(toc) #title= (Table of Content)
General Overview
Literature is about people, their society, their culture, their institutions. But it is also, and especially, about language, the medium through which the people's society, culture, and institutions are expressed. Although oral narratives have existed abundantly in Africa for centuries, it is arguable whether there were novelists or novels in sub-Saharan Africa before the advent of colonization. Whichever way one looks at it, African novelists, since the colonial period, constitute a special kind of creators. Unlike traditional poets or storytellers with whom they are in contact, African novelists who express themselves in European languages acquired their art through the possibility of writing.
Within the framework of literature, the immediate advantage that writing offered to the African was the means to participate in the development of the prevailing literary genre. However, because of the impossibility or difficulty for some African writers to write in their mother tongues, there arose the need for these writers to write in the languages of the colonizers. Because, historically, Africans found themselves placed in this linguistic situation, the early African writers started to write in the languages of the colonizers without considering all the implications involved in the use of such languages. In their zeal to destroy the stereotypical images of Africa and to project their African worldview, these writers may have considered the colonial languages as mere tools or means to achieve their objectives.
Language issue apart, these early writers were concerned about the changing society they found themselves. There are new values and attitudes that came from the colonial milieu. They tend to concerned with the change of this attitude and value and express fears about the adverse effects. They wrote about the city and the rural setting in the colonial society. The educated ones were worried about the way Africa and Africans are being portrayed. They believed that writing in English or other colonial languages would enable them reach a wider audience.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
Express the reasons why the early African prose fiction writers wrote in the colonial language instead of their local languages
The Early Novels
The early African writers were living in search of true identity. The identity that was vandalized by colonial and imperialistic history. They believed that through literature they would form the catharsis for redemption of African lives if they have enough courage and suaveness to live them authentically. There is no need for lofty theories or forms. All that is needed is finding true African identity that is not necessarily derived from other forms and live by it. In 1938, Daniel O. Fagunwa wrote his Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale, after entering a literary contest of the Nigerian education ministry, the novel was widely considered the first novel written in the Yorùbá language and one of the first to be written in any African language; Wole Soyinka translated the book into English in 1968 as The Forest of A Thousand Demons. Fagunwa's later works include Igbo Olodumare (The Forest of God, 1949), Ireke Onibudo (1949), Irinkerindo ninu Igbo Elegbeje (Expedition to the Mount of Thought, 1954), and Adiitu Olodumare (1961). Fagunwa's novels draw heavily on folktale traditions and idioms, including many supernatural elements. His heroes are usually Yoruba hunters, who interact with kings, sages, and even gods in their quests. Thematically, his novels also explore the divide between the Christian beliefs of Africa's colonizers and the continent's traditional religions. Fagunwa remains the most widely-read Yorùbá-language author, and a major influence on such contemporary writers as Amos Tutuola. The novel though in local dialect marked a smooth transition from orature to literature.
Amos Tutuola was a Nigerian writer famous for his books based in part on Yoruba folk-tales. His most famous novel, The Palm- Wine Drinkard was written in 1946, published in 1952 in London by Faber and Faber. The noted poet Dylan Thomas brought it to wide attention, calling it "brief, thronged, grisly and bewitching". The Palm- Wine Drinkard was followed up by My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in 1954 and then several other books in which Tutuola continued to explore Yoruba traditions and folklore. Amos Tutuola’s Palmwine Drinkard was described as a conscious attempt at serious fiction in English from Africa. Amos Tutuola was barely literate; hence his use of English in the novel was full of aberrations, although the language of the novel was loaded with fantastic realisms like a folktale while the language was full of repetitions and emphasis. One fascinating thing about these early novels is the inclusion of the folktale traditions in them. The works of Fagunwa
and Tutuola are written African tales that express African belief systems about their culture, the spiritual essence and affinity with divine powers and the general worldview of their culture. These works marked a transition from orature to literature. The novels are written folktales.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
Explain the nature of the early novels especially those of Tutuola and Fagunwa.
The Novels of the City
With the increasing effect of colonialism, urbanism became a focus. The Colonial masters were busy developing a new type of settlement for themselves and the educated Africans. The rural setting became undeveloped because attention is paid to the city. The city embodies everything ugly: armed robbery, stealing, prostitution, suicide, manslaughter and other negative vices which the rural areas are not always known for. With the arrival of electricity and other communication gadgets, the city became a haven for the educated and the foreigners. Cyprian Ekwensi People of the City in 1954 and which was the first book by a Nigerian writer to garner international attention. In this novel, Ekwensi examined the life of the urban dwellers and the effect of colonialism on the Africans. One fascinating thing about these urban novels is that they try to juxtapose the rural setting with the urban setting in order to assess the rural and the urban lives as it affects the Africans. His most successful novel was Jagua Nana (1961) which was about a Pidgin-speaking Nigerian woman who leaves her husband to work as a prostitute in a city and falls in love with a teacher. He also wrote a sequel to this, Jagua Nana's Daughter. Most of these urban novels especially Ekwensi’s Jagua Nana and Jagua Nana’s Daughter explored deeply the negative imports of urbanization on the Africans.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
Assess the major trends in early urban novels.
