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Afrikaans Literature and Other Themes

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Afrikaans Literature and Other Themes ISSUE NUMBffl THRE & FOUR • 1998 • Afrikaans Literature and Other Themes Dapo Adeniyi and felicit'ous headlines; all seemingly mea- sured or sparing, and sufficiently serious to Robert Kriger and Ethel Kriger keep in the frame of dignified intellectual pub- (Issue eds.) AFRICANS LITERA- lications. TURE: RECOLLECTION. REDEFINI- Three more recent volumes, but account- ing for five issues (two double issue, one single) TION, RESTITUTION (Matatu 15- on Afrikaans Literature: Recollection, Redefi- 16), Rodopi, Amsterdam & Atlanta, nition and Restitution (Matatu 15-16); Preserv- G.A., 1996, 336pp. ing the Landscape of Imagination: Children's Literature in Africa (Matatu 17-18) and With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema Raoul Granqvist and Jurgen Mar- (Matatu 19) have clear indications of current interests by the journal with possible glimpses tini (Issue eds.) PRESERVING THE into the near future when the present is con- LANDSCAPE of IMAGINATION: trasted with the past. CHILDREN'S LITERATURE IN And Matatu grows text heavier; matters AFRICA (Matatu 17-18). 1997, 361 which it throws up implicate vast regional as well as cross-regional African landscapes. Or- pp. dinarily the broad spectrum of African national literatures in English ought to assure a cease- less flow of matter and - barring other limita- Kenneth W. Harrow (Issue ed.) tions - regularity of publication. This unfortu- WITH OPEN EYES: WOMEN AND nately is hardly always the case, and the AFRICAN CINEMA (Matatu 19), present writer should know! - conversations with editors of African literature and ideas (in- 1997, 263pp. cluding Matatu's very editor) reveal common problems, showing that they know quite well OBSERVED the gradual metamorpho- the joys of producing, and in particular the in- sis of this journal nearly from inception, expressible pleasure of soliciting for contribu- more than ten years ago; even contrib- tions among authors and scholars, even the uted an extract from an on-going work - well advertised, publishing starved young and Ia translation from Yoruba language literature talented ones who dot the canvass of urban and into English. I was struck even at the time by suburban African centres. the most explicit declaration of its commitment The achievements or perceived shortcom- to 'servicing Africa', that being its very name, ings of the publication must therefore be appropriated, I believe, from a modern-day viewed against the backdrop of problems Kenyan lore, actually a well-circulated na- emerging in the contexts of African publishing tional term for contemporary public transit. and publishing in Africa ( a subtle but telling It had peculiarities which promised it a differentiation recently made by Kurt Komatek pride of place amidst similar publications not in the African Publishing Review). based on African soil, but with similar prom- Running through these volumes is an obvi- ises of publishing Africa, its writers and intel- ous striving towards topicality - implying that lectuals as well as provoking discussions on discourse is often tied to concrete reality or oc- issues that would be of interest to that world. currences. They consequently denude much of Matatu adopted the strategy quite early, of sourcing for material mainly from field work- the writings of abstraction and help the reader, ers in Africa and leaving the organisation of particularly the African reader, to relate obser- editorial matter in the hands of general edi- vations by the writers to familiar issues and tors who had sufficient subject insight on the happenings with new insight. Holger Ehling's specific fields of study that it marked down to ' "Please Don't Kill Me" - Children in the specific issues. Today the pattern has largely Liberian Civil War' (Matatu 17-18) for example remained, with only slight mutations from the employs the context of the Liberian war to re- earliest points of beginnings - more attractive flect on child creativity. We meet Liberian chil- cover and page design spiced occasionally with dren in a rather short but captivating review, hand-drawn and photo illustrations, cartoons only a couple of paragraphs long, signposting Glindopi Btiki • ISSUE NUMBER THRE & FOUR • 1888 publishing for children. Her very tone has the effectiveness of pressing for action, right from the opening paragraph- The picture book scene in Africa is not an inspiring one. Very few picture books are produced in the region and most of them come from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ghana and Nigeria. This paucity is due to a dearth of good authors, a scarcity of trained children's book illustrators, the inhibiting economics of publishing in four colours and a general lack of awareness of the importance of illustrations in children's books. Her speculations which hold out some hope by identifying exceptions - as in the case of good authors for example, and the availability of institutions