedly male-made aesthetic value may miss out on the deeper meaning emanating from the author’s scrutiny of the roots of sexism and exposure of its encompassing nature. On the surface, the content of Head’s stories appears to reflect conventional perceptions of gender issues and their attendant dichotomies. It is only by examining the artistic resources exploited by the author

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that the reader is defamiliarized into a new awareness of the inherent fallacies in the perceptions of dichotomies. Finding the meaning of the writer’s gender perspective may require the critic to endeavour to understand and attempt to share a ‘sexless’ vantage point in order to avoid evaluating literary art as a social-political document which must necessarily be either anti-male oppression or pro-female strength and community. All the thirteen stories in The Collector of Treasures are set in rural Botswana where Head lived for most of her life. This provides an ideal site for interrogating gender in African traditional cultures. The first story ‘The Deep River: a story of Ancient Tribal Migration’, is about an ancient Central African kingdom of Monemapee. It is a myth of the origin of the Talaote sub-group that was forced to break away from the kingdom and consequently lost their noble identity. Monamapee was initially a harmonious communalistic tribe ruled by a feudal chief. Its blissful tranquility was symbolized by the fact that the people had no ’individual faces’ and the chief’s word was the law. But, conflict arose at the death of the old chief, the cause of which was a woman. It transpired that Sembele the heir apparent was a bachelor. To be eligible to rule he had to marry. He chose his stepmother, his father’s youngest wife and revealed that her infant was in fact his son and not his stepbrother as had been presumed. In the ensuing debate it was suggested that Sembele should denounce his stepmother/wife, Rankwana, and her son or forfeit the throne. But Sembele declared his great love for Rankwana who reciprocated and vowed to kill herself if he left her. The debate ended with Sembele opting to leave Monamapee kingdom with a small group of supporters thereafter renamed Talaote. This appears to be a stereotypical myth of origin with ‘the evil (Eve) woman motif’: ‘The old men there keep giving confused contradictory accounts of their origin, but they say they lost their place of birth over a woman. They shake their heads and say that women have always caused a lot of trouble in the world’ (6). This conclusion seems to affirm the usual male oppressors/female oppressed dichotomy. But Head transcends simplistic view of inter-gender relations and scrutinizes the underlying ironies which challenge the dichotomy. Ironically, in this story, it is Sembele who is actually a victim of intra-male gender oppression by his brothers who see his son as an obstacle to their ambitions for the throne. Both intra-male and intra-female gender forms of oppression are conveniently missing in feminist vocabulary because some

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feminists configure a world of all bad men and all good women. When Sembele sacrifices the throne for a woman ‘In a world where women were of no account’ the tribe questions his sanity and masculinity: ‘He must be mad. A man who is influenced by a woman is no ruler. He is like one who listens to the advice of a child’ (3). Yet the same tribe insists that a man without a wife cannot rule. What stands trial is neither the male nor the female but the fallacies underlying masculinity and feminity which presume gender conflict erases the reality of gender complementarity. Both Sembele and Rankwana are portrayed as strong characters who effectively challenge gender oppression through complementarity. This portrait adumbrates a common stand by African female writers. Buchi Emecheta (1986) emphasises that African women need both their men and empowerment. Nnaemeka (1995) makes a clear distinction between sexist African tradition and the men: ‘Knock down the tradition, save the men’ (90). Some Western feminists cannot comprehend this sober distinction. Their fixation with dichotomies leads to yet another one which pits African tradition against emancipation. They assume Africanness (whether male or female) and sexism are synonyms. Therefore they propose a counter-dichotomous emancipatory strategy for the African woman: ‘she must renounce her African identity because of the inherent sexism of traditional African culture. Or, if she wishes to cherish her ‘Africanness’, she must renounce her claims to feminine independence and self-determination’ (Frank 1982, quoted in Stratton 1994: 110). Head’s portrait provides refreshing insight into this quagmire. In all the stories in the collection, Head recognizes multiple forms of oppression and endeavors to show the intersection between them. In ‘The Collector of Treasures’ the story that provides the title of the collection, she presents a philosophical authorial treatise on the interesectionality of the multiple oppressions in the African context through the ages, without downplaying gender oppression. It is quoted at length for authenticity: The ancestors made many errors and one of the most bitter-making things was that they relegated to men a superior position in the tribe, while women were regarded in a congenital sense, as being an inferior form of human life. To this day women still suffered from all the calamities that befall an inferior form of life. The colonial era and the period of migratory mining labour to South Africa was a further affliction visited on this man … African independence seemed merely

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one more affliction on top of the afflictions that had visited this man’s life … It was the man who arrived at this turning point, a broken wreck with no inner resources at all. It was as though he was hideous to himself and in an effort to flee his own inner emptiness, he spun away from himself in a dizzy kind of death dance of wild destruction and dissipation (92).

This background produced two kinds of men. One is violent to the extreme. Head describes him in animal imagery. The other is a resourceful individual who ‘turned all his resources both emotion and material, towards his family life and went on and on with his quiet rhythm like a river. He was a poem of tenderness’ (93). Although this type is in the minority, he is adequately foregrounded and therefore disrupts dichotomies that connote generalised antimale sentiments. External intrusions, with their multiple unisex racial and class oppressions, exacerbated the condition of the violent type of man thereby challenging yet another stereotypical dichotomy: powerful male/powerless female: The colonial era and the period of migratory mining labour in South Africa was a further affliction on this man. It broke the hold of the ancestors. It broke the old, traditional form of family life and for long periods a man was separated from his wife and children while he worked for a pittance in another land in order to raise the money to pay his British Colonial poll-tax. British colonialism scarcely enriched his life. He then became ‘the boy’ of the white man and a machine-tool of the South African mines. African independence seemed merely one more affliction on top of the afflictions that had visited this man’s life (ibid).

This experience affected the whole society. To be able to survive, both genders ‘had to turn inwards to their own resources’ (ibid.). But the violent man, aggravated by myriad afflictions was ‘a broken wreck with no inner resources at all’ (ibid.). Ordinarily, violent men are perceived to be strong – powerful enough to hurt and break others, but associating a positive sense of power with a ‘broken wreck’ disrupts the conventional meaning of the concept. It implies that violence, mistaken for power in inter-gender relations, stems from an inner weakness in men who are unable to cope with the many demands imposed on them by constructed masculinity irrespective of individual capacity for work in gendered division of labour. Many dichotomies emerge from this division. They are associated with conjugal relations. They include powerful, independent male, property owner, and provider who is head of

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household, usually working in the public space versus powerless, submissive dependent woman restricted to the domestic sphere. Head’s interrogation of these dichotomies reveals that the violent man usually abdicates obligations, duties and responsibilities encapsulated in these dichotomies but continues to demand the rights attached to them. In other words, he abandons the male gender roles that define masculinity but hopes to exercise dominance through his sex role. In this sense, he is a victim of interconnected oppressions generated by a faulty heritage package. He in turn oppresses the women and ultimately provokes women’s oppression of men. In a word, sexism is double-edged. The epitome of violent man – Garesgo Mokopi – has had his genitals chopped off by an otherwise submissive and industrious wife. She surrenders to police arrest and submits to life imprisonment with composure. This portrait unsettles gender boundaries and exposes underlying fallacies. To interpret this representation effectively, we need a framework that transcends the stereotypical powerful male oppressor versus powerless female oppressor dichotomy. Gender violence which is assumed to be instigated is the very antithesis of the natural gender complementarity advanced by Africa worldview documented by Steady. Head insightfully foregrounds the essence of complementarity by invoking the inhuman consequences of its nemesis-gender conflict. We are so familiar with the latter that her attempt to normalize the former is simply ingenious! Her artistic organizational techniques make her creation so logical and inherently human. When Dikeledi Mokopi, the good woman (but nonetheless murderer), has to exit from functional community, it is Paul Thebolo, the quintessential good man in a harmonious conjugal relationship replete with gender complementarity – who offers to adopt her three sons. He is described as ‘poem of tenderness’. He is a symbol of humane power as opposed to male supremacy emanating from constructed masculinity. He is capable of harmonious inter-gender relationships because of his respect for humanity. He honors his gender roles and explores his sex role to achieve complementarity rather than exercise male dominance. He is an ideal example of man as part of the human whole as distinct from dominant man as the ‘other’. Gender violence is also the theme of ‘Life’, the story in which a young woman Life Morapedi is murdered by her husband Lesego. Life is among the ‘Botswana born citizens’ who returned home ‘pending Botswana’s independence in 1966’. She had gone to

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Johannesburg at the age of ten with her parents who later died. The orphan girl-child then takes up prostitution which earns her a lot of money and injects a new culture. All the returnees come back with a new culture which is either adopted or rejected by the villagers depending on it’s relevance to their traditions. Life Morapedi, the symbol of the culture of promiscuity, is rejected and punished with death in poetic justice by a female author who enunciates the ‘complicated undertone’ of the verdict in the logic of African gender perspective. At surface level, the story appears to be a representation of violence against women affirming the sexist African traditions. But just as in ‘The Collector of Treasures’, the author explores organizational techniques to pre-empt a simplistic reading by locating the incident in cultural response to change. The rationale for the villagers’ rejection of Life’s lifestyle is summed up in Jim Reeves’ song quoted at the end of the story: That’s What Happens When Two Worlds Collide. This is the archetypal ending of an oral narrative with explicit authorial statement of the moral lesson. Life is the exemplification of a modern woman: educated, relatively rich, and somewhat independent therefore seemingly ‘empowered’. But both her economic independence and power are questionable because they are value-free in a crude sense. Her source of wealth is after all the multiple male sex partners she has. The form of power she aspires to is the very oppressive male supremacy that all feminist ideologies seek to end. Her vision is basically a reversal of the dichotomies that signify masculinity versus femininity. This quest for the feminization of sexism militates against emancipation by whatever definition because it is ultimately anti-both genders. The trait is demonstrated in Life’s intra-female gender exploitation of the rural women who welcome her to the village and renovate her homestead free of charge. But soon Life’s conduct attracts a group of women with equally convoluted perception of empowerment: The beer-brewing women were a gay and lovable crowd who had emancipated themselves some time ago. They were drunk every day and could be seen staggering around the village, usually with a wideeyed, illegitimate baby hitched on to their hips. They also talked and laughed loudly and slapped each other of the back and had developed a language of their own: ‘Boyfriends, yes. Husbands, uh, uh, no. Do this! Do that! We want to rule ourselves’ (39). This is fitting company for Life because she also ‘had a language of her own too and an elaborate philosophy’ ‘My motto is: live fast, die young, and have a good-looking

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corpse.’ All this was said with the bold, free joy of a woman who had broken all social taboos. (40)

Fiction aside, readers of this story will be familiar with such a strange female figure in real life whose character traits are simply inexcusable even after all oppressions of patriarchy and meanings of ‘empowerment’ are considered. But it is an unwritten rule that a feminist writer should only kill this type if she retreats from her emancipatory struggle. Head breaks the rule with adequate justification. First she marries Life off to gangster-looking Lesego and then kills her. This portrait could be interpreted as a feminist act. As Minogue notes: ‘feminist critics are particularly hard on those who go some way to rebelling against the standard role of women, but who fall back into the old conventions at one stage or another. They are especially unforgiving when these female characters marry’ (1990: 11). However, Head explicitly preempts any reading that applauds Life’s behaviour as a measure of ‘feminist’ empowerment and punishable subsequent retreat. The portrayal of Life does not elicit any empathy from the reader. Her death is an unequivocal verdict against emancipatory options that aspire the reverse of the patriarchal status quo in favour of women. This is a retrogressive collision between two oppressive worlds, as opposed to the progressive social transformation that empowerment should ideally connote. From the moment Life encounters Lesego, there is a foreshadowing of fatal consequences in the meeting between their symbolically competing worlds. The couple’s perceptions are juxtaposed to foreground underlying antagonism and ironies. When the two meet in the village pub, Lesego instantly stamps his supremacy by ordering Life to move to his seat which is unusual because it is the men who went to her. Their attraction to each other is based on antagonistic sexist logic: But they looked at each other from their own worlds and came to fatal conclusions –she saw in him the power of maleness of gangsters; he saw the freshness and surprise of an entirely new kind of woman. He had left all his women after a time because they bored him, and like people who lived an ordinary humdrum life, he was attracted to the undertone of hysteria in her. (41-2)

Lesego married Life with full knowledge of her character but he thought he was powerful enough to tame her financial independence and rowdiness: ‘He made only three pronouncements. He took control of all the money. She had to ask him for it and state what it

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was to be used for. Then he didn’t like the transistor radio blaring all day’ (43). The third pronouncement was a threat: ‘Then he looked at her from a great height and commented finally and quietly: ‘if you go with those men again, I’ll kill you’ (ibid.). In effect Lesego attempted to repossess all the indicators of masculinity which Life had usurped from men in the hope that her femininity would be restored. But this was not to be. Life could not settle down to family life because inside this seemingly rebellious strong kind of modern woman, there was emptiness and weakness: ‘when the hysteria and cheap rowdiness was taken away, Life fell into the yawn; she had nothing inside herself to cope with this way of life’ (ibid.). This authorial statement alludes to the unique power (not powerlessness) that underlies female gender roles. The village women demonstrate great power in dealing with their difficult circumstances. But Life opts for the easy way out of the situation. In this sense she exemplifies powerlessness, although she assumes that power to dominate and exploit others resides in the indicators of masculinity which are erroneously displayed through reckless living. While Lesego is away at the cattle post, Life reverts to the only lifestyle she knew. She invites the former crowd of drunkards whose labour she continues to exploit. They do her housework as she yawns and regrets her decision to marry. It is not long before she defies the final pronouncement. Then she dares to do it even after her husband returns home unexpectedly. In reaction he makes good his threat. He gets off with a light prison sentence of five years from a sympathetic white judge who reckons it was ‘a crime of passion’. Head stands accused for endowing a girl-child with property ownership and then allowing a man to dispossess her and ends her economic independence. But the money belonged to the men so it is a case of return to giver. The girl could have used her education to acquire genuine ownership but she chose not to. She exploits both men and women, and even the drunken women of the village consider her lifestyle extreme. She is the very embodiment of the conflation of all the subsequent dichotomies that emanate from the initial masculinity versus femininity. On the whole her major crime is the quest for all the negativity that masculinity connotes. Killing Life is a double verdict on both her misinformed quest and the encompassing discriminatory nature of the dichotomy. Similar trends emerge from the other stories in the collection, whether the main themes are religion, power struggle, or cultural

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challenges. In all these stories, Head does not incline her readers to empathize with one gender as a sex category but rather with the values that each embody. In particular she foregrounds the values that offer some solutions to gender discrimination in its multiple variants including inter-gender female versus men, intramale gender and intra-female gender oppressions. These myriad oppressions originate in the six metaphorical mountains described by Ogundipe-Leslie. To constrict fiction which portrays only one of the mountains – man – would be unrealistic. Besides oppressions, Head depicts a gender complementarity in conjugal relationships that is ordinarily viewed as an axiomatic site of conflict. For her, gender harmony in this site exists, even though in the minority. Furthermore, it is the ideal thing. She affirms its inevitability which Steady advocates. The complexity of the gender sensitivity required for a realistic portrait of this entire enterprise indeed calls for a ‘sexless’ vantage point. WORKS CITED Bâ, Mariama. So Long a Letter. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 1980. Barzin, Nancy Topping. ‘Feminist Perspectives in African Fiction: Bessie Head and Buchi Emecheta’. The Black Scholar (17.2): 34-40. Belsey, Catherine and Jane, Moore (ed.). The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism. London: Macmillan Education Ltd., 1989. d’Almeida, Irene Assiba. Francophone African Women Writers: Destroying the Emptiness of Silence. Gainsville: UP of Florida,1994. Eagleton, Mary (ed.). Feminist Literary Theory: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986 (1990 edition). Emecheta, Buchi. ‘Feminism with a small “f”!’ Criticism and Ideology. ed.Kirsten, Holst Petersen. Uppsala: Nordiska afrikaninstitutet, 1988. Flewellen, Elinor C. ‘Assertiveness vs. Submissiveness in Selected Works by African Women Writers’. Ba Shiru (12.2): 34. Frank, Katherine: ‘The Death of the Slave Girl: African Womanhood in the Novels of Buchi Emecheta’. World Literature Written in English 1982 (21.3): 476-97. Frank, Katherine. ‘Women Without Men: The Feminist Novel in Africa’. African Litera­ ture Today 15 (1987), 15-34. Head, Bessie. The Collector of Treasures. Oxford: Heinemann, 1977. Kishwar, Madhu. ‘A Horror of Isms’. The Woman Question Mary Evans (ed.). London:Sage Publications, 1994. Mackenzie, Craig. A Woman Alone: Autobiographical Writings. Oxford: Heinemann, 1990. Mackenzie, Craig and Catherine Woeber. Bessie Head: A Bibliography. Port Elizabeth: CADAR, 1992. Minogue, Sally (ed.). Problems for Feminist Criticism. London: Routledge, 1990. Nnaemeka, Obioma. ‘Feminism, Rebellious Woman and Cultural Boundaries: Rereading Flora Nwapa and Her Compatriots’. Research in African Literatures 26.2. 1995: 80-113.

