African Literature is a Country

Image credit Suad Kamardeen

(By Lily Saint and Bhakti Shringarpure) - African literature is a country

          What if you survey African literature professors to find out which works and writers are most regularly taught? Only a few canonical ones continue to dominate curricula. 

          This is the first post of the series “African Literature is a Country” which asks how we decolonize literary studies today.
          We would like to thank Henry Vehslage for his assistance in organizing and gathering all the information and Dr. Erin Butler for help in interpreting the data. An additional heartfelt thanks to the late Professor Tejumola Olaniyan for his support and advice on this project.

          African literary studies today is a site of deep paradox. On one hand, the last two decades have seen astonishing growth for African literature in the global North and South, evidenced by lucrative publishing deals; new prizes and grants; literature festivals; the establishment of many new presses and imprints; and an increase in blogs and platforms that disseminate and discuss these developments. On the other hand, African literature continues to exist on the margins of the academic mainstream and is also underrepresented within larger reading publics.

Of Africa, Colonialism, and a Granny's Memory

"How I mumbled adoring, reverent prayers to my grandmother in those early days of my market gardening. My grandmother, who had been an inexorable cultivator of land, sower of seeds and reaper of rich harvests until, literally until, her very last moment. When I was too small to be anything more than a hindrance in the family fields, I used to spend many productive hours working with my grandmother on the plot of land she called her garden. We hoed side by side strips of land defined by the row of maize plants each carried, I obstinately insisting I could keep pace with her, she weeding three strips to my one so that I could. Praising my predisposition towards working, she consolidated it in me as a desirable habit.
          She gave me history lessons as well. History that could not be found in the textbooks; a stint in the field and a rest, the beginning of the story, a pause. 'What happened after, Mbuya, what happened?' 'More work, my child, before you hear more story.' Slowly, methodically, throughout the day the field would be cultivated, the episodes of my grandmother's own portion of history strung together from beginning to end.
          'Your family did not always live here, did not move to this place until after the time that I was married to your grandfather. We lived up in Chipinge, where the soil is ripe and your great-grandfather was a rich man in the currency of those days, having many fat heard of cattle, large fields and four wives who worked hard to produce bountiful harvests. All this he could exchange for cloth and beads and axes and a gun, even a gun, from the traders. They did not come to stay in those days; they passed through and left. Your great-grandfather had sons enough to fill a kraal, as big, strong, hardworking men. And me, I was beautiful in those days,'