5 African & Caribbean Novel – An Overview

Prof. T. Vijay Kumar

Contents

·         What is ‘African’ novel?

·         Constituents of African literature.

·         Historical background of ‘foreign’ languages in Africa.

·         Origin and development of the African novel in English.

·         Caribbean Vs West Indian literature.

·         Origin and development of the Caribbean novel in English.

·         Conclusion.

Introduction

This module is about “African and Caribbean Novel in English” and it comprises two parts: African novel in English and Caribbean novel in English. As the title suggests, what is being attempted here is an ‘overview’ and it is hoped that by the end of the module, you will get an idea of the broader contours of the two.

Before we begin with the African novel in English, we should be familiar with the view that there is no such thing as the ‘African’ literature in the first place. For, we must remember that Africa is not a country but a continent comprising more than 50 countries. So, how can we talk about African literature in the singular? We must also acknowledge that what we call African literature consists of at least six distinct literary streams: Oral literature, Anglophone African literature, Francophone African literature, Lusophone African literature, South African literature, and African literature in African languages.

Although many African languages may not have a script, they all have rich oral traditions. We cannot, therefore, isolate written literature from what preceded it, namely, oral literature. Thus, the first component of African literature is oral literature (or ‘orature’). The second is, Anglophone African literature which is African literature written in English. The next one is Francophone African literature which is African literature written in the French language. Lusophone African literature is the fourth stream and it is African literature written in Portuguese. The fifth is South African literature. Now, South African literature, by and large, is also written in English. But as is well-known, the literary and more importantly the political history of South Africa has been very different from those of the rest of Africa. As a result, literature from South Africa, though written in English, tends to be significantly different from that of rest of Africa. The last of the literary streams that make up ‘African’ literature is African literature written in African languages. For, today African literature is written in several African languages also. So, when we talk about ‘African’ literature, or for that matter, ‘African’ novel, we must recognize that at least six different streams of literary culture go into it.

The question that may arise is ‘Why is African literature written in so many different foreign languages’? The answer to that question is to be found in history. As is well known, the  major European powers gathered for a conference in Berlin in 1884-85 and quite literally divided the African continent among themselves. As a result, what used be over 1000 indigenous African communities were grouped into some 50-odd countries which  the colonial powers then divided among themselves. Thus, for instance, there was the French presence in East Africa, British dominance in West Africa, Belgium in Central Africa and so on. As a result, the languages of the colonial powers subsequently became the languages of African writing. This explains the use of various foreign languages in different parts of Africa.

Let us now look at African writing or writing coming from Africa. One of the earliest books to come out of Africa was by Equiano who wrote what is now considered a ‘slave narrative’. Olaudah Equiano’s book titled The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano was published in 1789, and it is probably the earliest African texts. Then in 1911 Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford published Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation (1911), which is one of the first works of fiction in English by an African writer. In the 1920s and 30 two important books were published: Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka (1925) and Soloman Plaatje’s Mhudi (1930). In the 1940s the South African writer Peter Abrahams published what is widely considered the earliest modern, realist African novel Song of the City (1945).

African writing received a major boost in the 1940s and various socio-political and cultural factors contributed to its resurgence during the decade. For instance, Pan-Africanism, although it had started earlier, emerged as a strong movement during the 1940s. Pan- Africanism stressed on “collective self-reliance” and it was supported by major leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey, William Du Bois and others. Negritude was another important movement that contributed to the growth African writing in the 1940s. Negritude was more than a literary movement; it was a cultural and political movement that sought to assert black pride and reject the perceived superiority of Western culture. Leading figures of Negritude included Aimé Césaire, Leopold Sedar Senghor. Then in 1948, University College of Ibadan (later University of Ibadan) was established in Nigeria. The college soon became  an educational hub and produced such distinguished alumni like Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo, Wole Soyinka, and Ken Saro-Wiwa. Thus, several social, cultural, and political events of the 1940s contributed to the growth of African literature in English in the 1940s.

In the 1950s the African novel in English began to emerge as an established genre. Amos Tutuola’s well-known novel The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952), Cyprian Ekwensi’s first novel People of the City (1954), and the classic Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe were all published in the 1950s. Then in the 1960s, the African novel in English took an interesting turn. The 1960s was the ‘decade of African independence’ as several African countries (beginning with Ghana in 1957 and Nigeria in 1960) became independent during the decade. But the 1960s was also a decade of great disappointment as many of the newly independent countries either turned into military dictatorships or were involved in internecine wars. Thus, the optimism surrounding independence soon turned into deep disappointment and the 1960s in Africa came to be referred to in literary histories as the ‘decade of disillusion’. The novels written during this period quite naturally reflected the mood of the times. Thus, we have novels such as Gabriel Okara’s The Voice (1964), Wole Soyinka’s The Interpreters (1965), Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), and Robert Serumaga’s Return to the Shadows (1969). Although they belong to different countries and were responding to different political situations, the mood of deep disappointment and disillusionment is common to all these novels published in the 1960s.