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Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara. Re-creating Ourselves: African Women & Critical Transformations. Trenton: Africa World Press, Inc., 1994. Petersen, Kirsten Holst (ed.). Criticism and Ideology: Second African Writers’ Conference. Uppsala: Nordiska africkaininstitutet, 1988. Shigali, Hellen Roselyne. Alternative Conceptualization of Empowerment: African Gender Perspective. Berlin: VDM, 2010. Steady, Chioma Filomina. ‘African Feminism: A Worldwide Perspective’, Women in Africa and African Diaspora. R. Terbog-Penn (ed.). Washington D.C: Howard University Press, 1988: 1-24. Stratton, Florence. Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender. London: Routledge, 1994. Umeh, Marie. ‘Poetics of Economic Independence for Female Empowerment: An Interview with Flora Nwapa’. Research in African Literatures 1995 (26.2): 22-9. Zongo, Opportune. ‘Rethinking African Literary Criticism: Obioma Nnameka’. Research in African Literatures 1996 (27.2): 178-84.

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Es’kia Mphahlele’s Enduring Truth in Down Second Avenue JOYCE ASHUNTANTANG

In October 2008, Es’kia Mphahlele aka Ezekiel Mphahlele, the elder statesman of South African literature and African letters, died in his home town of Lebowakgomo, in the province of Limpopo. He had returned to South Africa in 1977 after 20 years in exile which took him to various African countries. The African world Mphahlele found when he left South Africa for a self-imposed exile in 1957 was in transition. Most African countries, including Nigeria, were gearing up for independence and there was a lot of ‘constructing’ going on. The African world today is no different. There seems to be another craving for independence, real independence and rule by the people. Today, most African countries have gone back to the drawing board. In 2011, after what seemed like the fairest elections in Nigeria in decades, which led to the election of Goodluck Jonathan, democracy is being challenged with demonstrations and protests that continue to rock that country. In Cameroon, Paul Biya won a controversial election in November 2011 which ushered in his fourth decade as president, and Anglophones in Cameroon continue to agitate to be recognized as ‘full citizens’ in their own country. Congo continues to be a hotbed of horrible atrocities with conflicting information from Western media, while Rwanda continues to rebuild on the ashes of the 800,000 who died in their genocide. In South Africa xenophobia continues to threaten the post apartheid era. However, as in 1957, Ghana leads the way with a renewed sense of optimism for democracy after a relatively peaceful transition of power from President John Kufuor to John Atta Mills. The number of Africans in self-imposed exile continues to grow due to the troubling economic situation in various African countries. Against this backdrop, Es’kia Mphahlele’s work becomes 138

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even more relevant because of what I term Mphahlele’s truth, his African humanism or ubuntu. On his death in 2008 Es’kia Mphahlele was almost 89 years old. During his lifetime, he wrote fiction and nonfiction but one can safely say that he himself remained the central subject of all of his writings. His life was his truth, and this truth was shaped by the conditions in his country, South Africa. Born in Marabastad in 1919, Mphahlele was sent to live with his paternal grandmother in Maupaneng in 1924. After nine years, he returned to live with his parents. Although his father later abandoned them, his mother, with the support of an extended family continued to help raise the young Mphahlele along with his brother and sister. He attended St Peter’s Secondary School, Johannesburg, and Adams Teacher Training College, Natal. He later worked as a clerk, shorthand typist and instructor at Ezenzeleni Blind Institute. At this time he was also studying for matriculation by correspondence. He became a teacher of English and Afrikaans in Orlando High School. Unfortunately, his mother died that year, however, shortly after that he married his wife, Rebecca Mochadibane. He matriculated in 1946 and the same year he published his first book, a collection of stories titled Man Must Live. In 1949, he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Africa. His teaching career was cut short in 1952 when he was banned from teaching in South African government schools because of his activism against the segregationist Bantu education project. He went into exile first in the British protectorate of Basutoland (Lesotho) where he taught briefly at the Basutoland High School in Maseru. He returned to Johannesburg and taught at St Peter’s Secondary School, his alma mater. In 1955 he was awarded an honors degree in English literature from the University of South Africa, later gaining a Master of Arts degree with distinction from the same university. His MA thesis would later become his first book of critical essays, The African Image. From 1955 to 1957 he was hired at Drum magazine as fiction editor, sub-editor, and political reporter. Not satisfied with his job as a journalist and with a desire to teach, he accepted a teaching job with Christian Mission school in Lagos, Nigeria, launching what became a twenty year exile from the country of his birth. These are the broad strokes of what one can term the first phase of Mphahlele’s life captured creatively in his autobiography Down Second Avenue.

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Author of two autobiographies, three novels, over thirty short stories, several essays and poetry anthologies, he went into self-exile in 1957 but returned to South Africa in 1977. Of all Mphahlele’s accomplishments, the critically acclaimed Down Second Avenue, remains a favorite. He had started writing the autobiography in South Africa and completed it during his early days in Nigeria. It was published in 1959. In an interview with Bernth Lindfors, he admitted that ‘It was really a novel that had been turning around in my mind… I decided to chuck the novel altogether and simply write an autobiography’ (182). However there is no denying that in Down Second Avenue, Mphahlele crafts an engaging narrative in prose that is at once poetic and lively in the manner of a novel. He was quite aware of this. He explained to Phanuel Egejuru, ‘The auto­ biography I wrote was cast in a novelistic frame. I deviated slightly, even though it is a true story. I did that to make it more readableinstead of a straightforward autobiography’ (100). Mpha­hlele seems to have accomplished his goal of making it more readable because Down Second Avenue remains his most successful work. It is the centerpiece of Mphahlele’s oeuvre because it captures what I consider Mphahlele’s truth – his episteme, the sum total of what seems to recur in both his fiction and nonfiction. It is the truth which Mphahlele believed could be the only saving grace for the African who, like him, has been ‘detribalized and westernized but is still African’ (The African Image, 66). This truth is ubuntu, that human spirit of sharing which makes the individual part of a community. Mphahlele called it African humanism. In an interview with Manganyi, Mphahlele explains this further ‘I am very much attracted to humanistic existence, where people treat each other as human beings and not simply as instruments or tools; where people become committed to one another as human beings with­ out necessarily declaring the commitment; if one of their kind is in difficulties the others immediately rise to the occasion and do something about it’ (Bury Me at The Market Place, 467). The first six chapters of Down Second Avenue present the reader with an environment which seems to determine the lives of its inhabitants. It is interesting to note that although Down Second Avenue is an autobiography about Mphahlele, he is not a central focus till chapter seven entitled ‘Backward child’. The book opens with him displaced in his own environment both at the micro and macro level. At the micro, he expresses his alienation within the family environment. He and his siblings are displaced from their

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parents who live in Pretoria and have been brought to live with their paternal grandmother in Maupaneng. The fact that the young Mphahlele does not understand the reason for this displacement and none is offered to the reader, at least not yet, only concretizes his alienation. The reality of alienation is highlighted with the description of the grandmother. In most cultures, and especially African cultures, the grandmother is revered, and is stereotypically a very doting individual who can usually replace the mother in raising a child, with the same results, if not better. It therefore comes as a shock when Mphahlele zooms in on his paternal grandmother and we get the following image: My grandmother sat there under a small lemon tree next to the hut, as big as fate, as forbidding as a mountain, stern as a mimosa tree. She was not the smiling type. When she tried, she succeeded in leering muddily. But then she was not the crying type either: she gave her orders sharp and clear. Like the sound she made when she pounded on the millstone with a lump of iron to make it rough enough for grinding on. I do not remember ever being called gently by her. (11)

Unlike Camara Laye’s doting grandmother in his autobiography The African Child, also published in 1959, Mphahlele’s grandmother is impenetrable like fate, and even the lemon tree may signify that she is not a sweet person as evidenced by the fact that she does not smile. By comparing the nature of the grandmother to elements in the natural environment it seems as if Mphahlele is already drawing a parallel between the debilitating family environment and physical environment which he must conquer in order to survive. Beyond the grandmother, there does not seem to be an extended family on his father’s side where the young Mphahlele can take solace. As he reports, ‘one of her two daughters was the spit of her (grandmother); the other anemic and fawning. But they seldom came home. They worked in Pretoria’ (11). Similarly, his 23-year-old uncle who was at home ‘could just be as ruthless as his mother and his elder sister, Bereta.’ (20). Even the teacher at school who is considered by the elders of the tribe as a father to the boys including Mphahlele is only remembered for his whippings. But these whippings are expected to be endured because as the elders explain, ‘You boys should feel proud to have a teacher who wants to skin you alive at school. It is like making hard leather soft and tame enough to be used. The more lashes he gives you the more it shows how much he wants you to work. Remember, he’s like your

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father…’ (15). This harsh family environment is complemented by an equally harsh physical environment. Bugs, lice and snakes seem to compete for space with the children. There is hunger because crops often fail and the only time meat is eaten is when livestock dies. He sums up the years in Maupaneng in this manner: Looking back to those first thirteen years of my life-as much of it as I can remember-I cannot help thinking that it was time wasted. I had nobody to shape them into a definite pattern. Searching through the confused threads of the pattern a few things keep imposing themselves on my whole judgment. My grandmother, the mountain; the tropical darkness which glowing worms seemed to try in vain to scatter; long black tropical snakes, the brutal Leshoana river carrying on its broad back trees, cattle, boulders; world of torrential rains, the solid shimmering heat beating down the yearning earth; the romantic picture of a woman with her child on her back and an earthen pot on her head silhouetted against a mirage. (18)

Indeed this quote captures Mphahlele’s ease with language in Down Second Avenue. These are beautiful lines not just because they exude poetic qualities, but the lively images present the reader with a certain authenticity. Here, Mphahlele effortlessly combines the family and physical environment as one formidable antagonist on the path of the narrator who at once appears as the protagonist in this ‘novelized’ autobiography. He positions his narrative as just an example of the collective narrative of boys like him growing in such an environment. This is very strategic because it takes away some of the vanity of writing about oneself since autobiographies assume that one’s life is so important that others need to read about it. But for most South African writers who championed the genre of autobiography in Africa like Peter Abrahams, Bloke Modisane and Mphahlele, this was deliberate. As Mphahlele explains in an interview, ‘I saw in my own background the typical growth of a black South African child’ (133). Thus the autobiography becomes a vehicle to tell a collective story. It also reveals how the personal intersects with the communal. Often in an autobiography, the protagonist is seen as he or she relates to the rest of the community or society so that the story is as much about the writer as about the society that is nourishing his or her growth. By ‘looking back’ to assess the first 13 years of his life Mphahlele begins what is essentially his project in Down Second Avenue, which is to reconstruct identity. W. B. Yeats expressed it well in his Autobiography: ‘it is myself, I remake.’ Therefore writing an

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autobiography is a way of deconstructing the self and reordering it to find meaning. As Olney maintains: It is this discovered and imposed order, leading to meaning, that we call the artist’s ‘vision’: his special, unique way of seeing, understanding, and creating. This desire to discover an order and meaning in experience is also what one might call the essential autobiographic motive: the sifting of memories and the recreation of events to see how they relate, where they connect, what pattern they establish. (Tell Me Africa 1973, 271)

It is this ‘shaping’ of events that gives autobiographies their force. Consequently, Mphahlele can ‘look back’ and notice that even in the midst of these harsh realities there is something that can redeem the harshness. It is humanism. The closing of chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 2 are cast in the warmth of the fireplace where Old Modise and Old Segone tell stories. Here the men and boys gather to ‘talk important things and trifles’ but it seems there are more important things than trifles for as Mphahlele notes ‘we learned more a great deal at that fireplace, even before we were aware of it: history, tradition and custom, code of behavior, communal responsibility, social living and so on’. Here Mphahlele begins to lay the groundwork of his African humanism, those value systems which he believes that Africa can use to survive. For example women come to bring food in calabashes not just for their men and sons, but also for the man whose wife is ill and had no daughter to cook for him. But even at this time this humanism is already being punctured by the introduction of Christianity which threatens the community as the village is already divided along strict lines of pagans and Christians. The destructive nature of Christianity is not only seen in the separation of the villagers, it is exemplified in the disintegration of Thema. Thema’s simplistic faith in Christianity is destroyed when he ventures into the city to discover that the white man treats the black man as an inferior being. This discovery of double standards from the white Christian community places Thema in limbo. He is neither with the Christian community nor with the pagans. His disoriented mental state becomes apparent as Mphahlele explains what leads to his ‘placelessness’. His whereabouts are not known but one thing Mphahlele knows is that ‘he’s a little off his head’. Thema’s predicament foreshadows Mphahlele’s own disillusionment later on with Christianity, and although it will

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lead to his ‘going away’, at least he will preserve his sanity. Even beyond Christianity there are other political changes taking place which threaten the unity of the community. With the land act which saw blacks losing their ancestral lands, more and more able-bodied men were leaving the villages to find work in the city. These men returned to the village especially during Christmas time with such symbols of the city as gramophones which disrupt life as it is known in the village. Thus the village was gradually being robbed of a vital segment of its population. The importance of this backdrop is that it begins to explain why Ezekiel’s mother and father are away in the city working. Although Ezekiel’s father works as a messenger, the burden of raising the family falls on the mother because the father spends his money on beer as a consequence of his manhood being trapped in a new dispensation controlled by a white South Africa. Mphahlele‘s ability to look at the past as a way of forging a future places his autobiography within the realm of what Janet V. Gunn calls testimonials. In her 1992 essay, ‘“A Window of Opportunity”: An Ethics of Reading Third World Autobiography’, Gunn identifies two types of autobiography: ‘Autobiography of nostalgia and testimonial’. Autobiography of nostalgia ‘represents a mainstream tradition of self-writing in the industrialized West and North. A strategy of recovering what would otherwise be lost; autobiography of nostalgia is directed toward the past. The autobiographer’s identity depends not only on recovering this past but on individuating his or her experience of the past’. On the other hand, ‘the testimonial is oriented toward creating a future rather than recovering a past. It is a form of utopian literature that contributes to the realization of liberated society based on distributive justice. A form of resistance literature as well as utopian literature; the testimonial resists not only economic and political oppression, but also any nostalgic pull towards any idealized past … which promise false comfort.’ In this light, Down Second Avenue combines both autobiography of nostalgia and testimonial because Mphahlele not only seeks to recall a past he wants to preserve especially in terms of preserving the spirit of community, he is using the autobiography to create possibilities for a more liberated future. It is a narrative of development which takes a teleological form whereby the writer repositions experiences in his or her early life as a way of highlighting his or her present circumstances. Even the move from Maupaneng does not change the debilitating

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environment of the author. In a way it seems to be even worse because there is no Leshoana river with its abundant waters that flood its banks, and the inhabitants of Second Avenue have to spend hours as painful witnesses to a slow-running water tap. Yet the painful hours at the tap are humanized by the voices of women swapping stories. It is at the tap that we are introduced to some of the flamboyant cast of characters in Second Avenue, Ma-Janeware who is ‘jet black’ but is quick to refer to others as ‘you blacks’ because she claimed she was a widow of a Portuguese trader. Then there’s Dokie, the fat one and Dokie, the sharp one and Ma-Legodi, the witch with the tortoise in her yard. The voices of these women signal a communal ethos even if the houses being on a straight line forming avenues threatens to disrupt this. The teenage Mphahlele quickly observes that in Maupaneng, ‘Houses didn’t stand in any order and we visited one another and could sit round the communal fire and tell one another stories until the cocks crowed’ (34). In fact a leitmotif of Mphahlele’s autobiography seems to be change. Political changes taking place in South Africa are gradually disrupting the way of life for black people. The old men in Maupaneng complain that most of their lands have been taken away by the whites. The process seems gradual but the impact is becoming quite visible in rural places as remote as Maupaneng and also in the city. Once Mphahlele and his siblings move back to the city to be with their parents, it becomes clear why they had been sent to Maupaneng in the first place. Mphahlele’s father is not a provider and is abusive towards his wife. In fact, they return to the city under the injunction of the Native Commissioner who believes that Moses, Mphahlele’s father may become responsible if the children are in his face daily. The situation however does not change. At the centre of the couple’s problems is money. The couples do menial jobs. Mphahlele’s father, Moses, is a shop messenger in an outfitter’s firm and his mother, Eva, is a domestic servant. What the 13 year old Mphahlele is not aware of is that the laws put in place by the white man have made it difficult for the black man who is offered only certain kinds of jobs: ‘Kitchen boy, £4’; ‘truck driver, £3 a week’; ‘Garden boy, 6s. a day for two days a week’; ‘builders (not technically bricklayers), £3 week’ (176). The constant quarrelling and fighting between the couple exemplifies the problem:

