1 MHRD UGC ePG Pathshala Subject: English Principal Investigator: Prof. Tutun Mukherjee, University of Hyderabad Paper 06: African and Caribbean Writing in English Paper Coordinator: Prof. T. Vijay Kumar, Osmania University Module No. 24: Taban Lo Liyong Content Writer: Dr. Parimala Kulkarni, Osmania University Content Reviewer: Prof. Ipshita Chanda, Jadavpur University Language Editor: Prof. T. Vijay Kumar, Osmania University Taban Lo Liyong 1. Objectives 2. Introduction 3. About the author 4. Works 5. Themes and concerns 6. Poems 7. Critical reception 8. Summary 1. Objectives This module is about Taban Lo Liyong, South Sudanese/Ugandan poet His works, style, and themes Two poems from each of his collections: Frantz Fanon’s Uneven Ribs and Another Nigger Dead Critical reception 2. Introduction Taban Lo Liyong, poet, critic, novelist, short story writer, essayist and playwright, is one of Africa’s most prolific and versatile writers. Seen as eccentric, and known for his non- conformist views and style, he is called East Africa’s enfant terrible. His iconoclastic ideas and unconventional modes of expression baffle literary critics who find it difficult to assess his work. Receiving equal praise and criticism, his work is considered highly controversial. However, both his supporters and his detractors, agree about his originality of thought and 2 writing. Among his contemporaries, Liyong is probably the only other Ugandan poet whose fame rivalled that of Okot p’Bitek. 3. About the Author Taban Lo Liyong (1938) Born of Ugandan parents in South Sudan, Liyong grew up speaking both Acholi and his mother tongue, Kuku. Educated in northern Uganda, he was a student of the famous Ugandan poet, Okot pBitek. Liyong joined the famous International Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa where he became the first African to graduate in 1968 with a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing. Prevented from returning to Uganda by the totalitarian regimes, Liyong joined the University of Nairobi, Kenya where he worked with Ngugi wa Thiongo, Okot pBitek and Henry Owuor Anyumba. He was the first university teacher in East Africa to offer a course in African oral literature. He took the initiative to replace the English curriculum with one centred on African literatures. Together with Ngugi and Anyumba, Liyong successfully argued for the abolition of the English Department. The memo that the three wrote on 24 October 1968 calling for the abolition of the English Department and replacing it with an Africa-centred curriculum is considered a watershed document in postcolonial theory and criticism. 4. Works Liyong has a substantial body of work—essays, poems, novels and plays, known for their thematic and stylistic eclecticism. Simon Gikandi (2007: 99) approaches Liyong’s work according to the key periods in which it emerged: the late 1960s, early 1970s and the 1990s. In first phase, Liyong strongly defended the African interests and character against the Western prejudices even while radically deconstructing the prevalent ideologies of Africanism. In Fixions (1969) and Eating Chiefs (1971) Liyong defends African cultures, traditions and oral literatures. But in essays from the same period, The Last Word (1969), The Uniformed Man (1971) and Meditations in Limbo (1970), Liyong satirises the claims of African literary canon and cultural nationalism. In The Last Word, he dismisses East Africa as a “literary desert”, declaring an absence of literary tradition in East Africa. He proclaims that African Americans are not Africans. A similar pattern emerges in his poetry collections. The poems in Frantz Fanon’s Uneven Ribs (1971) are an intentional misreading of the Western canonical writers to make space for Africans’ voice whereas Ballads of Underdevelopment (1976) undermines the poetic basis of an African tradition. In 1990s, the second phase, though the satirical strain is present, a lyrical note is heard in dealing with the problems of Africa and the postcolonial crisis in works like Words That Melt a Mountain (1996) and Carrying Knowledge up a Palm Tree (1997). Often aphoristic, his poetry has been described as modernist, existentialist, absurdist and avant-garde while inspired by the African oral narrative cultures. Liyong’s poetry is highly individualistic, written in a stream of conscious mode and known for the clever content, and mocking tone. Echoes of other writers reverberate in his work and demonstrate his debt to other writers and his ability as an experimental poet to borrow and adapt. His plays seem not to have been written for the stage. The play Showhat and Sowhat (2007) satirises pomposity, consumerism and sloganeering among wealthy Africans. His 3 other play, The Colour of Hope (2010), a closet drama, explores politics, conflicts between generations and women’s rights in Africa. 