The African Novel, Issue #15

Celebrating African Literature and Performance

Jul 17, 2023

Welcome to the latest issue of The African Novel digital newsletter. You have joined an exciting global community of publishers, authors, readers, writers, poets, and performers, as well as academics, missionaries, and even current and former Peace Corps volunteers. We are all connected in our passion for appreciating, celebrating, and sharing African literature and performance in its many forms.

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IN THIS ISSUE

Editor-in-Chief's Message
Book Review
The African Novel Podcast: Remembering Similih Henry Cordor
Author Readings: Aidoo’s Her Hair Politics
State of African Literature
Bookshelf
Book Events & More
Our Radio Archives
African Proverb: South African

Editor-in-Chief’s Message

Remembering Another Fallen African Writer

I must admit that I was not familiar with the Liberian-born scholar, journalist, and writer Similih Henry Cordor until I read recently about his passing in the United States. Fellow Liberian, Cordor’s friend and retired political science professor, D. Elwood Dunn, had penned a tribute to Cordor that was published in several Liberian newspapers, both in print and online. Dunn’s writing came to my attention through my Google alerts for African writers, African literature, and African novels. Luckily, I was able to track and connect with Dunn to reflect on Cordor’s life and legacy in the latest episode of The African Novel podcast.

Enjoy!

Cyril Ibe, Ph.D.

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Book Review

Title: My Epic Journey: The Making of A Cosmopolitan (A Memoir)

Author: Eustace Palmer

Reviewer: Benjamin Kwakye

My Epic Journey: The Making of A Cosmopolitan is not a book to be merely read – it is a gem to be experienced, admired, and cherished. Written by Eustace Palmer, one of Africa’s most notable scholars, this memoir is a lesson in cultures, history, and politics, and provides a blueprint for negotiating life with integrity in the face of corruption, and even ennui.

In addition to his career as an educator, this illustrious son of Sierra Leone (and Africa), has written four outstanding novels, stellar articles, and books, including the seminal An Introduction to the African Novel. Palmer was also a one-time president of the African Literature Association.

Palmer’s memoir provides profound insights into the person behind the public persona, including his life in colonial Sierra Leone as a child, his coming of age during the transition to independence, his various travels, his schooling inside and outside of Sierra Leone, and his contributions as an educator. In the course of this journey, Palmer provides a refreshing and eye-opening, if at times painful, panoramic view into the culture of his people, the British-imposed educational system, life as an academic, and politics Sierra Leone style.

It is remarkable that Palmer manages to cover so much ground in only about 300 pages. In addition to the book’s accessibility, and without the author veering into the pomposity of works by those of his erudite ilk, this work is an excellent achievement in the way it seamlessly marries the macro and micro, the personal, and the societal.

My Epic Journey: The Making of a Cosmopolitan is a testimony to a brilliant mind and the man who chooses to employ it so selflessly.

Editor’s Note: Reviewer Benjamin Kwakye is The African Novel’s “Resident Novelist.

Episode #14

Retired Liberian-born political science professor, D. Elwood Dunn, remembers his fellow countryman, journalist, writer and scholar Similih Henry Cordor, who died on June 29 in the United States at the age of 77.

Similih M. Henry Cordor

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Past Podcast Episodes:

Two Ghanaians, Vincent Odamtten and Benjamin Kwakye, remember Ama Ata Aidoo

Ghanaian novelist and poet Benjamin Kwakye Parts 1 & 2, author of Songs of Benjamin and other titles

Gambian poet Tijan Sallah (Parts 1 & 2), author of I Come from a Country

Poet Obiwu Iwuanyanwu, author of Tigress at Full Moon

Harlem-based writer Obi Nwizu, author of Residue

Jeanne-Marie Jackson, author of The African Novel of Ideas

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, author of Praise Song for My Children

Bayadir Mohamed-Osman, author of Second Hand Smoke

Vanessa Onwuemezi, author of Dark Neighbourhood

Cyprian Njoku Josson, author of The Immigrant Ladder

Kabuika Kamunga, author of Kabuika Wants to Make New Friends

Author Readings

A Tribute to Ama Ata Aidoo (1942-2023)

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Questions on the State of African Literature

Three questions are posed to writers every month. Listen here to their answers.