training illustrators - find a complement in Jurgen Martini who inciden- tally weaves his own contribution on autobiog- raphy for children around archetypes pub- lished by Segun herself. Strengthening in the main claims in Segun's paper, Martini observes (yet review- ing an unpublished article by Walter Schicho rendered at Bayreuth University) children's in- their own images of the war in pencil sketches conspicuous place in African autobiographies solicited by The Catholic Education Secre- for adults and in the novel, alleging that they tariat in Liberia jointly with UNICEF, sourced are only glimpsed darkly, often in roles of first from pupils in about forty schools across person narrators or as characters emerging in Liberia. Similarly Andree-Jeanne Totemeyer reminiscences of adult protagonists portrayed in 'Desert Survival and Wilderness Adven- in much amusement, as objects of fun and ridi- tures' dwells on Namibian juvenile literature cule. When we add the facts that autobiogra- in a manner that appropriates Namibian his- phies for children are generally in short sup- tory, thereby contextualising the problems ply across the world and not only in Africa, and leading to the paucity of adolescent literature that they are further undermined where they in that country. This article (an observable share space with the adult figure, the scene is feature in Matatu), is illustrated with much certainly less than inspiring as Segun has said, data and statistics, almost signifying a sort of from the child's point of view. stylistic unity. The backdrop to the foregoing scenario in Apart from being richly topical and in con- Africa's case cannot be ignored, painted with tact with realities surrounding the subjects yet again - facts and figures by issue editors, in discussion (i.e children's literature, gender Raoul Granqvist and Jurgen Martini; in their perspectives to African film-making and the forenote they observe that fifteen per cent of issue of national language(s) for post-apart- all girls in sub-saharan Africa attend second- heid South Africa) there is also a striking lu- ary schools while for the boys the figure is at cidity about the essays, reportorial in sections twenty-two per cent and by contrast the respec- and bent on informing. Exceptions to the rule tive figures for Europe stand at ninety-three exist though, in Kenneth Harrow's title essay per cent and ninety-one per cent. With the over- and Stephen Zack's article around Trinh T. whelming majority of potential contributors to, Minh-ha's Reassemblage in the issue on film and consumers of juvenile and children's lit- which have theoretical overtones. erature outside school, the prospect for all types Mabel Segun's contribution on 'Illustrat- of literature (adult, juvenile or children) is ob- ing for Children' suppresses anger which in vious. This means of course that the oral tale any case is justified with situational descrip- is placed at an advantage, helped particularly tions of the state with writing, illustrating and in Africa's urban locations by children's fasci- GUndori Books Sipplomoot 11 ISSUE NUMBER THRE & FOUR • 1998 nation to multimedia and a multicultural ap- tial filmic medium. proach (interview with Kofi Anyidoho) espe- It is reported that the minute feminine con- cially as oral forms of literature find outlets tribution to film work is true only up to the in the electronic media and through commer- 1980s. Kenneth Harrow, the issue editor, cial soaps. writes that they are currently in the same po- Matatu throws its whole weight behind the sition now that African women writers were recognition of children's creativity as self-ex- ten to fifteen years ago. So that definately, the isting entities, valid as autonomous contribu- force of women film-makers, as in literature, tions to human dialogue and worthy of their is moving to improve the picture. own categories, modalities and dialects, and The dominant material in the issue on Af- not as mere appendages of adults' creative and rikaans Literature: Recollection, Redefinition literary types. and Restitution are selected papers from the A unity of purpose may be discerned be- 7th conference on South African literature tween the focus on children - and the even hosted in the Evangelische Akademie Bad Boll more vulnerable adolescents - and women. in 1992, under the same heading as is be- Dedicated to women, women with open eyes, queathed to the journal issue. Materials how- venturing into the wild fields of movie-mak- ever overflow the banks of the conference ing dominated by the males, interviews, es- theme to inclose articles on the Congress for says and film reviews bristle with allegations South African Writers (COSAW) and publish- of male disparagement and attendant uneven- ing, recollections from a publisher's earliest ness of possibilities for women. The issue ad- encounters with the manuscripts of Ngugi Wa mits that female writers have a head.-start over Thiong'o's fiction and a checklist of East Afri- the female film-makers, even though in many can Women Writers.
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