Then in the 1970s, one can see an attempt to return to the roots. During the 1970s, African writers and intellectuals seem to make a concerted effort to rediscover indigenous culture and values, perhaps to counter the disillusionment of the preceding decade. The 1970s also witness a kind of polemical posturing in African writing. Writers seem to adopt  overt political and ideological stances. Some of the novels that exhibit these tendencies—return to roots, search for indigenous models, and polemical posturing—are Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy (1973), Ngugi wa Thinog’o’s Petals of Blood (1977), and Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Healers (1978).

Since the 1980s, African writing in English received global attention and achieved several milestones. For instance, in 1986 Wole Soyinka became the first African writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Three other African writers received the Nobel Prize for Literature subsequently. The Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz won it in 1988, the South African writer Nadine Gordimer in 1991, and another South African writer JM Coetzee in 2003. Coetzee also has the distinction of being the first writer to receive the Booker Prize twice: in 1983 (for Life & Times of Michael K) and in 1999 (for Disgrace). Then, Doris Lessing who spent her early life in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and wrote the famous novel The Grass is Singing (1950) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007. Two young Nigerian writers received international recognition since the 1980s: Ben Okri won the Man Booker Prize in 1991 for his novel The Famished Road and Chimamanda Adichie won the Commonwealth Writers’ Best First Book Prize in 2005 for her novel Purple Hibiscus. Thus, since the 1980s, the African novel in English has received wide recognition for its vibrancy and vitality.

Two important developments are noticeable in the African novel in English since the 1980s. One, the rise of the women novelists. Several women writers started publishing their novels in the 1980s. Some of them are Zaynab Alkali (The Stillborn [1984] and The Virtuous Woman [1987]). Tsitsi Dangarembga (Nervous Conditions [1988]), Yvonne Vera (Without a Name [1994]), and Chimamanda Adichie (2003, 2006, 2009, 2013).

The second development since the 1980s is the rise of the diasporic and/or minority writing, ie. novels by writers from ethnic minority groups. The best known among such writers is the Kenya-born M G Vassanji who began with an internationally acclaimed first novel The Gunny Sack (1989) and has now added more than half dozen novels (1991, 1994, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2012, 2016) to his oeuvre. Then there is Peter Nazereth of Uganda who wrote the novels In a Brown Mantle (1972) and The General is Up (1991), and more recently the Ethiopian medical doctor Abraham Verghese (Cutting for Stone [2009]) and Kenya-born ethnographer Sultan Somjee (Bead Bai [2013]). Among the very few women novelists of minority ethnic origin is Jameela Siddiqi who has so far written two novels: The Feast of Nine Virgins (2001) and Bombay Gardens (2006).

To conclude the discussion on the African novel in English, let us look at the way in which the novels can be classified. Using the aspect of history that the novels depict, we can classify them into four categories. The first category would be the novels dealing mainly with the past or the beginning of colonialism. Second, novels portraying the process of colonial domination. The third category will consist of novels that recreate the struggle for independence. The last category comprises novels that evoke post-independence social and political climate. Thus, using the depiction of history as a criterion, we can classify the African novels in English into four groups.

Now, the second component of this module, namely the Caribbean novel in English. First a clarification about the terminology. People are often confused between the two terms: Caribbean and West Indian literature. The term ‘Caribbean’ refers to a geographical area and therefore, ‘Caribbean literature’ generally refers to the literatures of all Caribbean territories regardless of the language in which it is written. For reasons of history, Caribbean literature too (like African literature) is written in several languages: English, Spanish, French, Dutch, and a number of creoles. On the other hand, literature in English specifically from the former British West Indies may be referred to as Anglo-Caribbean or, in historical contexts, West Indian literature. The tendency today is not to use the term ‘West Indian’ literature because it is argued that it is not possible to separate the writing in one language—English—from the writing in the other languages—French, Spanish—that coexist in the same geographical area. So, the preferred term is ‘Caribbean literature in English’ rather than West Indian writing.

The term “West Indian literature” began to gain wide currency in the 1950s when writers like Samuel Selvon, John Hearne, Edgar Mittelholzer, VS Naipaul, and George Lamming—who all wrote in English—began to be published in the UK. However, one of the earliest writers in English was EG de Lisser who published Jane: A Story of Jamaica which was the first truly significant English novel from the Caribbean. The late 1920s and the early 1930s saw the beginnings of a literary culture. Monthlies such as New Beacon and Trinidad were published in Trinidad and they provided a forum for the publication of writings in English. Then in 1933 the well-known Jamaican writer Claude McKay, who was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, published his first novel Banana Bottom (1933) and followed it up with another novel Gingertown (1939).

