Indigeneity, Globalization, and African Literature AFRICAN HISTORIES and MODERNITIES

Indigeneity, Globalization, and African Literature AFRICAN HISTORIES AND MODERNITIES

Series Editors Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin Matthew M. Heaton, Virginia Tech Editorial Board Aderonke Adesanya, Art History, James Madison University Kwabena Akurang-Parry, History, Shippensburg University Nana Amponsah, History, University of North Carolina, Wilmington Tyler Fleming, History, University of Louisville Barbara Harlow, English and Comparative Literature, University of Texas at Austin Emmanuel Mbah, History, College of Staten Island Akin Ogundiran, Africana Studies, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

This book series serves as a scholarly forum on African contributions to and nego- tiations of diverse modernities over time and space, with a particular emphasis on historical developments. Specifically, it aims to refute the hegemonic conception of a singular modernity, Western in origin, spreading out to encompass the globe over the last several decades. Indeed, rather than reinforcing conceptual boundaries or parameters, the series instead looks to receive and respond to changing perspectives on an important but inherently nebulous idea, deliberately creating a space in which multiple modernities can interact, overlap, and conflict. While privileging works that emphasize historical change over time, the series will also feature scholarship that blurs the lines between the historical and the contemporary, recognizing the ways in which our changing understandings of modernity in the present have the capacity to affect the way we think about African and global histories.

Published in the series Contemporary Africa: Challenges and Opportunities (2014) Edited by Toyin Falola and Emmanuel M. Mbah African Postcolonial Modernity: Informal Subjectivities and the Democratic Consensus (2014) By Sanya Osha Building the Ghanaian State: Kwame Nkrumah’s Symbolic Nationalism (2014) By Harcourt Fuller Prisoners of Rhodesia: Inmates and Detainees in the Struggle for Zimbabwean Liberation, 1960–1980 (2014) By Munyaradzi B. Munochiveyi Mugabeism? History, Politics, and Power in Zimbabwe (2015) Edited by Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni Indigeneity, Globalization, and African Literature: Personally Speaking (2015) By Tanure Ojaide Indigeneity, Globalization, and African Literature

Personally Speaking

T a n u r e O j a i d e

INDIGENEITY, GLOBALIZATION, AND AFRICAN LITERATURE Copyright © Tanure Ojaide 2015 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-54220-5 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission. In accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN The author has asserted their right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of Nature America, Inc., One New York Plaza, Suite 4500, New York, NY 10004-1562. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. E-PDF ISBN: 978–1–137–56003–2 ISBN 978-1-349-56338-8 ISBN 978-1-137-56003-2 (eBook) DOI: 10.1057/9781137560032 Distribution in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world is by Palgrave Macmillan®, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ojaide, Tanure, 1948– author. Indigeneity, globalization, and African literature : personally speaking / Tanure Ojaide, Ph.D. pages cm. —(African histories and modernities) ISBN 978-1-349-56338-8 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. African literature—20th century—History and criticism. 2. African literature—21st century—History and criticism. 3. Politics in literature. 4. Africa—Politics and government—1960– 5. Africa—Intellectual life. I. Title. II. Series: African histories and modernities. PL8010.O3295 2015 809Ј.8896—dc23 2015013927 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Contents

Introduction vii

Section I

1 The Perils of a Culture-less African Literature in the Age of Globalization 3 2 Contemporary Africa and the Politics in Literature 19 3 Homecoming: African Literature and Human Development 43 4 Defining Niger Delta Literature: Preliminary Perspective on an Emerging Literature 55 5 Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in World Literature 75 Section II

6 After the Nobel Prize: Wole Soyinka’s Poetic Output 89 7 An Unusual Growth: The Development of Tijan M. Sallah’s Poetry 101 8 An Insider Testimony: Odia Ofeimun and His Generation of Nigerian Poets 119 9 Traditional Izon Court and Modern Poetry: Christian Otobotekere’s Contribution 133 10 Reviving Modern African Poetry: An Argument 145 Section III

11 The Imperative of Experience in Poetry: An African Perspective 161 12 Indigenous Knowledge and Its Expression in the Folklore of Africa 169 vi CONTENTS

13 Policy Studies, Activist Literature, and Pitching for the Masses in Nigeria 183 14 The Politics of African Literature: Production, Publishing, and Reception 195 Section IV

15 Inviting the World into the House of Words: The Writer, His Place, People, and Audience 213 16 Personally Speaking: The Beauty I Have Seen 223 17 Revisiting an African Oral Poetic Performance: Udje Today 237 18 Performance, the New African Poetry, and My Poetry: A Commentary 255 19 Two Tributes: Chinua Achebe and Kofi Awoonor 267