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How long do you want this thing to go on, Moses?’ ‘What Eve?’ ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know I need money for food. At least you could [be] sorry about your children’s clothes. Just look at you, drunk as always ...The tailor for whom she worked went bankrupt. She couldn’t get another dressmaking job. Factories were very few and these didn’t take in Black labour. So mother started to do white people’s washing. She did some sewing at home for people in the location ... He, on the other hand, continued to bully, grouse, roar and fume. Mother did a brisk business in selling home-brewed beer. He drank elsewhere and came to her to ask or demand money. ‘Don’t grumble, Eva!’ he’d say when she ventured a comment. ‘I’m not going to give you my money if you play the fool with yours, that’s what.’ ‘Let’s see if you won’t, bitch ...’ I found myself taking sides. I hated my father; his other children no less. Whenever he was in the house, we preferred to play outside. (25-6)

Mphahlele gives the reader enough information to show that the economic situation was precarious for both parents but the father’s choice of dealing with it was a problem. He does not seem to have the survival instincts that the mother has. When the mother lost her dressmaking job, she moved on to something else, but the father on the other hand seems to capitulate exactly the way the white establishment would have wanted him to. The reader knows that all men were not like Moses because there is Sello’s father, Moses’ neighbor, who finds time to play with his children and at one time saves Eva from the bestiality of Moses. It is not surprising that Mphahlele wishes Sello’s father was his father too. Moses’ inability to cope with the situation around him destroys him and finally things come to a climax: ‘This is the day you are going to do what I tell you!’ He limped over to the pot on the stove. In no time, it was done. My mother screamed with a voice I have never forgotten till this day. Hot gravy and meat and potatoes had got into her blouse and she was trying to shake them down. He caught hold of her by the blouse and landed the pot in the middle of her skull with a heavy gong sound. A few weeks later, my mother came out of hospital, bandaged up thickly, to appear in court against my father. I also went to court ... The magistrate sentenced him to fourteen days’ imprisonment with an option of a fine of – I forget how much. I remember he paid it. That was the last time I ever saw my father, that summer of 1932. The strong smell of burning paraffin gas from a stove often reminds me of that Sunday. (28)

Mphahlele reports this with a precision that is at once chilling and engaging. Mphahlele’s father certainly does not provide a

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model of survival in the politically and economically charged atmosphere of apartheid. The abundance of dialogue here gives the narration a tone of immediacy. Although dialogue is often regarded with suspicion in autobiographies and biographies, it is necessary, so that Mphahlele can step out of the narration at crucial times for us to hear voices directly. It is the rewriting of incidents like this that clarifies Olney’s (1972) idea of the metaphors of self in autobiography. A concept Mphahlele identifies with, and explains its application to his style: Considering that one is telling one’s own story and you are trying to follow the line of your life to the present maybe, which autobiography, you are remembering number of events. You place yourself as the narrator. It is in the first person, narrating your own life. There is no way you are going to capture everything…so what you indeed do is recreate yourself. It is, in a sense a monument of self. In its becoming it’s a monument and in its composition it is a metaphor. You are saying here is my life story and yet at the same time it’s a metaphor rather than an absolute fact…you are aware that you have to modify a number of things because you are recreating, as in a work of art’ (Bury Me at the Market Place, 496).

That is why each incident or character selected for recall must have meaning in the broader canvas of events. Thus after Mphahlele gives us a wasted 13 years of life; the chapter ‘backward child’ comes as no surprise. But before this chapter there is an interlude where in a dreamlike state he contemplates his surroundings. The sounds of the day and night seem to haunt his sleep. Asked about the five interludes in the autobiography, Mphahlele explained that: ‘I would write my people and the events they were caught up in, and then literarily come to a stop and try to think about what these things were doing to me, and I found I could not express it in strict order of biography. So I decided on the method of the interlude’. (Lindfors 2011: 180). This first interlude which constitutes frag­ ments of sounds from the entire community seems also to create a break which prepares the reader for the next set of events. With his father’s absence, he is robbed of a direct role model and with a mother who is now forced to even work harder than before, there seems to be no hope for survival. Consequently, when Mphahlele enters the world of Second Avenue, it feels like a boiling cauldron that could suck him in: the overcrowded living conditions, the visible signs of squalor with children’s stools, dead dogs and cats, the constant bells announcing curfews, the ubiquitous presence of

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police cops, white children who can beat you at will and even halfcrazed blacks like Boeta Lem who wield knives and induce terror. But survive he must because that is what most of the people are doing around him. Each member of the family and community at large must help when the opportunity comes to protect the other. The scene where Mphahlele is beaten by the police as he stands guard to protect his aunt’s illicit beer business shows the reader that Mphahlele is imbibing this humanism correctly from his family. The contrast in images reveals what he is up against. At this time Mphahlele was no more than 15. As he awaited the last tin of beer, ‘two big men had jumped in the yard, and a big torch light flashed all over, swallowing up every little object around’. The irony of this narration is that Mphahlele is certainly one of the ‘little objects’. With the light all he can see is the ‘big shoulders of the white man on the sides’ and almost immediately ‘the big white hand crashed full on my cheek … I got a backhand on the mouth, and in an instant I tasted something salty. While I held my mouth the big white man caught me behind the neck and pressed my face against his other massive hand, so that I began to suffocate’ (42). The size of the police officer vis-à-vis the young Mphahlele makes the brutality of the police officer more telling and sickening. Yet the line that follows the description of this brutal incident only spells survival. The reader learns that ‘Marabastad continued to brew beer. Police continued to raid as relentlessly and to destroy’ (43). In fact, enduring the beatings from the police officer displays the way the family and community worked together. The author must be ready to die to protect his mother, aunt, and grandmother. While he endures the brutalizing of his body, he can visualize his mother ‘running about to dispose the remains and the utensils’. What shines through this remembering and reconstruction of experiences then is not just the bitterness and inhumane atmosphere in which he grew up, but the milk of humanity that induces survival. This seems to be Mphahlele’s concern or purpose of the autobiography. He explains this to Phanuel Egejuru: While looking on my own childhood, I was becoming more and more impressed by the fortitude of the Africans I lived with, not only in my family, but in the whole township; the fortitude and method of survival that kept haunting me. When I got down to writing it, I felt that this was something I wanted to emphasize even more than my individual life, I wanted my own individual life to sound very typical as, in fact, it has been, and instead of putting myself in the forefront, I made myself

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the vehicle of my people’s experiences. (133)

It is with such lenses that the characters of his mother Eva, Aunt Dora, Grandma Hibila, Ma-Lebona, and Dinku Dikae exude freshness. Eva, Mphahlele’s mom is a ‘take charge’ woman despite her relatively quiet nature compared to her sister, Dora. She knows what to do to survive and how her children can survive given the circumstances. Although she depends on family members to help her take care of the children while she works as a domestic servant in white homes, she does not abdicate her role as a parent. As Mphahlele remembers, ‘Mother was a good dressmaker. She often asked us if we were given the clothing she had made and sent for us. She never knew what happened to it’ (21). Unfortunately, Eva’s mother-in-law was not as loving and many years later, she discovered that the clothes were never given because her motherin-law thought ‘she was indulging’ the children. It is Eva who scraped and sent Mphahlele to St Peter’s School, her financial situation notwithstanding: ‘She earned £3 a month in domestic service, and the fees were £15 a year. Primary schooling also required fees and money for books for my younger brother and sister. Still she said she would send me to high school. “You’ll come back and be able to look after yourself and the two you’re leaving behind.” That’s what she said’ (123).

Eva’s belief in the value of education must have come from her own mother who had also succeeded in sending her three sons to ‘college’. Yet Eva did not limit her caring to her children only. She helped her siblings too. She was considered ‘the long-suffering patient and wise sister, always ready to help with money and advice’ (108). Her siblings reciprocate this. Her brother advises her to send Mphahlele to Adams college and opts to pay the young man’s way to Natal because as he explains ‘…you have always helped me all my years in school’ (136). Perhaps of all Mphahlele’s characters in Down Second Avenue, Eva may be the one drawn with a little sentimentality. Of Eva, he writes, ‘…my mother overwhelmed me so much I felt most bitter over my inability to thank her substantially for all she had done for me and the others. Her abundant love sometimes made me wish we could quarrel’ (152-3). Eva’s death shortly before Mphahlele gets married devastates him, and the day he is awarded his Master’s Degree with distinction in a nonEuropean graduation ceremony, he acknowledges that ‘two women stood uppermost in my mind … my late mother, how I wish she

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were alive …’ (197). Eva’s life was certainly not in vain; she had not only given her son education, she had also taught him how to survive. Eva must have also learnt this from her own mother. Hibila was a staunch Lutheran Christian and a deeply religious woman who led the family in regular morning prayers. She also ruled her house with a strict discipline code of conduct which led her to question the friends of her grand children to make sure they were worthy to keep company with her brood. Nevertheless, Grandma Hibila does not hesitate to take in Mathebula, the witch doctor from Shanganaland who was homeless. This does not only show Hibila’s African humanism, it gives her a healthy mix of the western and African patterns of behavior that Mphahlele seems to favor. It is this kind of complexity in Mphahlele’s characters that imbues this autobiography with a novelistic feel. Aunt Dora presents a similar fascinating portrait. Her omni­ presence in the family is a vital force. She is physically strong and carried out all the processes of beer brewing with ‘lightening speed’. When we first meet her, she is a ‘tough thick set woman of about twenty-five’. She is knowledgeable about everything including identifying witches although she is unable to do anything to the woman across the street who she suspects of bewitching her baby. Aunt Dora takes in washing from whites in the suburbs and is known to be capable of literally flinging a man out who hesitates to pay a debt for beer, yet she is perpetually in debt to the Indian hawker and often runs to the lavatory to keep away from him. Aunt Dora is the one the young Mphahlele runs to for help when the father pours a hot pot of food on the mother. Aunt Dora is the one who goes to question the principal ‘Big Eyes’ why he beat her nephew because he did not show up for a joint school choir practice to welcome Prince George, Duke of Kent, to South Africa. Aunt Dora makes it clear to ‘Big Eyes’ that Ezekiel should not have been beaten because it was not his fault that he had to fetch laundry and that that job is more important because that is what puts food on the table and not the visitor from England. She is very articulate on her authority to speak up for her nephew, ‘The boy is as good as mine. My sister left him in my care’ (84). It is moments like this that offer the real answers to the depressing and oppressive climate that the blacks in South Africa had to deal with. It is in bonding with each other and looking out for each other that families can survive. Aunt Dora is the one who beats up Abdul the Indian store keeper because he refuses to give her the credit she deserves for the

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amount of money she has spent in the store. In spite of Aunt Dora’s apparent strength and boisterous nature, she has had her fair share of trouble. She had to drop out of school when her father died but her considerable command of the English language from her short time in school shows that she had the potential of being an intelligent student if she had the opportunity. Her eldest daughter dies after a pot of water topples on her when she is trying to keep herself warm in the winter. She had to endure her husband whose ‘slow manner beat her down’. Nevertheless at the end it is Aunt Dora’s will to survive that remains. Like Peter Thuynsma points out ‘Aunt Dora, like Eva, his mother dominates the story. Both share the limelight as the most admirably dominating women in the author’s life. Both have an inescapable presence: Aunt Dora’s comes through physical assertion, Eva’s through a quiet, more subtle aura’ (226). The last of her we hear in Down Second Avenue is ‘Aunt Dora has five children now. She is much steadier since she came to live in Lady Selborne. Somehow her dignity makes me identify her with my mother, and I love her’ (211). And that is as it should be. Another character that embodies Mphahlele’s African humanism is Ma-Lebona. It is no surprise that the character of Ma-Lebona made its way into Mphahlele’s short fiction. She reappears as Madira in ‘The Woman’ and ‘The Woman Walks Out’. As Ursula Barnett (1976) argues, these two short stories show once more the thin dividing line between Mphahlele’s autobiographical writing and his fiction’ (79). However, Paul John Eaken argues that, for most twentieth-century autobiographers ‘memory ceases to be for them merely a convenient repository in which the past is preserved, inviolate, ready for the inspection of retrospect at any future date. … They no longer believe that autobiography can offer a faithful and unmediated reconstruction of a historically verifiable past; instead, it expresses the play of the autobiographical act itself in which materials of the past are shaped by memory and imagination to serve the needs of the present consciousness. Autobiography in our time is increasingly understood as both an art of memory and an art of imagination’ (5-6). Ma-Lebona thus comes alive in the art of Mphahlele’s imagination. In fact, Ma-Lebona is more than a presence in Second Avenue. She may be considered a busybody because she interferes with other people’s lives but in the past her actions would have been revered; she embodies the communal spirit of a forgotten past. As Obee points out ‘she is the sort of African woman who acts as a self appointed ‘unpaid

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social worker’ and ombudsman, articulating traditional values and advising anyone who will listen on such matters as how to clean a house and prepare food’ (98). She is the first to pay a visit to Dinku Dikae when he first moves to their street. Like mothers before her, she expects her daughters-in- law to be good wives by cleaning, cooking and washing around the house. Because most of them could not do this, Aunt Dora says she went into the business of running daughters-in-law. She is also concerned about other people’s children; it used to be that way. It was the whole village who raised a child. This is why she doesn’t approve of children who aimlessly sit on the shop steps. Although Mphahlele cannot remember whether Ma-Lebona’s curse came true, he seems to side with Ma-Lebona when he breaks the narration to explain that ‘…about eight out of every ten educated Africans, most of whom are also professed Christians, still believe firmly in the spirits of their ancestors. We don’t speak to one another about it among the educated. But when we seek moral guidance and inspiration and hope, somewhere in the recesses of our being, we grope around for some link with those spirits’ (64). There’s almost a sense of nostalgia for that cosmic world where there is a continuum between the world of the living and the dead. Things are changing and Ma-Lebona too becomes a victim of the changing South Africa. She not only receives a slap from her daughter-in-law, but by the time she dies Marabastad has moved and she dies at a location away from home, away from the shroud she had made for herself and away from the graveyard she would have preferred where her other relatives were buried. These incidents further point to the theme of alienation running through the whole autobiography. Nevertheless Ma-Lebona is not a one dimensional character. She is a strong woman. She had once been a school mistress and is proud of the education she is giving her children. Unfortunately her educated background does not sit well with her uneducated listeners. Like Aunty Dora, she can be controlling. Even though the blacks are oppressed by an imposed white structure, they are not automatically presented as perfect human beings with no flaws of their own. Mphahlele does not create a black community that is a utopia, he shows that there were bad blacks. For example, Moses, his father violently hurts his mother, Eva and Aunt Dora also attacks Abdul. Even more mindless is the violence and fear embodied in the character of Boeta Lem. He is

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not only an ex-convict guilty of murder who terrorizes Marabastad; he also rapes a girl at knife point. Unfortunately, Boeta Lem has followers. He ‘collected a nice bunch of hangers-on about him. They hero-worshipped him as an ex-convict.’ Despite these negative forces from within the black community, Mphahlele seems to draw positive energy from the strong women around him. As he said in his biography Exiles and Homecoming, ‘it was the resilience and ruggedness of character of the women of Second Avenue that took over and mapped out some new paths for me to follow’ (in Manganyi, 41). What the growing Ezekiel learns from these strong women around him is the communal ethics and he takes his place in the communal circle of his family. He cooks and cleans understanding that his aunt and grandmother ‘did white people’s washings all day’; his uncles are too big for the chores and his siblings are too small. In spite of the fact that he has to help with collecting washing which needs him to sometimes walk for seven miles, he still finds time to do school work when everyone has gone to bed. Like Richard Wright in his autobiography Black Boy, Mphahlele is gripped with hunger but his hunger is of a different nature – it is hunger for knowledge. This seems to be fueled because he has been labeled as backward. The ‘backward’ label did not last too long. Mphahlele made quick progress in school and was soon a professional reader amongst his friends. In the era of silent films, they relied on him to ‘read the dialogue and titles on screen aloud so they might all follow the story’ (50). The manner in which he learned to read showed his industriousness. As he explains ‘I used to pick up any piece of printed paper to read, whatever it was. It became a mania with me. I couldn’t let the printed matter pass … I read and read, till it hurt’ (51). This is how he overcame his backward label and ended up passing standard six with first class. With his entry into St Peter’s, Mphahlele enters a new world. The environment of Marabastad only presented brief although crushing encounters with whites. The force of a white world represented by the constant police raids was still something outside. Although the reader can tell that the poverty in Marabastad is fostered by this oppressive white world, it is not yet evident on the growing Mphahlele. The teleological structure of Down Second Avenue provides the author with a linear trajectory which makes it possible for the author to use the knowledge of the end to comment on the

