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Black Orpheus & Transition Revisited

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Black Orpheus & Transition Revisited The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library. Find more at: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/ Available through a partnership with Scroll down to read the article. IVERYBODY WAS having a lunchrime drink in a bar in Kampala, Uganda one hot afternoon in November 1961. Then a 22-year-old man with a big head and lots of hah- entered, his arms saddled with copies of a new magazine he was trying to sell. As the hawker wended his way to a table, an angry Englishman bolted from the din of the afternoon, dashed in his way, snatched one of the magazines from him and ripped it in shreds. He couldn't have stopped at that. 'That's what I think of your trash!' he spat at the young man. In the Lugogo Retailing a Forgettable Akin Tale Adesokan Black Orpheus & Transition revisited Sports Club, another venue in taking his first shot at marketing, this reaction the city where the journal was was enough intimidation. ButRajatNeogy, the being peddled to members of a young man, was not an appretice hawker, not even an accomplished one. The journal he was jazz club, the manager vending, Transition was his brainchild, an threatened to eject the club for idea he had taken so seriously he staked his allowing what someone also personal convenience for it. He had returned called 'nasty left-wing to Uganda a year before, just married, with literature'. a degree in political science, with the intention For a prospective newspaper vendo of introducing his wife, a Swede, to his parents, African Quarterly on the Arts Vol.11 NO 5 take her round Kampala, then head for wanted from her was straightforward, journal and been impressed by its success. Greece, perhaps for honeymoon. But although to her it was not. 'You go and sell He was determined to try something similar Uganda was giddy, like most of Africa, advertising and when you've sold enough, in East Africa. Black Orpheus was with the euphoria of imminent self- we can go to press', he told her. published until 1982 (though it ceased to government. He had studied politics and be regular from the late 1960s) and even 'But what are we printing?' she practised journalism as a student and with changes in its editorial philosophies, asked. freelancer. He was spoken of as bohemian as in its handlers, it fulfilled the role its and given to the idealism of twenty- 'You don't worry about that, just founders designed for it. Like Neogy, somethingness. Somehow, he saw himself sell the space.' Beier, a 35-year-old expatriate teaching as having a statement to make and extramural students at the University Transition was his show of hand. 'Society Wole Soyinka who visited Kampala College, Ibadan, had before hip-, the as it is, for what it is, (is) totally unacceptable shortly after the first edition was published example of the Parisian review, Pretence to me for obvious reasons. It cannot be and who succeeded Neogy as editor Africaine published by Alioune Diop. changed, there is no satisfaction in Utopian recalled in his first editorial 1 3 years later: Attending the World Congress of Black- intellect. I do not want to change it. I am 'I... remember well the editorial office Writers in Paris in 1 956, Beier had been an outsider. I accept my inaccessibility situated in Rajat's home, its entire space struck by the literary movement that had to others. I don't make a fetish of being taken up by a smooth slab of wood, grown around the review. 'One could 'outsider'. Sentimentalists of a finer order supported on piles of bricks. All the labour envisage that this could kindle a similar will call my 'condition' the painfulness of originated from this desk'. Two thousand development in the English speaking truth. But pain and joy do not come into copies of the first edition were printed out territories...' he said in a discussion which this. Since I am surrounded by stupidity of which 1,200 were sold, perhaps Andrew Salkey, the Caribbean writer and I am not selfish (because not possessive including the copies torn in the fury of moderated for him and Moore at Dennis or acquisitive materially or spiritually) I offended sensibility. Duerden's Transcription Centre in London have a certain duty... I have to add my in 1 966 , the year he left Nigeria for Papua New Guinea. (Beier alleges in a contribution, in iron and steel i.e. in Rajat Neogy died in December 1994 interview with Olu Obafemi in permanence'. 1995. TEMPO, a Lagos weekly that Benson did not contact him while researching the A classic of Euromodernist Since handing over the editorship book; but Benson claims he got a letter pessimism? Wait for this, a publisher's to Soyinka in 1974, he had returned to from Beier dated 21 August, 1981 in announcement titled "Culture in San Francisco in the US where he which he discussed how he came to Transition". 'This journal appears when published a newspaper and did some Nigeria in 1950) Beier had hoped to East Africa is undergoing various and writing. Very little of his life for the next 20 stimulate literary activity in West Africa exciting changes. It is a time when idealism years was known. Peter Benson, the with a view to providing 'a vehicle for the and action merge with various degrees of American scholar has written a book, new writers who would emerge'. An article success. It is also a time for testing Black Orpheus, Transition and Modern by Jahn in the first edition reporting on the intellectual and other preconceptions and Cultural Awakening in Africa, (University conference in Paris also struck a link for thoughtful and creative contributions of California Press, 1986) a thoroughly between the congress's resolution and in all our spheres,' it said. researched and well-written study about Black Orpheus's ideology. the history of Transition and its counterpart That journal, so vilified in its premiere in West Africa, Black Orpheus, as they appearance took Neogyand others three inspired the development of creative and Neogy too had intended a vehicle, months to produce. The team included intellectual groups in East and West Africa 'on which the wagon of intellect may Valerie Hume who had canvassed for the for the two decades that they existed. travel for certain distances', yet something advert spaces without any idea what was Neogy reportedly died of inflammation of besides a gallery for new culture. (It is to be published and Signor Pessina, an the pancreas. He is survived by his mother instructive to note that whereas Transition Italian refugee from Zaire who spoke no Sumitra, the seven children (four sons has been revived in the US in the late English but who as printer set several three daughters) from his three marriages, 1980s - thus leaving a gap of 10 years million letters by hand and made as many and a grandchild. In a way, this is a save a three-year interregnum between errors. It came out the day in November tribute to him and others. 1 968 and 1971 - Beier and Moore said when Neogy's first son was born. in 1966 that the period for the kind of To be sure, Transition was not just magazine they founded had passed. 'We What went for planning was a restless youth's dream. According to need several different kinds of magazines anything but that. 'I gathered that he was Benson, one of the pieces published in the now,' remarked Beier whom Benson planning to starta magazine,'wrote Hume first issue was a retrospective tribute by christens 'border operator' for his role as in a reflection published in Transition six Gerald Moore to Black Orpheus, which exporter of African literature. Two kinds in years later. 'An independent, intellectual the German Ulli Beier had founded (with fact; one would publish a new writing and magazine about culture and the African Jahnheinzjahn and Moore) in Ibadan in circulate limitedly while the other, 'a really creative scene and all that'. What Neogy 1957. Neogy had heard about this cultural highly critical journal' would supply the African Quarterly on the Arts VoLllNOi highest standards in evaluating the would now be a vehicle for their aspiration. Jean-Paul Sartre to Leopold Sedar literature). Senghor's edition of poems from French Beier had developed a keen interest Africa, in which the French philosopher In 1957, a rich cultural mine was in traditional Yoruba culture and was (who incidentally also wrote the waiting to be exploited by Beier in West necessarily committed to a more than introduction to Frantz Fanon's The Africa, due in part to the sense of freedom academic study of its potentials. Wretched of the Earth, on important book and confidence that self-rule would bring. Sangodare Akanji, one of the several on the origins of African radicalism) had The University of Ibadan was one of the pseudonyms under which he wrote reviews evoked Orpheus's descent into hell to three centres of higher learning in the for Black Orpheus was described in the explain the black poet's search for identity. whole of West Africa. (Fourah Bay in contributors' notes in a 1958 issue as a In the first editorial, Beier wrote: 'While it Sierra Leone and the University of Ghana 'detribalised Yoruba' who having been is the primary purpose of this journal to in Legon were others).
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