Responding to the questions below is Nigerian-born writer Obi Nwizu.

Are writers of African fiction “taking the literary world by storm?” these days?
Is the “tide turning” for African literature in America and the rest of the West?
Are we witnessing “a renaissance” of African literature today?
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Bookshelf

What writers and readers of African titles are reading:

Young writer Adaobi Iwuanyanwu:

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I Fell in Love with Hope by Lancali
Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Poet Tijan Sallah from the Gambia: African Literature and the CIA: Networks of Authorship and Publishing by Caroline Davies; Ancient Ghana and Mali by Nehemiah Levtzion; Nonrequired Reading by Wislawa Szymborska; African Literature Comes of Age, African Literature Today 40, edited by Ernest Emenyonu.
Comparative literature professor Jeanne-Marie Jackson (Baltimore, Maryland): Brotherhood by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (in English translation; French original); The Wolf at Number 4 by Ayo Tamakloe-Garr; The Madhouse by T.J. Benson; and An Unusual Grief by Yewande Omotoso (just started reading).
Poet Obiwu (Ohio, USA): The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare; Ijele by Uche Nduka; Samarkand by Wole Soyinka; Ingrid Joker: Poet Under Apartheid by Louise Viljoen.
Writer Arinze Ifeakandu: Hue and Cry by James Alan McPherson, and The Great Mistake by Jonathan Lee.
Writer Obi Nwizu (New York): Another Country by James Baldwin and The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Dare.
Poet Bayadir Mohamed-Osman (Maryland): Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and The New War on the Poor by Dr. Paul Farmer; Secrets of Divine Love by A. Helwa.
Writer/Poet Vanessa Onwuemezi (London): The Palmwine Drinkard by Amos Tutola; Lote by Shola Von Reinhold.
Novelist Cyprian Josson (Chartres, France): Ladies Trip by Fanny Enoh; Burning Grass by Cyprian Ekwensi.
Novelist Benjamin Kwakye (Michigan, USA): Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka; The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers.

Cyril Ibe (Ohio, USA): Things Fall Apart (in French)/Le Monde s’effondre by Chinua Achebe; Songs of Benjamin by Benjamin Kwakye.
(As a reader or subscriber of this newsletter, you can submit titles of African fiction and other books on your reading list. Tell us in what part of the world you reside).

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Book Events & More…

On Demand:

What: Library of Congress’ Interviews with African Writers, a three-part series titled “Conversations with African Poets and Writers Series.” Featured are Nigerian-born author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, South African novelist/playwright Damon Galgut, and Tanzanian-born novelist and Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah.

When: Available since May 2022.

Where: Library of Congress

For more information: Visit here.

Our Radio Archives

Coming soon: Offerings of rare, exclusive interviews and audio documentaries for our paid subscribers.

A partial list of archived Premium offerings:

Interview: Chinua Achebe biographer Ezenwa-Ohaeto
Interview: Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka on his legendary cousin, Fela
Interview: The Black Press in America
Interview: South African novelist Mark Mathabani
Audio Documentary: Eighty Gifts for Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks
An audio tour of the Mandela House Museum in Soweto, South Africa
Interview: Ethiopian-Jewish Filmmaker Orly Malessa
Interview: U.S. filmmaker Ileen LeBlanc on Take Us Home, a documentary pic on the exodus of Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
Interview: American historian Edward Haas on slavery, the civil war, and the uncelebrated heroism of Blacks in the Union Army.
Interview: Herbert Martin, professor emeritus of English literature and African-American studies at the University of Dayton and co-editor of The Collected Novels of Paul Laurence Dunbar (Ohio University Press).