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beginning. Mphahlele ends Down Second Avenue with exile from his homeland. He cannot survive under the stranglehold of apartheid imposed by the nationalist government. It is from this vantage point that he selects those incidents that build up to prove how exile became the only option. In St Peter’s, Mphahlele is introduced to another world; here, he comes in close contact with whites but these whites exude a humanism which accommodates him and his fellow black students inside the school premises, but outside the walls of St Peter’s there is trouble. The system of apartheid created a dividing line between whites and blacks which is blurred inside the walls of St Peter’s. Mphahlele and his friends have a rude awakening when they take a chance by entering a double-decker bus for Europeans only. The bus conductor turns them out and they are forced to walk four miles on foot to school. With this experience the reader begins to see anger making its way into Mphahlele’s consciousness. As he notes ‘Every step I took that afternoon seemed to accentuate the pulse of my anger against the whites and my hatred for them’ (127).Yet there is no means of channeling this anger towards any definite purpose. When Ezekiel impulsively shouts insultingly to a pair of white motorists who drive into students forcing them to jump in the bush, he is reprimanded. The Yorkshire headmaster of St Peter’s asks ‘Do you want us thrown out by the European people from this place?’ (127). While white liberal Christian humanism in St Peter’s is commendable, it doesn’t seem prepared to go all the way to ensure the humanity of blacks beyond their borders. This contrasts sharply with the African humanism of grandma Hibila, Eva, and Aunt Dora who are willing and committed to sacrificing their own lives for those they care for. For all the grandeur and humanism of St Peter’s, Mphahlele’s implied conclusion is that it did not really anticipate a growing political, spiritual, and racial alienation which will eventually provide the base for Mphahlele’s break with Christianity and also lead to his protest against the Bantu Education Act. If the establishment in St Peter’s failed to give guidance on how the black students should react to whites after school, they seem to find answers amongst their peers. It is through the debates in St Peters’, especially the words of the fire-brand, Zephaniah, that Mphahlele begins to make the connections between lives in Marabastad with what is going on in the larger South African society. It is no surprise that he teams up later with Zephaniah in the Transvaal Teachers’ Association to protest the Bantu Education Act. The process of

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connecting the world of Marabastad and the one without takes root surreptitiously, ‘I was beginning to put into their proper places the scattered experiences of my life in Pretoria. Poverty; my mother’s resignation; Aunt Dora’s toughness; grandmother, whose ways bridged the past with the present, sticking to neither at any one time; police raids; ten-to-ten curfew bell; encounters with whites; humiliations. But I only succeeded in reconstructing the nightmare which in turn harassed my powers of understanding’ (128). Once outside the walls of St Peter’s, the trouble with whites built up which Mphahlele captures in the chapter aptly titled ‘trouble with whites’. The title itself carries a duality of meaning as every encounter with whites leaves Mphahlele scarred, reminding him of his second class status in South Africa. The examples abound; there is his boss, ‘a tall forbidding colossus’ (136) who refuses to respond to his frequent ‘Good mornings’. There are all the other whites who ‘boy’ed, jim’ed and john’ed’ him here and there refusing to accord him his own identity by using his real name and a few times he had ‘white lads chasing me in order to beat me up for rudeness and “to put the Kaffir in his place” ’ (137). All these encounters create anxiety and a growing sensitivity. Mphahlele explains ‘I took offense at the slightest remark from a white man if I vaguely suspected that it was meant for me. I had chronic emotional upsets; so that the more I tried to think things out the faster my spleen seemed to fill up. I woke up nights in a cold sweat’ (137). As Mphahlele becomes sensitive to the oppressive white presence around him, so too the oppressive white laws are becoming visible. The ‘Hertzog Bills’ allowed for blacks to only vote communally for white representatives in parliament and also communally for the native Representative Council. But the dreary political climate is already claiming victims. The birth of the African National Congress in Pretoria provides opportunity for political activism. When Dikae kills a policeman because he insults his family, one gets a sense that it was inevitable. Dinku Dikae stoically receives his death sentence with no remorse. He kills because there seems to be no other way. It was a question of time. From the time he witnesses a policeman shoot a young boy from behind because the people were resisting eviction from their town, he develops a phobia which haunts him whenever he is around policemen. But the death of the young boy is only one of the many incidents that rob Dinku Dikae of his humanity. He is forced to witness the death of his pregnant wife because there is

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no doctor to come to her aid. Then he is forced to live in Prospect Township where everyone is forced to sell beer or work for the white man. To make matters worse the government forcefully evicts them from Prospect Township. Mphahlele allows Dikae to narrate this so the reader can be immersed directly in his world. Dikae’s frequent refrain of ‘God be my witness’ does not only create pathos it makes his story believable. Mphahlele shows his support for Dinku Dikae when he recalls ‘I remember feeling how strong and pure his body looked as he was led out of the court by the police. I saw him again a few days before I left Pretoria. He looked more composed, stronger and surer than I had ever seen him’ (142) and even grandmother seems to side with Dikae because she did not say ‘death for death-that was Paul Kruger’s law’ (142). Beyond identifying with Dikae, what shines through this episode is the way the community rallies around Rebone. Aunt Dora and Grandma Hibila run to the scene when Rebone informs them of what had happened. Mphahlele also maintains his relationship and love for Rebone long after her father’s arrest and subsequent death. Unfortunately Mphahlele’s African humanism does not seem to cure the deep cuts apartheid seems to be making in his soul. After graduating from Adams College, he lands a job with Orlando High School. This achievement also coincides with his marriage to Rebecca, and unfortunately it is at this time that his hardworking mother dies. The interlude that follows this section begins ‘Marabastad is gone, but there will always be Marabastads …’ Indeed Marabastad is gone with the deaths of Eva, Mphahlele’s mother, Siki, the tubercular guitarist, Rebone, and Ma-Lebona. However it is the death of Marabastad itself that seems to have a real and symbolic meaning: ‘They call it slum clearance instead of conscience clearance, to fulfill a pact with conscience which says: never be at rest as long as the Black man’s giant shadow continues to fall on your house (157). Mphahlele’s outcry against the destruction of Marabastad echoes the similar destruction of other townships in the works of South African writers such as Bloke Modisane in Blame me on History, Can Themba’s The Will to Die and Modikwe Dikobe’s The Marabi Dance. This wanton destruction was as a result of the 1950 Group Areas Act which gave the white government the right to demolish any township they so wished in order to build a white settlement. Mphahlele personifies Marabastad to indicate that its destruction is also the collective

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destruction of the people who were its inhabitants. It is an assault on their identity, an attempt to erase their history and sense of self. Yet in spite of these images of death and destruction there is a certain defiance and will to survive. Therefore the destruction in itself will not wipe away the presence of Blacks even though their lives are steeped in poverty and squalor. Anger and frustration are becoming evident in Mphahlele’s narrative and there is a need for him to find that space of stability where he can feel human. Gaining more and more certificates of learning, marriage, and a job at Orlando High School seem to provide that temporary shelter, but the reality of the life of a black man in South Africa continues to torture his existence. He is forced to teach Afrikaans, the language of the oppressor which was an instrument of oppression and source of humiliation. Then things come to a head with the Bantu Education Act. According to Mphahlele the code of syllabuses was ‘for a race of slaves; for pupils who were not expected to change as well as be changed by the environment but to fit themselves into it’ (167). The textbooks meant for African schools distorted history to favor white superiority. Even the grammar books where replete with examples like ‘the Kaffir has stolen a knife; that is a lazy Kaffir’ (167). As the secretary for Transvaal Teachers Association he protests the ban and this leads to his dismissal from the profession which he adored. The effect of this ban is made all the more financially painful because he now has a young family to support. To compound this problem, this period of unemployment exposes him to the nightmare of the pass laws. He recounts ‘I reported every week as the law demanded. Here I joined one of the many queues of black men, each holding a bunch of papers he understood little or nothing about, but which directed their lives hither and thither. They moved from one office to another of the many. To have their papers rubber-stamped by white officials. Papers telling their bearers where they may work or stay and where not; papers telling others that they must go back to the Reserves if they won’t accept farm labor under white employees… (176). Because of his skin color and in spite of his education he can only get a job as a factory invoice clerk and only manages to keep the job for a week. As a teacher he was exempt from the Pass Laws even though that never prevented him from being locked up for one reason or the other. Without his teaching job, he was forced to ‘masquerade’ as a teacher but eventually he had no choice but to get one. With a Pass book Mphahlele becomes a foreigner in his own land, and it is

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not surprising that it is at this time that he also severs his ties with the church. His alienation from the church highlights the erosion of what is supposed to be another safety net for him. However the reality around him exposes the double standards of Christianity This is what Thema had already noted in Maupaneng and it must have registered somewhere in the young Mphahlele’s mind. It was a question of time for him to understand that for himself. Moving to Orlando, the squalor and poverty of neighboring Shanty Town was enough to recall the same on Second Avenue. The result: In 1947, I decided not to go to church any longer ... Fellowship? Love? Obedience of the law? Suddenly I did not know what these meant in terms of my place in society, and I revolted against such preachments. How could I adopt an attitude of passive resistance towards the ruling clique and their electorate who a year later, were to dedicate themselves to the cause of white supremacy by voting to Parliament a bunch of lawless Voortrekker descendants whose safety lies in the hands of stungun-happy police youngsters? (163)

Mphahlele’s disillusionment only gets worse as his narrative moves towards the end. His inability to teach only intensifies his feelings of acute frustration. From what he was witnessing, the church and state seem to be in alliance. White churchgoers did not change their attitude towards Blacks and it seems Christianity was meant to subjugate blacks and to make them subservient to white rule. Even in the case of the Bantu Education Act, ‘some denominations merely acquiesced to the Government’s order without the twitch of a hair. Others again even tried to justify Bantu Education’ ( 192). It becomes therefore very clear to Mphahlele that belonging to the church is joining forces with the oppressor since the church is part of the white establishment. His break with the church then is inevitable: ‘I questioned the necessity of religion. I got stuck and suspended belief and disbelief indefinitely’ (164). Having suspended church and Christian belief, it was time for Mphahlele to express this and he got an opportunity. One of Mphahlele’s students was arrested and beaten by the police on his bare buttocks leaving weals even though he had his Pass on him. A charge was made against the police officer but each time the case came on, the police officer was never present. It was the same scenario with Rebecca, Mphahlele’s wife. Six months before the incident with his student, a police officer had handled her roughly as a result of an argument involving a train ticket and Rebecca sustained a sprained ankle as

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a result. Every time the case came up the accused police officer reported ill. With these two incidents unresolved, Father Wardle picked a wrong time to question Mphahlele about his church dues and attendance. His response to this situation is worth quoting at length because it details his alienation from Christianity: Just now, I don’t think it’s fair for anybody to tell me to expect a change of heart among a bunch of madmen who are determined not to cede an inch, or to listen to reason. It is unfair to ask me to subsist on mission school sermons about Christian conduct and passive resistance in circumstances where it is considered a crime to be decent; where a policeman will run me out of my house at the point of a sten gun when I try to withhold my labour. For years I have been told by white and Black preachers to love my neighbour; love him when there’s a bunch of whites who reckon they are Israelites come out of Egypt in obedience to God’s order to come civilize heathens; a bunch of whites who feed on the symbolism of God’s race venturing into the desert among the ungodly. For years now I have been thinking it was all right for me to feel spiritually strong after a church service. And now I find it is not the kind of strength that answers the demand of suffering humanity around me. It doesn’t even seem to answer the longings of my own heart. (178)

Mphahlele’s anger and sense of betrayal is palpable. His language is forthright as he tells Father Wardle all the various oppressive acts that apartheid sanctions for which the church does not seem to oppose. With his estrangement from the church, the void in him only got bigger and the feelings of helplessness more acute. It is interesting to note that the year before that he had published his collection of short stories, Man Must Live. Perhaps in writing he had found a new outlet for the ‘longings’ of his heart. It, however, did not look like it because he still carried his hunger for teaching. Olney notes that ‘the classic pattern of South African autobiography describes a progressive alienation that forced to extreme, becomes spiritual and physical exile’ (1973, 250). Mphahlele’s autobiography seems to fit this mold. His first shot at exile is when he accepts a teaching job in Basutoland protectorate, but he finds no solace: I went to Basutoland in search of something ... Once I had landed on the soil of Moshoeshoe’s country, the quest seemed never to come to an end ... Dawn came and announced victory. The quest had come to an end, if the mere knowing of it seems to be the end. I knew then what I had been looking for: a fatally beautiful lady called bitterness. (184-6)

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The return to his home country is only a temporary one, his academic degrees notwithstanding. By 1957 he had received a B.A, ABA, and a Masters degree with distinction, all from the University of South Africa. The qualifications may even have contributed to the emptiness because he could not do what he really wanted to do with his acquired learning which was to teach. Although he ends up taking a job with Drum magazine in Johannesburg, it does not satisfy the longing in his heart. The final interlude displays a teacher, scholar and writer trapped: ‘things close in upon you; you find yourself in a tightly closed-up room. There seems no way out’ (202). With the knowledge that he can never ‘be’ in apartheid South Africa, Mphahlele accepts a teaching position at the CMS Grammar School in Lagos, Nigeria, and begins what was to become aR 20 year exile from his homeland. He concludes his autobiography with an epilogue which finds him ‘in the spacious garden of a Lagos house’ writing the epilogue to his autobiography while celebrating the joy of being free and welcoming the exposure ‘to the impacts of as many ways of life as possible’ (222). Despite this seemingly ‘happy’ ending for the author, what remains with the reader is the survival of the Blacks he leaves behind in the slums of South Africa. Second Avenue ceases to be a place; it becomes a condition for the blacks who are suffocating under the inhuman laws of apartheid. However, there is a sense that they will continue to survive if they can continue to rely on one another, helping each other out. As Mphahlele observes: ‘Family and social relationships form one of the strongest pillars on which humanism rests: I am because you are; we are because you are. The complex pattern of social relationships, which has endured for centuries and keeps surfacing in different forms after being truncated by the money economy, migrant labor, loss of land and the creation of white urban areas – these relationships are another pillar of African humanism. Whatever happens, human life must survive as a collective or communal force’ (‘Notes’, 138). Indeed, strong women like Eva, Dora, Hibila, and Ma-Lebona provide models for this family and social network in Down Second Avenue. This is Es’kia Mphahlele’s truth and a source of the enduring appeal of Down Second Avenue.

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WORKS CITED Barnett, Ursula. Ezekiel Mphahlele. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976. Eakin, Paul John. Fictions of Autobiography: Studies in the Art of Self-Invention. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Egejuru, Phanuel. Towards African Literary Independence: A Dialogue with Contemporary African Writers. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1980. Gunn, Janet Varner. ‘“A Window of Opportunity”: An Ethics of Reading Third World Autobiography.’ College Literature 19.3 (Oct.-Feb. 1992): 162. Rpt. in Literature of Developing Nations for Students: Presenting Analysis, Con­text, and Criticism on Literature of Developing Nations. Ed. Elizabeth Bel­la­louna, Michael L. LaBlanc, and Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 1. Detroit: http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.lib.uconn.edu/ps/i. do?id=GALE%7CH 142003 1294&v =2.1 &u= 22516 &it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w Lindfors, Bernth. Early Black South African Writing in English. New York: Africa World Press, 2011. Manganyi, Chabani. Exiles and Homecomings: A Biography of Es’kia Mphahlele. Johannes­ burg: Ravan Press, 1983. __ and David Atwell. Bury Me at the Market Place: Letters 1943-2006. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2010. Mphahlele, Ezekiel. Down Second Avenue. London: Faber and Faber, 1959. __ The African Image. London: Faber and Faber, 1962. __ ‘On Negritude in Literature,’ The Rand Daily Mail, Johannesburg, June 7, 1968 in Alan L. McLeod and Marian B. McLeod, eds, Power Above Powers: Representative South African Speeches, the Rhetoric of Race and Religion (Mysore, India: University of Mysore, 1980) http://www.blackpast.org/?q=tree/Since+1961/Since+1961 __ ‘Notes Towards an Introduction to African Humanism: A personal Inquiry-1992’ in Es’Kia. Johannesburg: Kwela Books, 2002. Obee, Ruth. Es’kia Mphahlele. Themes of Alienation and African Humanism. Ohio Univer­ sity Press, 1999. Olney, James. Tell Me Africa: An Approach to African Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973. __ Metaphors of Self. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972. Thuynsma, Peter. N. ‘Es’kia Mphahlele: Man and a Whirlwind’. Perspectives on South African English Literature. Ed. Chapman, Michael, Gardner, Colin and Mphahlele, Es’kia. Parklands: Ad. Donker Publishers, 1992.