5. Themes and style Liyong's prolific writing is immensely influenced by traditional stories. His poems deal with a wide range of cultural, political and social issues, containing a diverse range of themes and writing styles that reveal an iconoclastic disposition, combining several modernist and indigenous features. Liyong’s poetry is distinctively individualistic demonstrating a consistent defiance and persistent non-conformism to the customary norms of crafting poetry. Liyong’s work defies categorisation of any kind but is praised for its cultural synthesism. For Liyong, uncritical love of Africa and of Africans is not acceptable, because “self- criticism and search” are essential for human progress. Liyong’s attack on the sacred cows of African society and culture, including religion and negritude, has made him the most controversial of East African writers. He is highly critical of Christianity, but his criticism unlike that of Ngugi wa Thiongo who views it as a collaboration of colonial powers and missionary societies, is more a scepticism towards religion in general. Liyong also attacked negritude which considered the blackness of the African as unique and a matter of pride. Liyong believes, negritude has served its purpose and the African intellectuals need to focus on the positive and constructive role of Africans, first in Africa and second as members of a universal international community. 6. Poems Frantz Fanon’s Uneven Ribs: With Poems, More and More (1971) Frantz Fanon’s Uneven Ribs, in an angry and rebellious tone, voices the poet’s rage that Independence had not resulted in significant political progress and artistic growth. Revolutionary figures like Marx, Fanon and Prometheus frequently appear. Liyong calls for revolution, more unambiguously and forcefully than any contemporary East African writer. Many poems contain a revolutionary zeal and satirise those who wish to capitalise on social inequities. Liyong’s first book of poems is a subversive work with a deliberate misreading of the Western history and its canon in an effort to create space for the African voice and perspective. ‘The Best Poets’ One of the quests in his first collection is to find an appropriate form for his poetic art. He says in ‘The Best Poets’: Ask not reader if this be poetry or not because it isn’t. (36) Aristotlean definition of poetry is not acceptable: Poetry a ccor ding 4 to Aris to tle is imitation of what? ask Ari sto tle He who talks should talk and not i mi tate. (37) Liyong dismisses poetry as “thoughts arranged/ in inhuman ways” and nobody speaks poetry. So he declares “I would be dead/before/poetry rule-full I learn” (38). But prose is too long and time-consuming. Liyong discovers that his “grand folks” were not eloquent in either prose or poetry, however Spoke they story-tell they in words. Words all full of emotion and feeling and wisdom and rhythm rhythm thm thm thm boom boom boom The visual and the aural effect echoing the drum beats created by the above lines demonstrate the poet’s search for a poetic idiom reflecting the oral traditions of his “grand folks”. The poet says he would offer something similar, made of single thoughts, which looks like poetry but is not: call it what you may. He tells readers to pick up Dante or Milton or Shakespeare or Homer if they wish to delve into “human antiquity”. He distances himself from the European/Aristotlean tradition moving 5 closer to the African tradition, However he does not shut out all non-African influences. He identifies himself with Carlos William Carlos, e e cummings, Ezra Pound who have “ears for sounds” and eyes for “shape of poetry” and its A R C H I T E C t u r e they write marv’lously modernly like me. The search for an appropriate form recurs in his work. Adrian Roscoe observes that Liyong is a “thinker, a controversialist, an agent provocateur, an essayist rather than a poet in the conventional sense” in whom the ‘burden is on argument more than wordplay’ (117). “Student’s Lament” “Student’s Lament” is an example of the expectations and optimism of Liyong’s early pieces. This long work expresses a student's thoughts about independent Africa and several problems associated with the post-colonial progress or lack of it. A sense of impatience and doubt regarding the pace and progress of the eagerly awaited change pervades the poem. The poem begins on a joyful note, recollecting the pre-independent days when fathers sent their children to the mission schools. They deserved praise for allowing the first generation of young Africans to discover the outside world with an imperative to Learn all you can For the benefit of the tribe. The politicians who rule now are people whose training ended at Primary Four and with their poor knowledge it is they who make cultural decisions. These men have ‘per- verted’ Capitalism, ‘placated’ Communism, and called the result ‘Socialism and African’. Borrowing is not bad but it should be done sensibly.