So, leaving out the de Lisser’s 1913 novel, one can safely say that the Caribbean novel in English ‘began’ in the 1930s. Then several factors contributed to its growth in the 1940s. For instance, literary journals like Bim (a monthly), Focus (annual), and Kyk-over-Al began to be published in the Caribbean. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) started a radio programme called “Caribbean Voices” which became a major platform for Caribbean writers living in England. The 1940s also saw the first major wave of emigrations as several writers found it necessary to leave the islands to pursue a literary career. A literary movement of these emigrants blossomed with leaders such as Edgar Mittleholzer, Samuel Selvon, George Lamming, VS Naipaul, and Andrew Salkey. Then in 1949 the University of the West Indies was founded. Thus, the publications of literary journals locally, the starting of a radio programme overseas, the flowering of literary movement by emigrant writers, and the founding of the university were some of important developments that contributed to the growth of Caribbean literature in English, especially the novel, in the 1940s.

The 1950s and the 60s saw the publication of the first novels by almost all the major Caribbean writers in English. In 1953, George Lamming (of Barbados) published his first novel In the Castle of My Skin. The novel, a bildungsroman, soon gained wide recognition as classic study of Caribbean life, and its success catalyzed a decade-long flourish of Caribbean literature in British publishing. Wilson Harris (of Guyana) published Palace of the Peacock, the first of “The Guyana Quartet”, in 1960. In 1961, VS Naipaul (of Trinidad) published A House for Mr. Biswas, perhaps the most canonized and widely read novel in the British West Indies. In 1966, Jean Rhys (of Dominica) published Wide Sargasso Sea, which is a kind of ‘prequel’ to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and a feminist retelling of the story from the perspective of the Creole “madwoman” in the attic. So, with the publications of these important first novels, the Caribbean novel in English emerged as an established genre in the 1950s and the 60s.

Since the 1970s, emerging younger writers such as Roy Heath (of Guyana), Earl Lovelace (of Trinidad), Jamaica Kincaid (of Antigua), and Caryl Phillips (of St Kitts) have taken the forward the tradition of the Caribbean novel in English. Since the 1980s, Caribbean writing in English received two international recognitions. In 1992, Derek Walcott of St Lucia became the first Caribbean author to win Nobel Prize for Literature, and VS Naipaul, born in Trinidad and resident in the United Kingdom since the 1950, received the same honour in 2001. Thus, beginning in the 1930s, the Caribbean novel in English has matured over the years and is often regarded as the most representative of Caribbean writing in English. Some critics, however, contest the view and argue that it is the short story that is really the most visible and also the most indigenized form.

To conclude the discussion on the Caribbean novel in English, three broad points. One, most of the islands have become independent since the 1960s and are now independent island nations. Therefore, the literature produced by these nations although written in the same language—English—can be seen as autonomous. However, despite different nationalities, these literatures share several common features. The English language is, of course, a common heritage. Apart from that, the islands share a number of political, cultural, and social ties which makes it possible, as well as useful, for us to consider their literary output as a single category rather than as literature produced by different independent nations. This is what the well-known critic of Caribbean literature Kenneth Ramchand argues in his book The West Indian Novel and its Background.

The next important point about the Caribbean novel in English is that although the range of themes they deal with is as wide as it is in any literature, most of them share certain common features. For instance, many Caribbean novels continue to grapple with issues such as identity, ethnicity, language, race, and gender that arose out of the Caribbean historical experience. So the recurrence of common, shared concerns allows us to see the similarities among the different Caribbean novels in English.

In his module, we discussed two components: the African novel in English and the Caribbean novel in English. To sum up the discussion on the first component, the African novel in English originated in the 1930s and several social, political, and cultural factors contributed to its growth in the 1940s. Then it became an established genre in the 1950s with the publication of some important novels. Since the 1960s, it has taken some important turns and continues to flourish and diversify with the contribution of women writers, writers from the ethnic minority groups, and diasporic writers.

To summarize the discussion on the second component, the Caribbean novel in English too made its beginnings in the 1930s. Again, as with the African novel in English, several factors contributed to its growth in the 1940s. However, except a few like Claude McKay, almost all the major writers like Lamming, Harris, Naipaul, and Rhys began to publish in the 1950s and 60s, which was the period during which the Caribbean novel in English can be said to have flourished. From the 1970s, despite important contribution by the writers of other genres like poetry, drama, and especially the short story, the novel seems to dominate the Caribbean literature in English. Another significant aspect is the emigration of most of the Caribbean writers in the 1950s and the 60s. Many writers found it necessary to leave their home territories and base themselves in the United Kingdom, the United States, or Canada in order to make a living from their work. Lastly, history, identity, ethnicity, language, and gender continue to be some of the major themes in the Caribbean novel in English.