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A Tribute to Cyprian O.D. Ekwensi (26 SEPTEMBER 1921 – 4 NOVEMBER 2007)

The Writer, the Man & His Era ERNEST N. EMENYONU

When Cyprian O. D. Ekwensi quietly passed into eternity on Sunday 4 November 2007, Nigeria, Africa and indeed the whole literary world lost a most endowed and gifted artist. Cyprian Ekwensi was one of a kind – versatile, dexterous, humorous, kind-hearted but firm and principled, affable and charitable, but strict in his ways and rarely ostentatious. He had no need to be. His death at 86 must have surprised him at the critical point of the rite of passage. Longevity is a known virtue in his lineage. He hoped he would equal or surpass his late mother’s age of 101, or at the very least break even with his late father’s 98 years. Even if he didn’t realise it on this side of the planet, he now knows that he certainly outlived his parents, for a writer like Cyprian Ekwensi does not die. He lives eternally in his works, and they are, literally speaking, countless. Ekwensi was a writer for all seasons and all ages. He wrote for children, adolescents, adults and the aged. He wrote for men and women. His primary goal was to amuse, to entertain, and to raise the moral questions that besiege humanity at critical periods of development. As a writer he saw himself very much as an avid photographer behind a camera, which was his greatest hobby. When he stood behind the camera he reproduced the image as it showed through the lens. His guiding principle as a writer was to hold a mirror up to the people of his society and describe faithfully the reflections that he saw. It often puzzled him why and how people could quarrel with his depictions of reality in a novel like Jagua Nana (1961), his most popular and controversial creative work. The central character is a magnificently fashionable but raw prostitute in her forties in love with a young teacher in his late twenties who hoped she would sponsor him to travel to England to study law. She on her part hoped he would marry and support 162

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her in her old age. So what? Ekwensi knew her type existed in the emerging Nigerian urban centers. And when an undergraduate at the University of Ibadan (then University College, Ibadan) tore his copy of the novel to shreds and publicly denounced it as pornographic and a corrupter of youth, Ekwensi countered with: I have never bothered to reply to any of the nonsense that has been written by the illiterate and uninformed like yourself. But I am writing to you for the simple reason that there is SOME hope. You are young, you are in a very highly respected University (hence the tragedy of it all). You stand a chance of having your erroneous views at least reorientated. Not necessarily by me. I am too emotionally close to all this rubbish. Let’s begin at the beginning. The function of a novelist. A least ONE of them: To hold a mirror up to nature. This particular mirror shows you naked, ashamed, exposed and bleeding. The reflection is terrifying and ghastly. Therefore, what do you do? You cry out. Throw a cloth over the mirror. It cannot be true! Are you now – in the hypocritical manner to which I have since resigned my ears – going to tell me that there are NO PROSTITUTES IN NIGERIA, in Ekotedo Ibadan; or that school teachers can never fall in love with prostitutes? (Morning Post, Lagos, 23 January 1964)

However, the Nigerian parliament at the time apparently sided with the undergraduate student and others like him who only saw pornography and no art in Jagua Nana. For, shortly after its publication, an Italian film company, Ultra Films of Italy, repre­ senting five international film industries, acquired the rights to film it. The year was 1961 shortly after the Nigerian independence. The parliament arbitrarily stopped the filming giving the novel the historic identity of being the first Nigerian novel to be debated on the floor of parliament. The morally conscious parliamentarians maintained that Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation which had just obtained her independence ‘on a platter of gold’, should not be so soon seen through the eyes of a rumbunctious prostitute! But Ekwensi was not the kind of wrestler who could be discounted because his knee had touched the ground. In the decade after the debacle of Jagua Nana, Ekwensi’s creative prolificity and effusive versatility simply exploded. He published 11 (eleven) books – Burning Grass (1962), Yaba Roundabout Murder (1962), An African Night’s Entertainment (1962), Beautiful Feathers (1963), The Great Elephant Bird (1965), The Rainmaker and Other Stories (1965), Iska (1966), Trouble in Form Six (1966), Juju Rock (1966), Lokotown and Other Stories (1966), The Boa Suitor (1966).

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As a writer Cyprian O. D. Ekwensi has left his footprints indelibly on the sands of time. He was a pioneer in many fronts. An early book People of the City (1954) is credited with being the first modern West African novel in English, Burning Grass (1962), was the first full-length novel to deal with the life realities of the nomadic pastoralist Fulani of Northern Nigeria and Drummer Boy (1960) was the beginning of the reading of fiction for most Nigerian children in their early school years. When Love Whispers (1948) written in the last weekend of February 1948 and published soon after (to boost the earnings of a rising entrepreneur bookseller in Yaba, Lagos) unquestionably marked the beginning of pamphlet literature in Nigeria. Pamphlet literature would later flourish into the popular Onitsha Market Literature. Ekwensi who was a young school teacher at the time fell in love with his sweetheart and wanted to marry her. Her father scorned him and dashed his hopes. His daughter’s hand in marriage was only to be asked for by men in respectable professions – lawyers, doctors, engineers and the like, not a mere teacher! Ekwensi, deeply hurt by this humiliation, wrote When Love Whispers. It was his own story and he dedicated the novel to the girl in question. His moral position in the pamphlet was that by their objections to a marriage decided by their daughters, parents force the daughters into marriages of convenience, without spark and without feeling. And with that personal love story, Cyprian O. D. Ekwensi had unconsciously founded an inimitable literary tradition in Nigeria, Pamphlet (Onitsha Market) Literature. He styled himself the Grandfather of the Nigerian novel but indeed he was more than that. He remains one of the best short story writers that the African continent has ever produced, and certainly one of the most enigmatic African writers of the twentieth century. In his final testimony of himself, Ekwensi’s as yet unpublished autobiography, In My Time, documents for posterity the candid endeavors and contributions of a writer, fluent in the three Nigerian major languages, who traversed widely the Nigerian landscape, observed it meticulously, recorded the truth as he saw and perceived it, and wrote for the entertainment of the masses seen by him as those reading and enjoying what many academic literary critics could not understand, and in their blindness, threw stones at the author! But who was Cyprian Ekwensi, the man? An Igbo, born in Minna, Niger State, in Northern Nigeria, Cyprian Ekwensi did not come home to his village Nkwelle, near Ogidi in Anambra State, till

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he was a full-grown man. His father, David Anadumaka Ekwensi (the name Ekwensi is really a shortened form of ‘Aniekwensimem’ – may the goddess Ani (Earth) protect me from all evil) moved his family from their ancestral homeland to Minna in 1919 two years before Cyprian was born. For nearly half a century, the patriarch Ekwensi made his home in Minna, earning his living as a dexterous carpenter, an industrious farmer and an indefatigable elephant hunter. He moved his family back to Nkwelle in 1966 at the outbreak of the hostilities leading to the Nigerian Civil war. An Igbo, born in far away Northern Nigeria, growing up among Hausa playmates in school and at home, the only way Cyprian could retain his Igbo heritage was by a careful process of induction and acculturation in the home. His father saw to it that young Cyprian imbibed aspects of Igbo philosophy and attitude to life through the numerous Igbo tales, myths and legends which he passed on to him. Cyprian was later to document these tales in his first published collection of Igbo folktales entitled Ikolo the Wrestler and other Ibo Tales (1947). In the home too, Cyprian was taught the Igbo language so that he was privileged to grow up speaking both Igbo and Hausa as first languages. He was later to add Yoruba as an adolescent. As a grown man, Cyprian had many peculiarities which affected his style and manner of life. He believed that the secret of living to a good ripe old age lies in not being addicted to the cushioned life of artificial luxuries but rather in giving the body a fairly hard grind and in being as close to nature as possible. He rarely turned on the air-conditioner in his car. The fans in his room were only sparingly used, perhaps to indulge guests. Cyprian himself would not exchange anything natural for the artificial or the superficial. Instead of the air-conditioner, the fresh air that blows through the windows of a house or car was preferred. Locally grown foods were preferred to imported packages. He told with relish how his mother served (and they loved it) visiting white American friends whom he took to Nkwelle, the traditional unpeeled boiled yam with fresh raw oil, salt and pepper for breakfast. Cornflakes, sausages and the like were, of course, not beyond the Ekwensi household by any stretch of imagination. An avid coffee drinker, Ekwensi’s choice was the rough and tough local brew, the Abeokuta coffee. A pharmacist by training and profession, Ekwensi’s favourite prescription for the cure of iba (jaundice/malaria) was the boiled concoction of lemon grass and other herbs. This love of nature may have been

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something that young Cyprian imbibed from his father who as an elephant hunter must have experienced the rustic side of life in thick forests and lonely bush paths as Cyprian was to do years later, in a more scientific manner as a forestry student. In his real life there was an effort to be both a city man and a rural dweller. But no one who knew him closely was in doubt as to where his heart really was. Although he had retired from public service and had no compelling reason to stay in Lagos, and although he had a beautiful home in an alluring low density area of the Independence Layout, Enugu; Ekwensi lived in the most hectic part of Surulere, Lagos, and commuted the long distances on Nigeria’s unpredictable highways to (for him), suburban Enugu whenever he chose. Yet Enugu, the capital of Enugu State is a lively city in its own right. But it did not have for Ekwensi the dense anonymity of Lagos nor did it have the madness, the chaos, the hustle and bustle of Lagos which enchanted Ekwensi and informed his creativity. He once described Enugu as ‘a place where everyone knows what goes on in everyone else’s backyard’. By the time he turned 65 in 1986, Cyprian Ekwensi had written an average of one book for every two years he had lived, and about two short stories for every year of his life. He had written several plays for the radio and filmscripts for the screen. The key word about his real life as well as his literary career was versatility. His writings deal with love, infatuation, infidelity, war, adventure, fantasy, politics, childhood, marriage, death and ritual sacrifice, to mention but a few of his multifarious themes. He collected folktales. He wrote about life in Yorubaland, Hausaland, and Igbo land. He wrote about the Ijaw, the Efik, and the Urhobo. He traversed the different varieties of the Nigerian vegetation in his fiction and waded through the vicissitudes of life in Nigeria’s new urban environments. As early as 1956, a writer in West African Review had commented on Ekwensi’s multiple interests and intellectual endeavors: There are two Cyprian Ekwensis, Cyprian Ekwensi, the Nigerian novelist, broadcaster, short story writer, the man who lives in the world of ink and literature – and Cyprian Ekwensi, the pharmacist, the man of the whitecoat, dispensing medicine, sterilising injections and controlling drugs.

In 1956 there may have been two Ekwensis. By 2007 there had been several Ekwensis. By turns a teacher, a journalist, a pharma­ cist, a diplomat, a businessman, a company director, a public rela­

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tions consultant, a photographer, a graphic artist, an ingenious think-tank, an information consultant, a writer and a moulder of public opinion. In his fiction he had reflected this mixed grill often producing a kind of hodge-podge which amused many, excited some and irritated a few. Cyprian Ekwensi played without regrets, leading roles in Biafra during the civil war; first, as Chairman of the Bureau for External Publicity for Biafra (1967-69) and later as Controller-General, Broadcasting Corporation of Biafra, in the few months before the end of the war in January 1970. Until his death he firmly believed that the cause for which millions of Igbo people lost their lives during the civil war, had not been seriously addressed by successive post-war Nigerian governments. He believed that the continued chaotic political situations in present day Nigeria were largely attributable to Nigerian rulers continuing to treat the Igbo ethnic group as foreigners in their own fatherland. Throughout his writing career, Cyprian Ekwensi earned for him­self the reputation of being a sensational writer, a reveller in topicality, and a novelist perpetually concerned with urban distrac­ tions and their consequences on youth especially young women. But however readers and literary critics perceived him as a writer, he was of all Nigerian writers of his era, one novelist whose work was likely to be picked up while one did the weekly groceries or waited at a police check-point, or during a traffic ‘go-slow’. Ekwensi seemed to ask for nothing more! He loved to entertain Nigerians of all ages through his writings, and he will surely be missed by Nigerians of all ages to the end of time! Adieu, Cyprian!!!

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R EVI EW S LOUISE UCHUM EGBUNIKE

EDITED BY JAMES GIBBS

Jack Mapanje. And Crocodiles are Hungry at Night. Banbury: Ayebia, 2011, 433pp., £12.99; ISBN 978-0-9562401-7-0

Asked whether ‘anything good came from his time in prison’, Jack Mapanje once said that while detained he ‘continued to write in (his) head.’ It seems that he ‘produced twenty-five poems’ and thought when he was released he would write them down. However, though he remembered the titles, he couldn’t recall all the lines, and, he says ‘There are … two or three that I haven’t recovered yet.’ While hoping that those will re-emerge, we are fortunate to have a collection of poems from Mikuyu, among the most moving of which is ‘Scrubbing The Furious Walls of Mikuyu’, in which, instructed to clean off the ‘insolent scratches’, the ‘brave squiggles’, that represented a history on concrete of what had happened in the detention centre, the poet describes throwing his ‘water and mop/ Elsewhere.’ And Crocodiles are Hungry at Night is another ‘good’ that has come from his time in prison; it has been slowly squeezed out of suffering and makes for painful reading. Mapanje confronts us with the persecuted poet attempting to recollect emotions and experiences in relative tranquillity. He relives his time in Mikuyu and brings before the reader the humiliations, privations, and mental anguish he endured. The issue that filled his waking moments as a detainee surfaces as he repeatedly sifts his past in order to try to understand his present, asking what made his country punish him by condemning him to such a stinking hole. The opening of the prison gate and the years that have followed have not brought a full answer to that question and it still pounds in his temples. And Crocodiles was published some twenty years after Mapanje 168

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left Mikuyu, and in that time he and his family have grown up and old in England. However, the echo of his arrest at the Zomba Gymkhana Club on 25 September 1987 and the shadow of Mikuyu where he spent more than three years can still be heard and seen. On that day, at that Club, all was changed, changed utterly, and he asks why. Mapanje brings to the writing of this memoir not only a disci­ plined approach to the dredging of memory but also a sophisticated awareness of the traditions of prison writing. In the UK, he has taught courses and edited volumes on what is sometimes referred to as ‘the literature of incarceration’. He has steeped himself in the genre with the result that And Crocodiles is subtly structured and employs a variation on the form of the prison diary. That is to say: although, he dates entries, we know, since he could not write in prison, that he has begun by mining his memory for the material he shares. The closing chapters bring together encounters from the postprison years that throw light on his arrest and detention. He records, for example, how, while visiting Malawi during November 1997, he was drawn aside by a ‘ghost from the past’, Sam Kakhobwe, who had been with him at school and had been secretary to the president and cabinet in September 1987. With a wealth of circumstantial detail and total recall of dialogue, Kakhobwe told him about what happened to him on 25 September 1987. The day had included an urgent summons from Hastings Banda’s private secretary, Mary Kadzamira, a helicopter ride, and a meeting at Sanjika Palace with the Inspector General of Police and the Army chief (yes, there is a literary reference to ‘we three’). Then there was the passing by of John Tembo and Katola Phiri ‘without even a nod’, and then the sudden appearance from the same direction of Banda who said: ‘I’ve been told there’s a young man called Jack Mapanje in the department of English at Chancellor College, University of Malawi. Arrest him. Put him in prison and there let him rot, rot, rot forever. D’you hear?’ (418). Mapanje, who repeats without comment the inclusion of the, surely redundant, ‘University of Malawi’ in Banda’s statement, then recalls Kakhobwe’s analysis – the observation that whenever Banda used the formula ‘I’ve been told’ it meant that ‘the self-styled royal family’ had fed him the information (419). By the ‘self-styled royals’ Mapanje gestured towards the Tembo-Kadzamira faction, for whom he has a dozen scornful, ironic or insulting titles. Ruminating on the episode, he concludes that ‘almost by accident’ he had learned

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‘how, though not why’ he had been sent to prison. For the ‘why’ one could profitably interrogate members of the ‘royal family’. In fact, some questioning had already taken place before Kakhobwe gave his account. In May 1994, Brown Mpinganjira, once Mapanje’s fellow detainee in Mikuyu but at that time Minister of Information and on his way to becoming a presidential candidate, had already felt the collar of the member of the royal family closest to Mapanje, his ‘line-manager’ at Chancellor College, Zimani David Kadzamira. In the chapter headed ‘Brown’s Story’, we read of a narrative shared in York in which Mpinganjira recalled his encounter with Kadzamira, when the latter, who has a knack of landing on his feet, was Malawi’s ambassador in Japan. The urbane Kadzamira was flushed and inarticulate when Mpinganjira asked straight out: ‘Mr Ambassador, why did you and your family get Jack Mapanje arrested and imprisoned?’ (414). ‘Brown’ continues his ‘Story’: I’ve never seen a black man go suddenly blacker in the dazzling corridor of his own house! For the diplomat twisted his lips, swallowed his consonants and vowels, sighed and gasped the most incomprehensible noises I have ever heard. He mumbled something about how powerless he had always been. How difficult his uncle and sister were. And how he had always wanted them to change their ways.

