Texts, Tasks, and Theories: Versions and Subversions in African Literatures 3

241 Pages·2008·0.97 MB·English

by  Tobias Robert Klein

Texts, Tasks, and Theories
Matatu
Journal for African Culture and Society

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EDITORIAL BOARD

Gordon Collier Christine Matzke Frank Schulze–Engler
Geoffrey V. Davis Aderemi Raji–Oyelade Chantal Zabus
†Ezenwa–Ohaeto

TECHNICAL AND CARIBBEAN EDITOR
Gordon Collier

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BOARD OF ADVISORS

Anne V. Adams (Ithaca NY) Jürgen Martini (Magdeburg, Germany)
Eckhard Breitinger (Bayreuth, Germany) Henning Melber (Windhoek, Namibia)
Margaret J. Daymond (Durban, South Africa) Amadou Booker Sadji (Dakar, Senegal)
Anne Fuchs (Nice, France) Reinhard Sander (San Juan, Puerto Rico)
James Gibbs (Bristol, England) John A. Stotesbury (Joensuu, Finland)
Johan U. Jacobs (Durban, South Africa) Peter O. Stummer (Munich, Germany)
Jürgen Jansen (Aachen, Germany) Ahmed Yerima (Lagos, Nigeria)
— Founding Editor: Holger G. Ehling —

(cid:93)(cid:94) Matatu is a journal on African and African diaspora literatures and societies dedicated to
interdisciplinary dialogue between literary and cultural studies, historiography, the social
sciences and cultural anthropology.
(cid:93)(cid:94) Matatu is animated by a lively interest in African culture and literature (including the Afro-
Caribbean) that moves beyond worn-out clichés of ‘cultural authenticity’ and ‘national
liberation’ towards critical exploration of African modernities. The East African public
transport vehicle from which Matatu takes its name is both a component and a symbol of
these modernities: based on ‘Western’ (these days usually Japanese) technology, it is a
vigorously African institution; it is usually regarded with some anxiety by those travelling in
it, but is often enough the only means of transport available; it creates temporary com-
municative communities and provides a transient site for the exchange of news, storytelling,
and political debate.
(cid:93)(cid:94) Matatu is firmly committed to supporting democratic change in Africa, to providing a
forum for interchanges between African and European critical debates, to overcoming
notions of absolute cultural, ethnic or religious alterity, and to promoting transnational
discussion on the future of African societies in a wider world.
Texts, Tasks, and Theories

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Versions and Subversions
in African Literatures 3

Edited by

Tobias Robert Klein
Ulrike Auga
&
Viola Prüschenk

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2007
M atatu Numbers 35

HUMBOLDT CONTRIBUTIONS
(General Editor Flora Veit–Wild)
vol. 3
Cover design: Pier Post
Cover photos: Lyle Ashton Harris courtesy TEN.8 2.1 (1991)
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO
9706: 1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -
Requirements for permanence”.
Le papier sur lequel le présent ouvrage est imprimé remplit les prescriptions
de ‘ISO 9706: 1994, Information et documentation - Papier pour documents
- Prescriptions pour la permanence’.
ISBN-13: 978-90-420-2374-1 (Bound)
ISBN-13: 978-90-420-1947-8 (volume 1-3)
©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2007
Printed in The Netherlands
CONTENTS

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Acknowledgements and Notice | vii
Introduction
(cid:93) TOBIAS ROBERT KLEIN, ULRIKE AUGA
& VIOLA PRÜSCHENK
Postcolonialism, Gender, and Modernity: African Literatures
and the Agendas of Theory at the Outset of the Twenty-First Century | ix

LANGUAGE, MODERNISM, AND MODERNITY

(cid:93) SIMON GIKANDI
African Literature and Modernity | 3
(cid:93) FRANK SCHULZE–ENGLER
African Literature and the Micropolitics of Modernity:
Post-Traditional Society in Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy, Nuruddin
Farah’s Sardines, and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions | 21
(cid:93) TOBIAS ROBERT KLEIN
Kojo Laing and the Cultural Specifics of an African Modernity | 37
(cid:93) FRED OPALI
Romantic and African Notions of Poetic Language:
Shelley and Okot p’Bitek | 59