References 273 Index 283 Introduction

As a creative writer and a literary scholar, I am very concerned about the direction of African literature in its production and interpreta- tion. Since literature is a cultural production, and so an aspect of culture that is dynamic, it is bound to be dynamic too. This means that literature will continue to change with time or history and according to the context, place, or nation in which it is produced. Each period of history, call it generation, has its own zeitgeist or intellectual climate that affects the inspiration of creative works. After all, the writer is an antenna of society and responds to what is happening around him or her. As history is always moving forward inexorably, the happen- ings are set in place. Place in its widest meaning of nation, homeland, and geography, among many other aspects of setting, becomes where humans act out their experiences at particular times. Since writers live in a place and gain their experiences from what is happening around them, they are rooted somewhere. As they are based somewhere, they can feel what is happening near and far and respond to those hap- penings according to their own set-out missions of what they want to achieve with their writings. It is from the land or place that the fiction writer and dramatist frame their characters that act out a vision. The poet, on the other hand, experiences from the interaction with human and nonhuman beings and the world around. Each culture changes as a result of internal and external factors. Often there are stresses from within about what things people no longer find relevant or cumbersome and so abandon. As there are changes informed by internal factors, so also are changes brought about by external factors. A people may find some new things relevant and so absorb them into their culture. That is why there is the continuous dynamism of culture as history marches on resulting in changes in the way of life of a people. Modernity has brought changes that have turned traditional modes in Africa into a new dispensation. From the nonliterate societies of precolonial times emerged literate societies. Similarly, changes came in the political, economic, and social spheres in the lives of Africans. While the oral still exists, the written has taken its place in Africa’s viii INTRODUCTION modernity. The new literature has merged African traditional and oral methods with European modern writing traditions into a modern African literature. Africa has had a lot to contend with in modernity: colonization, struggle for political independence, self-rule, and managing political independence. In all, it has been a difficult history transiting from foreign rule to self-government. The modern state has posed a problem for Africans. The experience of political independence has not been as positive as expected. Civil wars, military dicta- torship, corruption, and lack of good leadership have bedeviled many African states. It is not Uhuru yet in most African states where there is poverty, ethnic conflicts, insecurity, poor health, and other afflic- tions that have placed most African states at the bottom of human development in the world. The cultural producers of literature live in these societies and respond to them in their respective individual ways. This is because the situation in each country is different and so the national experience is somehow unique. Even there is diversity within the national experience as a result of many factors within the state. For example, it makes a difference if one lives in Francophone or Anglophone Cameroon as in North or South Cote d’Ivoire or Nigeria. It matters if one is from one region or the other within a country. However, nationhood tends to be a cohesive factor for a country’s citizens. But despite the uniqueness of each nation’s experiences, there are some general or rather continental similarities; hence without writers not meeting to form groups or associations they still tend to express the same senti- ments, especially on political, economic, and social issues that many African nations share. Thus, each generation is influenced by its zeitgeist to which it responds. Let me give an example with what I call the second generation of African poets. Kofi Anyidoho and Abena Busia of Ghana, Odia Ofeimun, Niyi Osundare, and Chimalum Nwankwo of Nigeria, Jack Mapanje, Frank Chipasula, and Lupenga Mphande of Malawi seem to demonstrate that as generations form in each African country, they spread across the continent. In The New African Poetry: An Anthology , Tijan M.Sallah and I have assembled poems from across Africa. These poems seem to express comparable themes with similar techniques; hence we call the works “the new African poetry.” Thus, while there are individual writers and nations, African people still share similarities in their postcolonial, modern, and contemporary realities. My angst is that much as cultures worldwide change, some seem to influence others with their values and ways without a reciprocal change in them from interactions with others. There is a Western INTRODUCTION ix canon of literature and there is no dispute about its Greco-Roman origins. Similarly, Western values have Judeo-Christian origins and Westerners talk of “our values.” African oral literature is generally seen as functional and the early generations of African writers seem to have carried the functionality on. The positions of many African writers have affirmed the importance of literature beyond its enter- tainment value. For instance, Chinua Achebe sees the writer as a teacher. Sembene Ousmane and Ngugi wa Thiongo see writers as at the vanguard of their people’s struggle. Many other African writers also fashion their respective visions to improve their societies. In this work I interrogate modern and contemporary African literature, especially since the 1980s, to see how the cultural production of literature is faring. Of course, this has to be in the context of history. Since modern African literature seems to parallel the history of the continent and realities of the people at particular times, I have to talk about how politics has shaped the African creative vision. And that brings me directly to what is African in literary works produced by Africans who are in the flux. With globalization, which has led to accelerated communication and migration, Africa and what is African are changing fast. Universal attention has been drawn to so many issues by globalization—democracy, human rights, climate change, sex and sexuality, and many more. Africans have migrated outside to mainly North America and Europe for economic and other rea- sons and advantages in stable societies. The liberal attitudes