Mpinganjira explains, ‘From the way the Ambassador agonises over the answer, totally taken aback, I got the message..’ From this I deduce that Mpinganjira saw Kadzamira’s behaviour as an abject, grovelling acknowledgement of responsibility (That was ‘the message’ he got.) Zimani David Kadzamira, by turns lecturer, senior lecturer, professor, principal, vice-chancellor, ambassador, claimed that he had been powerless and shifted the blame to his relatives. His sister, Cecilia, and uncle, John Tembo, have certainly shown themselves to be adept and durable politicians. Cecilia started as a nurse/ secretary and became ‘Official Hostess’, First Lady, ‘Mama’ and, according to some, Banda’s wife and widow. Tembo was, at various times, Chairman of the Bank of Malawi, Minister of Finance, Chairman of the Malawi Congress Party, and Chairman of the University Council. He survived Banda’s decline and fall to become a presidential hopeful and leader of the opposition. In Banda’s Malawi of the late 1980s – and 25 September 1987 is the crucial date – there were manoeuvrings with several factions circling Banda. Political heavyweights were fighting and grass was being trampled underfoot. It is possible that at some point it served

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the royals’ turn to be able to produce a traitor at the heart of the University. Perhaps, and one awaits close analysis of the workings of those nearest to Banda, Mapanje was sacrificed to the need for Tembo to show how vigilant he was as chairman of the university council, and what a tight ship he was running on the Chirunga campus. Mpinganjira has an end-note to his account of Kadzamira in Japan that may further imply a feeling of guilt – or perhaps just reveal a consummate politician interested in knowing ‘how the land lies’. As the Minister of Information was leaving, Kadzamira asked him: ‘What does Jack think of me now?’(oh, what a weight falls on that ‘now’!). Mpinganjira’s reply included the sentence: ‘But let me reassure you of one thing, Jack is so worried about how to make ends meet for himself and his family in exile that I would be surprised if he ever thinks of you at all.’ However, And Crocodiles gives the lie to this assessment. The 433-page volume suggests that, while working to provide for himself and his family in a strange land, Mapanje has certainly been thinking of Kadzamira. Summoning up and spelling out his Mikuyu experiences, it is clear that he has been thinking of the erstwhile Chancellor College Principal and his family for the last twenty years. Had he been a historian or an investigative journalist, Mapanje might have taken matters further. I certainly hope someone pursues the enquiry. Zimani is clearly a thread to tug at. He has, after all, spent much of his life in institutions devoted to the search for and sharing of truth. Some relevant qualities may have rubbed off. In Japan, he had, it seems, the decency to blush and stammer, and, I think, he is self-aware enough to recognise the irony of his position. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, he was chair of the UbuntuNet Alliance for Research and Education Networking. In view of the allegations Mapanje makes against him it would be difficult to devise a more inappropriate position! It is possible that And Crocodiles will encourage the truth to come out. But if so, it started slowly. After publication in September 2011 and a London launch by Gillian Slovo, it was received with critical silence. If the Kadzamira – Tembo faction, and others who skulked in the deep shadows thrown by the autocratic Banda, were happy about this they may have been disconcerted by subsequent developments. Because, in March 2012, the premiere of a onehour long theatrical production inspired by the book was give by Nanzikambe at their Theatre Space in Naperi Township, Blantyre. The reception hinted at the possibility that Mapanje’s writing might

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open up political debate about the recent history of the nation, might encourage closer study of ‘insolent scratches’ and ‘brave squiggles’. The poem I quoted from at the beginning revolved around the nation’s attitude to its past. It concludes … ‘We have liquidated too many/ Brave names out of the nation’s memory./ I will not rub out another nor inscribe/ My own, more ignoble, to consummate this/ Moment of truth I have always feared.’ It looks as if some reassessment has gone on since that was written since the poet has now firmly inscribed his name. We are the beneficiaries since, through his committed, highly-personal memoir – and the inter­ pretive talents of Nanzikambe – Mapanje has been able to generate both discussion and reflection, to bring closer a moment of truth. JAMES GIBBS Senior Visiting Research Fellow, University of the West of England

Wilson Katiyo. Tsiga London: Books of Africa, 2011, 205 pp., £11.99 pbk; ISBN 978-0-9566380-1-4

Wilson Katiyo is best known for his novel Son of the Soil, which told the story of a young Zimbabwean man’s response to racism and oppression, culminating in a vision of hope through struggle. Katiyo’s novel was characterized by a sensitivity to internal emotional confusion: the emotional bruising that young men in brutal circumstances cannot acknowledge or escape; the desire to laugh in the face of hopelessness; the ecstasy of love and the inescapable urge to find a better way to live. The political context of this book has changed, but the human concerns remain. Tsiga was written in London, where Katiyo spent the final years of his life. He had returned to Zimbabwe as a feted literary lion in the early 1980s but failed to find lasting peace there. His disillusion was personal, more than political: he remained close to Robert Mugabe, who had supported him as a student; but he was unhappy with the work he was offered and constantly disappointed by the standard of conversation amongst the Harare chatterati. In the 1990s, he returned to Europe, where his children were living. Katiyo died in 2003, before he had completed Tsiga.

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His friend Nigel Watt has edited the manuscript and provided the story with an ending. This edition has been published by Watt’s new publishing house, Books of Africa, with an introduction by Katiyo’s widow, the literary critic Pauline Dodgson. As Dodgson notes in the introduction, Tsiga is heavily influenced by the conventions of film, with its use of flashbacks, slow reveals, and dialogue. But running through its core is an almost dialoguefree image of a limping, unwashed, poorly-clothed man, suffering from thirst and hunger, driven by despair to trudge scores of kilometres from Harare, the capital city, to a remote farmhouse in a distant rural province, in order to carry out a cleansing act of vengeance. Moments of lucid observation of those he passes on the road are intercut with vivid memories of distant and more recent traumas and tragedies and with a growing hallucinatory unreality, as he becomes increasingly exhausted, starved and parched. Perhaps because Katiyo himself never completed the book, it works primarily as a series of vivid images and characterizations: the fat-nosed bullying policeman; the ambitious and politicallysavvy cousin who thrives as an orator while the narrator struggles as a soldier; the kind strangers who care for a troubled man; the prostitutes and pedestrians who have found a way to live in the post-1980 world. The city, too, is a vital character: closely observed in its street life, particularly, with its inescapable smell and litter. At the centre of the book is an Edenic interlude: three years of homelessness and vagrancy, shared with Tsiga’s half brother Twoboy. The two men delight in each other’s company, conversation and compassion, while all around them the streets become meaner and more violent. The sensual, almost visceral, nature of the writing in these passages contrasts with the account of the years that Tsiga lived with his twin brother Tom. These are sketchily described and unremarkable: a comfortable life in which a man does not need to keep all his senses alert all of the time in order to survive. The stories of the principals – Tsiga himself, his brothers Tom and Twoboys, his lover Mara, Tom’s lover Emma, and Jerry, the brutal grocer who became attorney general in independent Zimbabwe – are emotionally convincing and work well in symphony. Yet there are clearly gaps and inconsistencies that Watt could not resolve. For example, we are told that Tsiga felt a premonitory dread on the day that his brother Tom died (106), yet we never get to know how or when Tsiga learned of Tom’s death. We know that Jerry had a relationship with Emma, but he apparently conducted it without the physical and sexual abuse that was fundamental to his

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other relationships with women. We are supposed to recognize that Emma is an unreliable narrator, but even so, these Jerrys do not seem to be same person. And there is a mysterious man that Tsiga meets at his destination, who may have been intended to introduce spiritual themes into the narrative; but his role is left unfulfilled. The blurb on the back of the book says that its theme is disillusion­ ment with post-independence Zimbabwe and the extremes of wealth and poverty it has created. But I don’t read it that way. The post-Independence context is well-observed, along with the spiritually deadening experiences of war. This is not the book’s subject, however, in the way that the liberation struggle might have been said to be the subject of Son of the Soil. Indeed, political activism is treated with mistrust throughout, and tends to destroy Tsiga’s fragile periods of contentment. This is a book about love, and loss, and how to live without hope. Tsiga’s disillusion long precedes the experience of post-Independence government: even on the eve of the independence ceremony, he muses, ‘Why were they all so happy? What were they going to get out of the national celebrations? I didn’t care about the celebrations. I didn’t feel the world had just been born’ (p.124). We do not know how the book was supposed to end. Watt leaves open the possibility of happiness for the narrator – although he is in prison, he may soon be released, and Mara may still be alive somewhere. But it seems unlikely. And, although we are told repeatedly how much Tsiga loved Mara, the moments of happiness with her are briefly and conventionally described: furtive kisses in a wood; sharing in the childcare for her sister’s children; buying books together; a tearful parting at Mbare bus station. The happiness Tsiga experiences with Twoboy, in absolute poverty and with nothing more to lose, is far more intensely and intimately depicted. Rather than a book about post-Independence Zimbabwe, this is a book about finding ways to live within despair: a far more interesting literary achievement. DIANA JEATER Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for African Studies, University of Oxford.

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Bernth Lindfors (ed.). The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey, 2011, 216 pp., £40, hbk; ISBN 978-1-84701-034-6

Dennis Brutus may be remembered chiefly as a poet but was best known in the sixties and seventies as an anti-apartheid activist who pioneered the use of sports boycotts as a means of pressuring the South African regime into relaxing or repealing apartheid legislation that segregated blacks from whites and reduced blacks to second class citizens in their own country. A non-conformist rebel rather than an unquestioning ANC member, he never became an iconic hero like Nelson Mandela or Steve Biko, although he knew most of the freedom fighters from the fifties and sixties, was placed under house arrest for many years and was, in 1964, imprisoned for eighteen months on Robben Island. For part of the time he was with Mandela, Walter Sisulu and others who were incarcerated there as a result of the infamous Rivonia trial. With the exception of four previously published essays, the articles collected in this volume are unpublished transcriptions of tapes recorded between 1974 and 1975 when he was visiting professor at the University of Texas in Austin. Its interest lies in giving the reader access to a poet’s insights into the politics and personal experience of a man who, as a South African ‘Coloured’, suffered the daily indignities and the barbarous injustice of apartheid. Brutus’ major political successes were in persuading the IOC to debar South Africa from participation in the Olympic Games in Mexico (1968), in expelling Rhodesia from the 1972 Munich Olympics and in helping stop the planned tour of Britain by the Springbok rugby team in 1970. These taped recollections and essays reveal Brutus as an extremely courageous man with a vigorous and independent mind. His illuminating recollection of significant details indelibly fix specific moments in time and place in ways that reverberate in the mind and precisely evoke the atmospheres of prisons, court rooms, police stations, streets and other outdoor spaces that, startlingly at times, invoke historic times and places one can only imagine. His vivid recollection of the nurse who gave him a carnation for his buttonhole as he left hospital for incarceration in the infamous Fort Gaol in Johannesburg, and of the young white policeman guarding him in the ambulance who said he hoped he would never be in a situation where he had to shoot Brutus startle one with their

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insights into the presence of intrinsic virtue in a dehumanised and dehumanising environment. His passing observation on being admitted to prison in the border-town of Komatiepoort of its two separate entrances – one for black convicts and another for whites – tells one more about the experience of apartheid than political pamphlets or protest anthems. There is no sentimental attitudinising about historic politi­ cal events or police brutality. The matter-of-fact tone in which Brutus recalls how, during his two years on Robben Island, young political prisoners were systematically starved and cruelly beaten by criminal prisoners goaded on by sadistic warders until the young men begged to be sexually assaulted in exchange for a cessation of the starvation and torture, is more powerful than any flourish of rhetorical sympathy. His view of the deep-rooted racism he perceived in Britain and America as merely a variant of the racism openly sanctioned by apartheid, serves as a salutary warning against the kind of complacency too often concealed under the polite surfaces of political correct discourse. ‘Somehow Tenderness Survives’, transcribed and edited from an interview with Brutus, constitutes a penetrating and condensed master class in writing poetry – a subtle and wonderfully concrete account of the genesis and process of crafting some of his own poems. The analysis in ‘Reviewing a Review’ of the difference between political propaganda and committed art is characteristically succinct and brilliant while Brutus’ reflections on the fusion of personal feelings and political ideas that forms both an artistic technique and thematic motif in virtually all his poetry, is incisive. The collection is painstakingly edited with a concise and useful introduction by Bernth Lindfors, although I was rather startled by his decision to supply footnotes for the purpose of explaining who the likes of Charles Dickens and W B Yeats were in a book of essays by a poet! What emerges most clearly from the collection is the intellectual honesty and artistic originality of a man who despite all the cruelty and injustice he was subjected to for over twenty years, reveals no trace of bitterness in reflecting on his life and work, and no vanity in his own self-appraisal. Against all the odds, ‘somehow tenderness survives’. PROFESSOR ROBERT GORDON Director, Pinter Centre for Performance and Creative Writing, Goldsmiths, University of London

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Jane Katjavivi. Undisciplined Heart Athlone, South Africa: Modjaji, 2010, 307 pp. ISBN 978-99945-71-06-2. Available in the UK from www.africabookcentre.com

Sarah Ladipo Manyika. In Dependence London: Legend Press, 2008, 271 pp. Abuja: Cassava Republic, 2010, 230 pp.; ISBN 978-1-9065580-4-8; and 978-0-099-47904-8, N. 1000.

In launching The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois said ‘the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the colorline.’ Barak Obama draws attention to this line in imagining the moment when his mother, Ann Dunham, took his father, Barack Obama Snr, to meet her parents. In Dreams of My Father, he lets the question ‘… would they let their daughter marry one?’ float in the air. Even those who haven’t read the book know that the answer was ‘yes’: the line was crossed, the marriage took place and the rest has been a special sort of history. The two very different books I want to look at show that, if the colour line was a problem in the Twentieth Century, there were people ready to cross it. Both volumes prompt memories of well-publicised marriages between white women and Africans, one thinks, for example, of Ruth Williams and Seretse Khama and of Peggy Cripps and Joe Appiah. These marriages anticipate the attitudes apparent in Joseph Kramer’s 1967 film (script by William Rose) Guess Whose Coming to Dinner? that might have been called ‘Who do you think my daughter wants to marry?’ The title of the Jan Katjavivi’s memoir, Undisciplined Heart, works on two levels. In one sense it is a reference to the undisciplined ‘seat of her emotions’ that made her fall in love with Peter Katajivi, a man some ten years older than herself, whose background and early experiences were in some respects very different from hers. Like her, he was a campaigner for justice; unlike her he was an African. In another sense, ‘undisciplined heart’ refers to the organ designed to pump the blood around her body that has turned out to be irregular and to require medical interventions at various stages. On the back of the Modjaji edition of Katjavivi’s book, South African author Margie Orford describes it as a ‘frank and intimate memoir’. This is misleading. Jane Katjavivi is very protective of her family, and, wisely, understandably, forgivably, far from frank. It is true that in three-hundred pages, we learn quite a lot about her friends, her clothes, her activities as a diplomatic wife and her

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illnesses. But the following glimpse of life during the Sixties is fairly typical of what happens when she approaches the personal when she is both breezily informative and constrained. I want to quote it partly because it gives me an opportunity to introduce the City of Dreaming Spires that appears in both the books I am looking at in this article. Katjavivi writes: We lived in Oxford for eight years. We scraped to buy our first home – a one-bedroomed flat near a large car manufacturing plant – on the basis of my salary and Peter’s scholarship. After he had completed his DPhil, Peter became Director of a small NGO we had set up together with other friends. Its mission was to help Namibians coming to Britain to study. (19)

It would be impertinent to ask if – or expect to be told whether – the couple paid off the whole mortgage in eight short years, but the issue may present itself to the curious – along with other ‘follow up’ questions. For example, although we have been told that Peter’s thesis was on ‘Namibian nationalism and its international dimensions’, we get no sense of the inevitable highs and lows associated with researching, writing and submitting. Doctoral theses are often agonized over, written in blood and then celebrated; they are rarely simply ‘completed’. One might also point out that even ‘small NGOs’ are brought alive by a name, a history, benefactors (‘other friends’?) and beneficiaries (named?). Jane Katjavivi describes her ‘meet the parents moment’ in a some­ what more open, but still restrained manner. It allows her to suggest both her parents’ good will and her independence of spirit: [Peter] was far from the English professional my parents must have assumed I would choose, and they had no idea of what the future might hold for us. ‘It’s the children I worry about,’ my mother said. ’Will they be accepted?’ ‘They’ll be loved by both sides of the family,’ I asserted. I would not defend my choice or try to encourage them to accept Peter. I simply informed them what we were doing. (43-4)

In 1990, some time after this exchange, after a wedding in Oxford, the birth of a son, Perivi, and a year in the United States, the Katjavivis moved to Namibia. Since the country was now independent and since Peter was a member of parliament, the family had a house that was very much bigger than their flat in Oxford. Moving in to the new home is ‘safe territory’ and described vividly and in detail.