The Novels of Rural Life
With the publication of Things Fall Apart in 1958, there was a critical look at the rural setting with the penetration of the colonialists into the hinterland. Things fall Apart is a story about an organized community, Umuofia, with its standard laws, government and spiritual make-up. Okonkwo, the hero is much concerned about how to attain greatness in line with the dictates of his society. He offended his society by desecrating the Week of Peace with provoked attempt at shooting one of his wives. He was found guilty by the elders and was exiled for seven years. He ran to his maternal home to serve the sentence. There too, he proved himself as a man of greatness. When he returned to Umuofia after his seven years banishment, he met a new community with weak men. He discovered that things were no longer as it used to be and that the white men had invaded the community and imposed their taxes and churches. All efforts to bring his people back to the former state of dignity where they were proved abortive. In an effort to fight a one man’s war, he committed murder and hanged himself.
This novel is about the pure rural lives of the African with the tragic effect of colonialism destroying the values of the people. Everything fell apart as the real African values of life were thrown into the abyss while a strange culture, law and values were imposed on the people.
Another rural novel of significance is Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine. It is a novel set in a pure rural setting before the advent of the colonial masters. It shows the values of Africans in their natural state with their laws and values at play. The story is about the love life of a young woman called Ihuoma. All the men who indicated interests of marrying her died mysteriously. Emenike her first husband died of locked chest after his fight with Madume over a piece of land; Madume died when he made amorous moves towards Ihuoma and was spat on by a cobra. He went blind before committing suicide. Lastly was Ekwueme the stubborn lover, he rejected his childhood betrothed girl for the widow, Ihuoma. He eventually died after all preparations to bind the ‘sea king’ troubling Ihuoma was made. The story took place in Omokachi Village. The community had not been invaded by the colonial masters, the values and belief systems were intact, the society has their means of justice and justice. In these novels, the choice of language is usually filled with local colour expressions like idioms, proverbs, songs, and other African ways of expressing aesthetics.
Put in another way, the question of an authentic rural novel remains when we see the authentic African identity unshaded by colonial maladjustments. African writing should be the portrayal of African customs and manners against historical background. African beauty and vividness in writing can also be portrayed through an individual throttling of personal energy trying to improve his/her social condition and achieve personal happiness. As much as literature is the art of outpacing the times, no one man can create or anticipate culture on his own. Culture is naming and giving valuable significance by unconscious intent to that which we all move in; it cannot be contrived.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4
Explain thoroughly what qualifies an African novel as a rural novel.
The Classless Novels
Some African novels are located both in the rural and urban settings. They can not be classed as urban or rural novels since they embody the qualities of the two. This pattern of setting allows the authors the opportunity of analogy of the two settings as they affect the Africans. Most times, this juxtaposition allows the readers perceive the tragic effects of colonialism on the values of the Africans. The terrible effect of this imposition of foreign values on Africans became more revealed in Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease. To show continuity in the storyline, Obi Okonkwo the grandson of Okonkwo of Things Fall Apart is the hero. Using the urban setting of Lagos, Achebe contrasted the serene, lawful, organized Umuofia with the rough, lawless and disorganized urban setting of Lagos. There is usually a migration effect on the rural setting as everyone attempts to move to the urban areas to earn livelihood. Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood explored the effect of urban life on Africans. She compared the rural and the urban settings favourable in the novel. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s Weep Not Child and Grain of Wheat, set during the days of Mau Mau fight to relinquish colonialism, also explored the urban setting in Kenya during the colonial days.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 5
Distinguish a Classless Novel from the Urban and the Rural novels.
The Post Independence Novels
With independence came a new vision of writing. Most African writers began to examine their environment with regards to what Africans are doing with the independence they received from the whites. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God attacked the odds of colonialism but his No Longer atEase, A Man of the People and Anthills of the Savannah attacked the African leaders and Africans who have been destroying the cherished African mores by imitating Western Values. Most of these post-independence novels examine the remains of the values and how Africans are managing to put things right. Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautiful Ones are not yet Born in attacked corruption in Africa using his country Ghana as a micro study. Post independence novels are mainly satirical as they attack misplaced values and propose better means of running a hitch free republic. They attack the individual and the state. Post independence writers write with a sense of commitment to teach, to direct, to advise and to attack anomalies. They are more concerned with what Africans are making out of the independence they fought for.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 6
Explain the major thematic concerns of post independence novelists in Africa.
CONCLUSION
One thing is certain, formal novels in Africa began by expressing African worldviews and projecting African culture. The problem of identity and independence were major preoccupations. They try in various ways to express the African situation in unique ways. Besides, the writers of formal novels began from the market literature. Cyprian Ekwensi’s People of the City was the first novel expressing the effect of colonialism in an urban setting. It would be recalled that Ekwensi was a major contributor to the Onitsha Market Literature pamphleteering. Fagunwa and Tutuola were concerned about telling the African tales. Tutuola was interested in expressing himself in his new found language using African mode of expressions. The formal novels arose out of curiosity and later manifested into a specialized genre satirizing, directing and expressing African experiences.
SUMMARY
It is clear that formal novels started by taking cue from African orature. This can be seen from the fiction of the pioneer prose writers like D. O. Fagunwa and Amos Tutuola. Their works have elements of the supernatural akin to the folktale tradition. They also made adequate use of the local communication repertoires like proverbs, idioms, transliteration and other forms of local colour. The rural and urban novelists try in various ways to examine the effects of colonialism in juxtaposition with the natural values and belief system of Africans. The classless and post independence novels satirize and direct for better governance.
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