in the West and developed publishing tradition have attracted many African writers. As discussed in the book, there are now African writers in diaspora and African writers at home, a condition that is complicat- ing the African literary tradition. What I have noticed is that because Africans have migrated a lot outside their cultural region, unlike Westerners, African literature is undergoing a crisis of cultural identity. While globalization is ongoing and strong, there is still a move for indigeneity to retain Africanness despite changes. This tension between indigeneity and globalization seems to be driving contemporary African literature. As I stated earlier, I am both a cultural producer and interpreter. I have attempted to “interprete” modern and contemporary African literature from my writer-scholar position. I have thus interrogated the general trend of African literature while at the same time doing a reading of particular writers, especially poets. I have also looked at the intersection of culture, society, economics, and other aspects of contemporary African reality in the literature. I have devoted a section to my own experience of writing; hence my research in oral x INTRODUCTION poetic performance, self-profile, and “personally speaking” on a particular poetry collection of mine to give some background to my production. I have divided the work into four sections, each with related chapters. Section I takes on my major angst of “The Perils of a Culture-less African Literature in the Age of Globalization” as well as “Contemporary Africa and the Politics in Literature,” and “Homecoming: African Literature and Human Development.” This section also deals with the emerging Niger Delta literature in Nigeria as well as critiquing Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart as a world literature text. These latter two chapters of the first section illustrate how contemporary African literature is growing especially in the areas of environmental and human rights as well as showing how a literary work set in a specific place and time, an Igbo village in a period of transition, has universal validation. Section II focuses on poetry in the dynamics of African history and reality. Starting with Wole Soyinka’s poetic output since he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, I examine three poets whose respective works deserve more critical attention than they have received: “An Unusual Growth: The Development of Tijan M. Sallah’s Poetry,” “An Insider Testimony: Odia Ofeimun and His Generation of Nigerian Poets,” and “Traditional Izon Court and Modern Poetry: Christian Otobotekere’s Contribution.” The last chapter of this section, framed as an “argument,” seeks ways to revive modern African poetry that appears to have lost not only its vitality but also its pre- eminent position in literature to fiction. One has to bear in mind that poetry was the genre of choice of many of the early exponents of modern African literature, be they the Negritude writers or the group cormprising of Lenrie Peters, Kofi Awoonor, Christopher Okigbo, J. P. Clark, Wole Soyinka, and Dennis Brutus. Section III goes to more general issues in African literature and strategies that seem to make literary works successful. There is “The Imperative of Experience in Poetry: An African Perspective” and “Indigenous Knowledge and Its Expression in the Folklore of Africa.” This chapter on folklore gives some background to many literary works be they drama, fiction, or poetry. Folklore provides the indigeneity that continues to give African literature its cultural identity but which some younger contemporary writers seem to avoid. “Policy Studies, Activist Literature, and Pitching for the Masses in Nigeria” provides a continuation of the functional nature of modern African literature. The last chapter of this section, “The Politics of African Literature: Production, Publishing, and Reception,” returns to the stress between globalization and indigeneity as well as the INTRODUCTION xi condition of African literature with many renowned writers outside the continent. I must state it matters not where one lives and writes but it depends on the perspective one propagates on literature that makes one an African writer. The final section—IV—is more personal, hence “personally speaking.” Here, I have used my personal writing career to give an example of who I am, what made me what I am, and experiences and realities behind my literary work. Though personal, it is meant to reflect how to understand many African writers and their works. I have thus included my address to a conference on my work, “Inviting the World into the House of Words: The Writer, His Place, People, and Audience” and an invitation to talk on one of my poetry books, “Personally Speaking: On The Beauty I Have Seen ” at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Both “Revisiting an African Oral Poetic Performance Tradition: Udje Today” and “Performance, the New African Poetry, and My Poetry: A Commentary” point to my indebtedness to the oral poetic performance of udje that I have spent time researching in the manner of Kofi Awoonor on Ewe oral poetry, Wole Soyinka on Yoruba traditional drama, J. P. Clark on “udje dance poetry,” Jack Mapanje on Chewa oral traditions, and Kofi Anyidoho on Ewe poetry. The last chapter is my personal tribute to two writers I respect who have recently died: “Two Tributes: Chinua Achebe and Kofi Awoonor.” Though different chapters of this book might have been written at different times, I have always had this book project in mind as I reflected on indigeneity and globalization in African literature. As stated in chapter 12 and a few other places, many African writers are very conversant with their indigenous folklores which in their writings become “a means of cultural resistance.” There is always that stress between indigeneity in the form of using the traditional folklore to inform the expression of contemporary thought and feeling and the globalization, which includes expression irrespective of the language used but avoids specific folklores or oral traditions and indigenous location. It appears using folklore brings to bear on the writings a sense of cultural and place location, which further marks the literary work as African. From the contemporary state of African literature, it is likely the tension between indigeneity and globalization will persist and how it is managed will determine the future of African literature as it evolves. It is my ardent hope that this book’s content will stir a discussion among writers and critics/scholars on the direction of African literature toward making it strong, diverse, and relevant to the African reality.