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Those aware of Jane Katjavivi’s concern with books know that she earned an international reputation for her role in establishing a bookshop and for founding a publishing house, New Namibia Books. This part of her life is referred to in Undisciplined Heart, and there are allusions to her involvement with the African Book Publishers’ Network and, later, with funding agencies supporting indigenous publishing in Africa. However, she only rarely takes us into her confidence about day to day activities, trials and tribulation. Soon her career is ‘on hold’ because her husband is given an ambassadorial appointment and she becomes a diplomatic spouse. We hear a good deal about arranging charity dinners and about the official residence in Brussels. It is an impressive edifice, and earned an extended ‘Okay’ from young a Perivi Katjavivi as he walked from room to room. From the description, it is clear that the residence truly has a place the city Conrad described as ‘sepulchral’. While the positions he has occupied dictate where the family lives, Peter Katjavivi remains in the background, supportive but busy. The narrator’s voice lingers in the ‘After he had completed his DPhil’ register because this is a memoir that deflects attention from the author’s most immediate concern: her family. In fact the book is dedicated: ‘To the women I’ve grown with, who’ve shared my life in Namibia, and who sustain me.’ Towards the end we learn that Jane Katjavivi showed a draft of what she had written to some of these friends. It seems that a couple of factual matters were subsequently corrected, but that the women were happy to appear as Katjavivi had presented them. She doesn’t tell us whether she submitted the book to members of her family, but perhaps she didn’t need to because she has been so discreet. There are no pictures in the book. Given that the Jane Katjavivi glimpsed in her ‘meet the parents’ moment (‘I simply informed them’) swam strongly against several currents, she is a surprisingly muted narrator. The battles she allowed herself to fight in print are the old ones, such as those against colonialism and apartheid. Thus the response to a racist remark at a dinner party is a flick with a table-napkin, but the conduct of contemporary Namibian politicians are off-limits. The President of Namibia swapped the ambassadors in Brussels and Berlin – with consequences for the Katjavivi family. There is no serious comment on this whimsical job-swap. The understandable self-censorship that affects the whole is particularly apparent towards the end when an event occurs that must have created tension. A situation was created when the

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Katjavivis’ son, Perivi, by this time an under-graduate in Los Angeles, rings his mother to say: ’I want to go home now and make films’ (293). Her reaction (‘What about your course?’) was met with: ‘I’ve learned what I need to … It’s time for me to go home.Can you get me a ticket?’ It seems that she could. Perivi flew to Berlin and travelled on to Namibia from there with his father. Given the battles Peter Katjavivi had fought to obtain an education, bearing in mind the nature of the NGO he had directed in Oxford, and aware of his immense labours to build up the University of Namibia, one wonders what he said to his son on the journey. It would be understandable if Perivi’s ‘I’ve learned what I need to’ attitude made Peter’s heart a little ‘undisciplined’. The resounding silence about Perivi’s decision echoes after the book has been closed: the silence confirms how ‘diplomatic’ and how far from frank Jane Katjavivi has been on major issues. As a coda one might note that Perivi has made at least two films. His first, entitled The Shop, was built around the juxtaposition of images from Namibia in the past and in the present. The second has the title: Love is. There are indications that his parents have provided some of the raw material for his work and I suspect that Undisciplined Heart sheds light on the films. The second book on my desk, Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s In Depen­ dence, covers contiguous, and even overlapping, territory. It has a central concern with the colour line and it is partly set in Oxford. A major difference is that Manyika, who was born in 1968 to a Nigerian father and an English mother, has freed herself from constraints by writing fiction. Following forays into the short story, she has produced a ‘true romance’, a love story that uses a sophisticated array of narrative techniques and has plenty of plot. In a Mills and Boonish way, Manyika is happy to draw chapters to a close with clichés that seem to require a violin accompaniment. For example, Chapter 5 ends ‘She smiled a little as he pulled her face to his and, without intending to, he started to kiss her. It seemed the only thing, the best thing, to do under the circumstances’ (40). Reactions to writing like this will vary sharply. I moved very quickly to the next chapter. The two people kissing are Tayo Ajayi, a Nigerian school-leaver who is awarded a scholarship to Balliol in 1963, and the young woman he meets at Oxford, Vanessa Richardson. She is described on the cover of the novel as ‘the beautiful daughter of a former colonial officer’ and the problem of the colour line is articulated

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by her father, Mr Robinson. Although she has written a love story, Manyika does not take Tayo and Vanessa down the route followed by Seretse and Ruth Khama, Joe and Peggy Appiah, and Peter and Jane Katjavivi. Instead, when it comes to what the parents think, Tayo heeds what Mr Richardson has to say. The DC turned Headmaster sits the young Nigerian down in his study, puffs on his pipe and confides that he had married across the class divide. ‘My wife,’ he says unconvincingly ‘as you know, was from the upperclasses’. He then tells Tayo about the ‘insurmountable’ challenge represented by the colour line: Now with you and Vanessa, if you ever were to think of marriage, you would face an even greater challenge. One that is, I fear, insur­ mountable. I hope you understand it is my duty to warn you of this and that I have a responsibility to my daughter’s happiness. You must certainly be aware of the difficulties of a cross-racial union. (121)

When Tayo reports this advice – instruction – to Vanessa she cuts quickly through the flannel: ‘My father’ she says, ‘is racist.’ Tayo, however, is irresolute and by the time he has collected him­self (‘“I love her”, Tayo spoke to the rain’ 122.) it is too late. The moment has passed. The plot has thundered on. Returning to Balliol, Tayo finds a telegram telling him his father is ill. He flies to Nigeria, is delayed there by the Civil War, has an affair with Miriam, makes her pregnant, marries her .. and so on and so on. Mr Richardson has been spared having to see his daughter ‘marry one of them’. In the world Manyika presents, Vanessa and Tayo pay a great price. In the decades that follow, they are involved in other rela­tion­ ships, work in various countries and wander in different conti­nents. We realise that they have made the wrong choice: they should have crossed the line, should have got married – and lived happily ever after. In the course of her novel, Manyika conscientiously makes us aware of a hundred years of Nigerian sexual history. She gestures back to the Forties via Mrs Richardson – the lonely wife of a DC in post-World War II West Africa, who had an affair with her Nigerian gardener. Through an interview between Tayo and an old man who had ‘commenced employment with Lord Lugard in the year of 1912’, Manyika incorporates a reference to even earlier interracial relationships when the old man recalls that his ‘boss liked our women’. According to him ‘ … it started even before (Lady Lugard) came to this country…’ (173-4). Through these references, Manyika makes her point that the colour line was crossed in various

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directions during the century DuBois referred to. The historical novel begins in earnest in 1963 – some five years before Manyika was born. This has created some problems for her because, although she has asked questions and undertaken research, she has challenged herself to bring to life the ‘swinging’ decade she lived in only as an infant. She has carefully incorporated references that help to meet this challenge and to locate the narrative in a precise context. She scrupulously includes allusions to events, political landmarks, record releases, and publications. For example, characters mention Satchmo playing in Lagos and Malcolm X’s address to the Oxford Union, and, as the years roll by, we are told about coups and counter coups in Nigeria, about military and civilian leaders, about the Civil War, the Dakar Festival, and the publication of The Interpreters. Anyone reading the novel picks up a fair amount of history along the way, but convincingly recreating the decade of one’s birth is very difficult. One wonders how those of Tayo and Vanessa’s generation will respond to the novel, to, for example, the reference to ‘theorists’ in an undergraduate conversation about Shakespeare? (21). Surely critics held sway in the early Sixties? And was Enoch Powell a byword for racism at that time? (41). Didn’t elements of his eloquent contribution to the Hola Camp debate hang about him until his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech (1968)? In Vanessa’s bedroom, would a social historian expect to find Paddington Bear lined up on the coverlet with Piglet? Wasn’t the merchandising of Michael Bond’s bear a feature of the Seventies? (48). Getting back to Oxford, were there weekly seminars on African theatre – or anything remotely like them – at St Antony’s College when Carnaby Street was in its pomp? (60). I think that sort of recognition came significantly later. On a different level, did one hear the sound of the drawn-out ‘soooo’ (89) in those days? And isn’t a character’s insistence that his ‘wife is born again’ (93), perhaps, an anachronistic requirement? Pentecostalism has been around for a long time and Nicodemus was given advice about being born of the spirit nearly two thousand years ago – but did that mean the term ‘born again’ was in use? More important than these questions, quibbles and queries are a couple of larger discontinuities in careers and choices that make part of the background to the personal dramas in the novel more like wobbly scenery than solid setting. I wondered how Mr Richardson went from being a colonial officer in West Africa to headmaster at Dulwich (48), and I was disconcerted that Tayo, having been awarded a first class degree and offered a scholarship

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to do a PhD, didn’t make a greater effort to travel back to the UK to begin graduate work. I recognise that the Nigerian Civil War put impediments in the way of travellers, but I wonder why a young man as clear-sighted as Tayo wasn’t more aware of the need to seize educational opportunities. I was also surprised that, after he had embarked on an academic career in Nigeria without a postgraduate qualification, he ascended the academic ladder so quickly. His progress might well have been impeded by the attitude to qualifications that has been widespread in university committees concerned with appointments and promotions. If some of the transitions appear rather easy, it is not because Manyika hesitates to inflict suffering on her characters. The narrative unfolds with full attention to set-backs and disasters that reflect the gruesome appetites of African roads, and the fact that staying at home or working from home is also dangerous. Miriam suffers several miscarriages, and Tayo, at odds with a repressive regime, shares the lot of human rights activists in Nigeria. He is arrested, roughly questioned and detained. Manyika is willing to engage with the most personal of issues and, in contrast to Jane Katjavivi, explores them frankly. To illustrate this it is necessary to recapitulate and reveal that, having lost Tayo, Vanessa carves out a career as an arts journalist in Africa. Her work is widely appreciated and she enfolds her life with the continent. Her commitment includes adopting Suleiman, the orphaned son of a close Senegalese friend. Vanessa brings Suleiman up as her child and, in due course, takes him to England where she marries an ‘older man’. A crisis somewhat similar to that precipitated by Perivi Katjajivi confronts the family when Suleiman drops out of university. He identifies himself with his Moslem ‘heritage’ and announces his intention to return ‘home’ permanently. Driving him to the airport en route to Senegal, Vanessa describes the idea of a permanent return to West Africa as ‘ridiculous’. Suleiman’s response is: ‘Ahh, fuck you, Mum’ (228). From this low point in human relations, Manyika picks up the story and moves it towards a resonant resolution. In the closing pages, Oxford comes to the rescue when, partly at Vanessa’s prompting, Tayo is offered an honorary doctorate. The award ceremony brings together the branches of the several families that Tayo and Vanessa have become involved with over the years. All get on well. Suleiman, who has turned a few corners, behaves graciously and chats with Tayo’s daughter, Kem. The future looks promising. The violinists play softly.

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When the main events of the great day are drawing to a close, Tayo and Vanessa escape from the throng. Explanations have been forthcoming, routes taken have been explained, different perspectives have been woven into a rich tapestry. In the failing light, Tayo and Vanessa sit on a bench beside the Isis. Their spiritual union in the ‘City of Dreaming Spires’ is given a certain permanence when a passer-by takes their photograph. The meaning of the fragile tableau is then articulated by some students who comment as they pass. The students consider that Tayo and Jane must be ‘mad’ because they are sitting outside in such cold weather. One suggests they are ‘probably tourists’; another hazards the opinion that they are ‘parents p’haps’. A resonant elegiac note is struck in a final paragraph that reads: And then the ringing of Christ’s Church’s bells drowned (the students’) voices out. The cows in the meadows paid no attention to these hourly chimes. The moon, however, took notice of the bells and rose from behind its clouds to light up the sky and send silver ripples across the Isis.

The couple, readers know, were ‘made for one another’, they should have married, should have had a family, should have travelled and grown old together. Manyika’s purpose is clear. Tayo and Vanessa should have been like Seretse and Mary, Joe and Peggy, Peter and Jane, and the passing students, effortlessly free of prejudice, heedless of the colour line, recognise this. The observation ‘parents p’raps’ indicates the attitude of a colour-blind generation. The seated couple are the sort of people who are parents, the sort of people whose children attend the university. Beside the river, we are a long way from the world in which people made assumptions about the ‘problem of the colour line’, remote from a society where fathers asked ‘but would you let your daughter marry one?’ and where even benign mothers ventured ‘It’s the children I worry about.’ Sales of Dreams of My Father have been phenomenal. In 2009, Barack Obama earned more than $5 million in royalties from his writing! It is to be hoped that the memoir by Katjajivi and the novel by Manyika, which also make significant contributions on a historically important issue, will also sell well. JAMES GIBBS  Senior Visiting Research Fellow, University of the West of England

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Anne V. Adams (ed). Essays in Honour of Ama Ata Aidoo at 70: A Reader in African Cultural Studies Banbury: Ayebia Clarke Publishing Limited, 2012, 530 pp, £16.99 ISBN 978-0-9569307-0-5

This is a great portmanteau of a book stuffed full of the jumbled offerings of writers, literary and theatre critics, historians, assorted professors of African studies, and a potpourri of feminist thinkers. They write about Ghana, pan-Africanism, slavery, African women and girls and of course the literary output of the restless intellect and imagination of the challenging woman who inspired these essays; poet, playwright, children’s writer, short story writer, experimental novelist: Ama Ata Aidoo. Like any such capacious collection it would be unreasonable to expect that all offerings will have equal appeal to every reader. There are forty-four essays, plus a bibliography and a chronology of Aidoo’s life. I found it impossible to read the book straight through from cover to cover, being lured to jump around by enticing titles such as Kwesi Yankah’s ‘The Saga of a Broken Trumpet’ about the career of ‘nomad’ and ‘high priest’ (397) of the trumpeter Mac Tontoh, and by familiar names with contributions from writers such as Ngugi wa Thiong’o who shares the final personal reminiscence about Ama Ata Aidoo (426-8), and Femi Osofisan, writing as a fellow African playwright, who in ‘African Theatre and the Menace of Transition: Radical Transformations in Popular Entertainment’ (362-73) warns that African theatre – at least from a Nigerian perspective – is threatened by public fear of going out at night, the theatricality of the evangelical churches, and the rise and rise of the video world of Nollywood. The eclecticism of this sample alone is demonstration of the range encompassed in the Essays. What of course binds the collection together is that each piece relates if not to Aidoo’s own work, then to the range of her interests. There is also a highly appropriate privileging of Ghanaian voices, and beyond that of African scholars, as well as an unusually high proportion of female authored contributions, all reflective of the perspective of the woman being honoured in this collection. Naturally the largest group of essays are those dealing with Aidoo’s literary output. The play Anowa and the novel Changes attract most essays, but I was particularly interested by Jane Bryce’s, ‘Someone Talking to Someone: A Dialogue Across Time and Space’ (301-16) which discusses Aidoo’s little known poetry collection published by the Zimbabwean College Press while the writer was

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living in Harare in the mid-1980s. Bryce discusses both the context of the publication and the content of the volume, with a sensitive, tentative analysis of a collection of poetry which appears deeply but ambiguously personal. Apparently the poetry was written over a fifteen year period almost despite the poet, who was nervous of publishing her poems, being fearful of her ability in the form and of her poetic command of English (304). Now out of print and certainly previously unknown to me, these poems allow us to see a facet of Aidoo, emotionally traumatised and often bleak, which both complements and challenges our previous understandings of how she apprehends her world. Just how Aidoo can be (mis)read is a theme taken up in Omo­ folabo Ajayi-Soyinka’s essay, ‘Disobedient Subversions: Anowa’s Unending Quest’ (347-61). Ajayi-Soyinka gives us the hilariousif-only-it-weren’t-true story of how in 1987 the Nigerian Obafemi Awolowo University and state authorities sought a non-political play to put on for their convocation ceremony and selected Anowa, only to realise rather late in the day that this was not a piece in sympathy with the views of a capitalist military regime. The travesty of rewriting which turned the play into a neoliberal family friendly conservative text brings to mind sanitised nineteenth-century rewrites of Shakespeare. Such unexpected insights into how Aidoo has been used, and in this case abused, help make this book a box of delights. Since one review cannot hope to do justice to the range of essays on offer I shall conclude with a brief discussion of a couple of nonliterary essays which I particularly enjoyed and found relevant to the ‘cultural studies’ aspect of the book’s title. Toyin Falola’s piece, ‘The Amistad’s Legacy: Reflections on the Spaces of Colonisation’ (48-62) disturbs the usual narrative of helpless and hopeless slaves on the middle passage with its tale of a slave revolt. Fayola discusses how many similar tales of resistance were erased from popular memory. He goes on to demonstrate the links between colonisation of memory and colonisation of the mind which led many black people, over many years, whether in Africa or the diaspora, to accept a view of themselves as inferior; before concluding with an argument that cultural assertion has been one of the strongest tools for resistance to colonising propaganda. Falola’s assertive, historically based and tightly argued article, is a welcome piece of polemic in the tradition of the engaged African intellectual. At the other end of the historical scale Mansah Prah’s entirely contemporary piece, ‘Emerging Issues from Big Brother Africa 5’,

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(374-95) looks at the audience for, and impact of, the African version of the Big Brother franchise. I had been blissfully unaware of this particular manifestation of cultural neo-colonisation, but Prah is fascinating on just how differently such a series signifies as a pan-African phenomenon for a middle-class elite compared to its roots in working-class western societies. Essays in Honour of Ama Ata Aidoo at 70 is a fine tribute to an exceptional woman, and contains material of interest not only to scholars of African literature, but truly to all concerned with African cultural studies. JANE PLASTOW Professor of English, University of Leeds

Chinua Achebe. There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra New York: The Penguin Press, 2012, 333 pp., $27.95 ISBN 978-1-59420-482-1

This is another way of stating the fact of what I consider to be my mission in life. My kind of storytelling has to add its voice to this universal storytelling before we can say, ‘Now we’ve heard it all.’ I worry when somebody from one particular tradition stands up and says, ‘The novel is dead, the story is dead.’ I find this to be unfair, to put it mildly. You told your own story, and now you’re announcing the novel is dead. Well, I haven’t told you mine. (There Was a Country, 55)

In April 2011, before Chinua Achebe had finished writing his new book on Biafra, and before his literary agents found him a publisher, some Nigerian scholars had begun second-guessing in online exchanges, the theme of the book and preparing weapons of attack if Achebe did not write what they had in mind or how they wanted it said. One set a creative boundary for the author main­taining that this was not the time to write biographies (Achebe’s as yet unpublished book was being promoted as ‘a semi-autobiographical tour de force’), and characterized Achebe’s would-be artistic venture as ‘PURE ILLUSION’, (because) ‘the biography of one individual cannot console the Igbo’ for the huge number of their people killed before and after the Nigeria/Biafra war in Northern Nigeria in calculated mass murders. There were other attitudes towards the