NEW READINGS IN AFRICAN LITERATURE
AND POSTCOLONIAL THEORY

(cid:93) KWADWO OSEI–NYAME
Toward the Decolonization of African Postcolonial Theory:
The Example of Kwame Appiah’s In My Father’s House
vis-à-vis Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy, Helon Habila’s
Waiting for an Angel, and Ike Oguine’s A Squatter’s Tale | 71
(cid:93) MAIK NWOSU
The River, the Earth, and the Spirit World:
Joseph Conrad, Chinua Achebe, Ben Okri, and the Novel in Africa | 93
(cid:93) OYENIYI OKUNOYE
Postcoloniality, Modern African Poetry, and Counter-Disourse | 111
(cid:93) LINDY STIEBEL
Looking at the Local/Locale:
A Postcolonial Reading of Lewsi Nkosi’s Mating Birds | 133

AFRICAN LITERATURE AND CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY:
IDENTITY, DISSIDENCE, AND CULTURAL PRACTICE

(cid:93) MICHAEL CHAPMAN
African Literature, African Literatures:
Cultural Practice or Art Practice? | 153
(cid:93) PINKIE MEKGWE
Theorizing African Feminism(s): The ‘Colonial’ Question | 165
(cid:93) KATRIN BERNDT
The Multilayered Construction of Identity in Alexander Kanengoni’s
Echoing Silences and Farida Karodia’s “The Red Velvet Dress” | 175
(cid:93) ULRIKE AUGA
Intellectuals Between Resistance and Legitimation:
The Cases of Nadine Gordimer and Christa Wolf | 191

Notes on Contributors and Editors | 213
Notes for Contributors | 217
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND NOTICE

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We wish to thank Blaize Wilkinson and Gordon Collier for editing the Eng-
lish-language texts.

Misfortune resolved: the editors of Versions and Subversions, vol. 2 regret the
presence of a misprint on page 120, line 5 of the article “Code-Switching
Between Swahili and English in East African Popular Literature” by Thomas
Geider. Instead of the rendering “Nk kktai kks kkk,” the Kikamba sentence
should read N(cid:429) k(cid:429)tai k(cid:429)k(cid:458) k(cid:429)(cid:429)? (meaning ‘What misfortune is this?’).

INTRODUCTION

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Postcolonialism, Gender, and Modernity
African Literatures and the Agendas of Theory
at the Outset of the Twenty-First Century

P
opular and journalistic opinion claimed for years that African litera-
ture lingers in a state of stagnation and crisis.1 Although this literature
– in the decades after the formal end of colonialism – has gained solid
ground in the syllabuses of African second- and third-cycle institutions;
schools, libraries, and university departments remain crippled with the peren-
nial problems of lacklustre financial support and the continuing brain-drain of
writers and scholars seeking greener pastures outside the continent. The
majority of internationally accessible knowledge production around African
literature is carried out in parts of Europe (and more recently and especially in
the USA) rather than, as it once was actually envisaged,2 on the African con-
tinent itself. And indeed, when it comes to international recognition, stalwarts
and founding fathers such as Ng(cid:215)g(cid:180) wa Thiong’o, Wole Soyinka, and Chinua
Achebe (with the latter two now septuagenarians), have not yet been replaced

1 See, for instance, Ivor Agyeman–Duah, “The Decline of Modern African Litera-
ture,” West Africa 4238 (7–13 August 2000): 40–41.
2 See Kwame Nkrumah, “Opening of the Institute of African Studies, University of
Ghana, Legon October 25th, 1963,” in Selected Speeches of Kwame Nkrumah 5, ed.
Samuel Obeng (Accra: Afram, 1997): 127–39.

© Texts, Tasks, and Theories: Versions and Subversions in African Literatures, vol. 3, ed.
Tobias Robert Klein, Ulrike Auga & Viola Prüschenk (Matatu 35; Amsterdam & New York
NY: Editions Rodopi, 2007); Humboldt Studies (General Editor: Flora Veit–Wild), vol. 3.