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book in the offing. One of such attitudes was that of indifference as evident in: ‘I am concerned, though about the content of this semiautobiography. Until I know what he really writes about Biafra and Biafra citizenship vis-à-vis Nigeria, I am going to watch. Of course, the luminary does not need my patronage; I am sure that many will flock to get his book either way.’ These cynical reactions and implicit innuendos were mostly triggered by what Achebe had said in a keynote address he delivered on 9 October 2008 at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos to mark the Silver Jubilee of The Guardian Newspaper. He had said that in (his) next life, he ‘will be a Nigerian.’ This did not go down well obviously with some people (among them these apparently offended scholars) who uncompromisingly still hold on to Biafra and the values it promised and symbolized. Achebe was further attacked for not denouncing (renouncing?) Nigeria unambiguously, without prevarication, when an opportunity was offered him by the New York Times: ‘I do repudiate Achebe’s views and decision to act as one-Nigeria agent as he amply demonstrated when he was given the opportunity to do an Op Ed in New York Times on the subject of Nigeria/Biafra recently. His insistence that Nigeria’s root problem is “leadership” is his problem (Nigeria’s problem is NOT leadership; it is the attempt to ignore really obvious Ethnicity and the consequent incompatibility for a real union or practicable “unity” of a putative country).’ And finally, specifically targeting Achebe’s as yet unpublished book, warned: ‘Let’s hope that he does not do so again in his new book. But, even if he does, Biafra is our destiny…’ It becomes clear that even before Achebe’s There Was a Country was written or published, some people had judged it inadequate to serve appropriately post-war Igbo purpose or posture on issues about Biafra in relation to Nigeria. Having been battle-ready for over a year, it is very unlikely that their opinions would change now the book is out or after they have read it. It is too late in the day for them to pull back the trigger or re-sheathe drawn swords. But anyone who expected Chinua Achebe to be influenced by these intrusions or interventions and, therefore, re-arrange his creative impulses in order to win favor, must not know much about Achebe as a writer or literary critic. He calls himself a ‘conscious artist’ with self-confident clarity of perspective in any story he tells. He does not allow anyone to dictate for him what or how to write on any issue in his fiction or non-fiction. Achebe’s statement that in his next life he ‘will be a Nigerian’, seems to have been taken

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out of context if not too literally, for he succinctly elaborated: ‘I have said somewhere that in my next reincarnation I want to come back as a Nigerian again. But I have also in a rather testy mood in a book called The Trouble with Nigeria dismissed Nigerian travel advertisements with the suggestion that only a tourist with an addiction to self-flagellation picks Nigeria for a holiday. And I mean both. Nigeria needs help; Nigerians have their work cut out for them, to coax this unruly child along the path of useful creative development. We are the parents of Nigeria, not vice versa. A generation will come, if we do our work patiently and well and given luck, a generation will come that will call Nigeria father or mother, but not yet.’ And to authenticate his unequivocal protest, Achebe has refused to accept Nigeria’s highest national honor (Commander of the Federal Republic) twice awarded him in the recent past. From the onset, Achebe defines his premise and objective for writing There Was a Country. Definitively, it is a ‘personal history,’ because it is an account seen from his own perspective, of ‘how the rain began to beat a people’ (his people) at a critical moment in history. And for raison d’être he informs the reader, ‘It is for the sake of the future of Nigeria, for our children and grandchildren, that I feel it is important to tell Nigeria’s story, Biafra’s story, our story, my story’ (3). And to make the story truly ‘personal’, he situates the events within his individual life span and experiences: ‘I begin this story with my own coming of age in an earlier and, in some respects, a more innocent time. I do this both to bring readers unfamiliar with this landscape into it at a human level and to be open about some of the sources of my own perspective’(3). Thus Part 1 of There Was a Country is not only an intriguing account of behind-the-scene manoeuvres in Nigerian political history and evolving politics which led to the shaky foundations of the Nigerian nation, but also provides an inside view of the background of Achebe’s family and personal circumstances (not found elsewhere) which not only give the reader important insights into Achebe as a person but also serve as very potent guide for the understanding of Achebe’s early fictional works especially Things Fall Apart. This section of the book provides invaluable information for teachers and students of Achebe’s writings in particular, and African literature in general. Each of the four parts into which the book is divided has something to offer both the general reader and scholars researching why and how landmark events happened in Nigeria and their implications for individuals and the nation at that point

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in time. They also link the socio-political history of Nigeria to the nature and concerns of both the Nigerian writer and Nigerian literature. There Was a Country is as much a personal history of Biafra as it is Chinua Achebe’s autobiography. From the time of his classic first novel, Things Fall Apart, Achebe believes that no one can tell ‘our story’ for us, and when a story touches an issue of communal destiny and identity, everyone who has a stake in it has a right, a duty and, indeed, a responsibility to tell his/her side of the story. For, it is in hearing all sides of a story (like the viewing of a dancing masquerade from various corners of the arena), that we can arrive at the truth. Besides, if you do not tell your side of the story others can distort and tell it to your discomfiture. From that theoretical premise Achebe believes that no one should literally or metaphorically close the door to an aspiring narrator in the belief that all about the story had been heard. Not so, until everyone who has a story to tell has done so. And on the Nigeria/Biafra issue, Achebe has his own story to tell, and he tells it in 333 full pages. It happened 45 years ago, but as the Igbo say, ‘when a person wakes up is his/her morning.’ Achebe tells the Nigeria/Biafra story from the perspective, and, with the tone of a sage, an elder armed with a historic treasure, a repertoire of hidden knowledge and information, glancing back to an important era in the past over which ordinary memory seems to be fading or, is dusty at best. Achebe does not tell the privileged story from memory alone. One of the greatest attributes of There Was a Country is the profound scope and depth of research that went into it to establish the veracity of sources, validate each controversial evidence, and substantiate the basis of seemingly untoward allegations or judgmental declarations. But the story is NOT told from a non-partisan perspective. Achebe is indisputably both a partisan and participatory narrator on the side of Biafra. He never once seemed to blush or cower whenever and wherever he identified or had to identify himself as a citizen or Envoy of the Republic of Biafra. It is during such circumstances that his sense of loyalty is most manifest, and no sacrifice could be counted too much for the cause of Biafra, as evident in the way in which he had to make several visits before government officials would let him see Léopold Senghor, the President of Senegal at the time, to deliver an official letter from General Odumegwu Ojukwu. However, it is not what Chinua Achebe reveals about his pedigree or his declarations about African literature – its cause and the commitment of its writers, or what he says about the sanctity of

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storytelling, that will rattle minds and be the bone of contention in There Was a Country (for there will be many bones of contention and controversies!) in the weeks, months and years ahead. It is rather what Achebe says about Nigeria – his hard knocks on the country, castigations of its lack-luster visionless corrupt leaders – past and present – and the historically notorious wrong choices at critical points of national development – that will surely create vehement controversies, dissensions and even name-calling, upon the release of the book. For, There Was a Country is poised to become one of the most talked about books of the twenty-first century. It will be contentious to a fault, generate diametrically opposing views, irritate some people by its audacity, upset many by its judgmental opinions on some Nigerians’ idols, and its unapologetic tell-it-likeit-is tone. In the book there are no sacred cows, and no individuals or institutions are above reproach. It seems as if Achebe tendentiously set out to have the final word on the Nigeria/Biafra saga, and by extension, the last laugh on the architects of the incongruities of the Nigerian nation. By creative design and purpose, There Was a Country might turn out to be for the twenty-first century, what Things Fall Apart was for the twentieth century. In his ‘personal history of Biafra,’ Achebe delivers punches and delivers them tenaciously no matter whose ox is gored. Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Prime Minister of Nigeria at Independence, was naïve and an inept leader whose claim to office was by virtue of being born in Northern Nigeria. Thus ‘The Prime Minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who had been built up into a great statesman by the Western world, did nothing to save his country from impending chaos. The British made certain on the eve of their departure that power went to that conservative element in the country that had played no real part in the struggle for independence’ (51-2). Balewa and his kind were readily available to be foisted on the country by the devious machinations of Nigerian power brokers and their British cohorts – retreating British colonial officers – whose motive and action were related to anything but national interest and public good. According to Achebe: Later it was discovered that a courageous English junior civil servant named Harold Smith had been selected by no other than Sir James Robertson (outgoing colonial Governor General) ‘so that its compliant friends in (Northern Nigeria) would win power, dominate the country, and serve British interests after independence.’ Despite the enticements of riches and bribes (even a knighthood, we are told), Smith refused to

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be part of this elaborate hoax to fix Nigeria’s elections, and he swiftly became one of the casualties of this mischief. Smith’s decision was a bold choice that cost him his job, career, and reputation (at least until recently). In a sense, Nigerian independence came with a British governor general in command, and, one might say, popular faith in genuine democracy was compromised from its birth. (50-51)

Chief Obafemi Awolowo, leader of the Action Group, and Premier of the Western Region, had two distinguishing characteristics: an overriding ambition to rule Nigeria, and Igbo phobia that manifested undisguised in callous policies attributed to him as an influential high profile member of Gowon’s wartime cabinet: A statement credited to Chief Obafemi Awolowo and echoed by his cohorts is the most callous and unfortunate: ‘All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don’t see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder.’ It is my impression that Chief Obafemi Awolowo was driven by an overriding ambition for power, for himself in particular and for the advancement of his Yoruba people in general. And let it be said that there is, on the surface, at least, nothing wrong with those aspirations. However, Awolowo saw the dominant Igbos at the time as the obstacles to that goal, and when the opportunity arose – the Nigeria-Biafra War – his ambition drove him into a frenzy to go to every length to achieve his dreams. In the Biafran case it meant hatching up a diabolical policy to reduce the numbers of his enemies significantly through starvation – eliminating over two million people, mainly members of future generations. (233)

General Yakubu Gowon was neither Nigeria’s Abraham Lincoln nor Nigeria’s George Washington, the man of the hour who stepped in to quell a rebellion and bring stability and order to a chaotic situation. Instead, he was a Northern Nigerian choice not because of sterling talents and spectacular abilities, but because what he represented by his religious affiliation and ethnic identity made him most desirable to achieve a purpose unrelated essentially to the war and issues of national interest: If Gowon was the ‘Nigerian Abraham Lincoln’ as Lord Wilson would have us believe why did he not put a stop to such an evil policy, or at least temper it, particularly when there was international outcry? Setting aside, for the moment the fact that Gowon as head of state bears the final responsibility of his subordinates, and that Awolowo has been much maligned by many as an intellectual for this unfortunate policy

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and his statements, why, I wonder would other ‘thinkers,’ such as Ayida and Enahoro, not question such a policy but advance it? The federal government’s action soon after the war could be seen not as conciliatory but as outright hostile. After the conflict ended ‘the same hard-liners in the federal government of Nigeria cast Igbos in the role of treasonable felons and wreckers of the nation and got the regime to adopt a banking policy which nullified any bank account which had been operated during the war by the Biafrans. A flat sum of twenty pounds was approved for each Igbo depositor of the Nigerian currency, regardless of the amount of deposit.’ If there was ever a measure put in place to stunt, or even obliterate, the economy of a people, this was it. (233-4)

The choice of Yakubu Gowon over Murtala Muhammed by the ruling oligarchy in the North was one major factor that ushered in the long, uneventful four decades of military dictatorship in Nigeria. On the whole, the mismatched product called Nigeria was a British creation designed to benefit the British and her Western allies; the evolution of Nigeria as a viable independent nation to be reckoned with nationally, regionally and internationally was not part of the equation. Britain, Achebe shows succinctly in There Was a Country, sowed the seeds of instability in post-independence Nigeria to ensure that good governance would never see the light of the day, and that perpetual unwholesomely divisive ethnicity will forever rob Nigeria of good leadership and progressive political vision. The consequences haunt the Nigerian nation today: What has consistently escaped most Nigerians in this entire travesty is the fact that mediocrity destroys the very fabric of a country as surely as a war – ushering in all sorts of banality, ineptitude, corruption, and debauchery. Nations enshrine mediocrity as their modus operandi, and create the fertile ground for the rise of tyrants and other base elements of the society, by silently assenting to the dismantling of systems of excellence because they do not immediately benefit one specific ethnic, racial, political, or special-interest group. That, in my humble opinion, is precisely where Nigeria finds herself today! (236)

People may hate There Was a Country or its author for reasons personal to them but they cannot wish away its impreg­nable veracity or the purity of Achebe’s analytical insights into complex and complicated issues of humanity. That will remain Achebe’s inimitable achievement as an African writer and philosopher. Someone had the guts to finally tell it like it is to Nigerians. Who else has told the world that both General Yakubu Gowon and General Ojukwu

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allowed the Nigeria/Biafra war to drag on as long and disastrous as it did for reasons of selfish ego and personal aggrandizement as Achebe does in: There are a few other factors that merit consideration. There was an obsessive tendency by both belligerents – Gowon and Ojukwu – to seek positions of strength and avoid looking weak throughout the conflict. I am not referring to the propaganda statements, however over the top, which one expects in times of war, but to the egodriven policies that were clearly not about the conflict at hand. Some of Ojukwu’s and Gowon’s civilian advisers aggravated the crisis by transforming themselves into sycophants. Rather than encourage their respective leader on each side of the conflict to consider a ceasefire, they massaged their egos and spurred them on to ever-escalating hostility. (124)

Who else can look Biafrans in the face and tell them that there were other options equally as honorable, self-fulfilling and dignified as Achebe states in: I think that around March 1968, when we were in a position to achieve a confederation, we should have accepted the chance or opportunity. When we were insisting that Biafran sovereignty was not negotiable, as the government thought at the time, we ought to have considered the tragedy of the situation, because this country would have been much better if we had a confederation of four to six states, other than what we have now. Around the time of the Kampala talks there were definite signs that a confederation could be achieved. The Biafran side was adamant on the fact of sovereignty being nonnegotiable. (126)

All in all, There Was a Country is a book no Nigerian can afford not to read. Readers all over the world familiar with Achebe’s previous works will expect nothing but creative excellence from Achebe. So saying that There Was a Country is an excellent book may sound like stating the obvious. But indeed in this book, Chinua Achebe surpasses himself in both artistry and thematic relevance in an unprecedented way as he fuses and merges into one work the quintessence of fictional art and the eternity of irrefutable facts. The poems that precede some topics in the book give the reader a clue to the nature of the narrative to follow and Achebe’s ability to communicate serious themes as well in one genre as in another with equal impact. Achebe was never more animated and nostalgic in the entire book than in the sections on the poet, Christopher Okigbo. No work on Nigerian history or political development can

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be considered complete and valid without reference to There Was a Country. It is my expectation that any future edition of the book will remove a few minor infelicities. There should be consistency in the use of the terms ‘Igbo’ and ‘Igbos’, the latter is less accurate in referring to the Igbo group or as a plural form. The distance from Owerri to Ogidi is not forty-three miles (17). Amos Tutuola’s The Palm Wine Drinkard was not published in 1946 (113). Sam Agbamuche, and Major Philip Alale were found guilty of planning to overthrown Ojukwu’s regime (135). The over forty thousand troops of the Third Division, lead by army colonel Benjamin Adekunle… (137). This young man (Dick Tiger) from a town near Aba (Amaigbo is not near Aba) (138). Jonathan Uchendu NOT Johnathan (173). However, these, individually and collectively, do not detract from the great merits of There Was a Country, unsurpassed by any work of fiction or non-fiction published so far on the Nigerian /Biafra war. ERNEST EMENYONU Dept of Africana Studies University of Michigan-Flint

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Reflections & Retrospectives

AFRICAN LITERATURE TODAY 30 Guest Editor: Chimalum Nwankwo Series Editor: Ernest N. Emenyonu Assistant Editor: Patricia T. Emenyonu Associate Editors: Jane Bryce • Maureen N. Eke • Stephanie Newell Charles E. Nnolim • Ato Quayson • Kwawisi Tekpetey • Iniobong I. Uko Reviews Editor: James Gibbs

Articles on: Dennis Brutus • Cyprian Ekwensi • Bessie Head • Ezekiel Mphahlele Flora Nwapa • Ousmane Sembène • Zulu Sofola FORTHCOMING TITLES ALT 31 Writing Africa in the Short Story ALT 32 Politics & Social Justice Cover: Shantytown near Khayelitsha, outside Cape Town. © Don Bayley/iStockphoto

Editor Ernest N Emenyonu

an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com www.jamescurrey.com

Reflections & Retrospectives ALT 30

This issue is devoted to pioneer voices of African fiction in the twentieth century. The contributors explore the development of these influential writers and their impact on the continent and beyond, through a study of their writing, sources and influences. These are also writers whose works have, in the words of Chimalum Nwankwo in his Introduction ‘defined for their time a deep engagement and commitment with the pulse of the people...’

AFRICAN LITERATURE TODAY 30