The African Novel, Issue #16
Celebrating African Literature and Performance
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.
To savor this e-newsletter, we’d highly recommend you patiently read from top to bottom!
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IN THIS ISSUE
Editor-in-Chief's Message
Book Review
The African Novel Podcast: Tijan Sallah
Author Readings: Under the Udala Trees
State of African Literature
Bookshelf
Book Events & More
Our Radio Archives
African Proverb: Maasai
Editor-in-Chief’s Message
Keep Engaging with African Literature
Our team and I always look forward to doing our small, but significant, part in bringing you our monthly electronic newsletter to help deepen your engagement with African literature. It’s a labor of love for all of us!
You can imagine how excited we were the other day to be informed about how our digital newsletter and podcasts are drawing readers and listeners from around the globe. A case in point….
Every month, we strive to bring lively discussions about the African novel, poetry, African writers, and so on, straight to your inbox. At the same time, the academic questions about the “state of African literature” continue to rage — and we devote some space to the ongoing interrogation: 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?
Perhaps the raging questions persist with our spirited and well-researched contributions.
As we remain determined to help you experience African letters in a delightful way, we seek your commitment to keep checking with us from month to month. Please do not keep us a secret from your family and friends. We hope you remain engaged with African literature under any circumstances!
Enjoy!
Cyril Ibe, Ph.D.
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Book Review
Title: Seed Time
Author: Kofi Anyidoho
Publisher: DAkpabli
Reviewer: Benjamin Kwakye
Seed Time brings together in one volume selected poems from Kofi Anyidoho’s first five collections of poetry. It offers a great sampling of the poet’s prodigious creativity.
These selected poems validate Anyidoho’s place as one of the most important poets of our time. They are a telling testament to the ingenious use of language in a manner that places him among a select group of African poet-scholars whose love for African culture and recognition of African literature in European languages do not suffer double jeopardy but instead, outlive time due to the incredible possibilities that exist in oral resources when used effectively as an agency for the promotion of life lessons in modern literature.
Anyidoho’s poems are at the vortex of art forms that situate local expressions within a global vision that promotes a harmonious human and social relationship. We are made to bear witness in this collection—as in most of Anyidoho’s poetry—to Africa’s values and dignity, unapologetically placed in a respectable position globally, especially as the poet saturates his work with orature and deploys the verbal use of words to promote the spontaneity and knowledge inherent in African culture and minority spaces through literature.
Recall that the same poet gave us The Place We Call Home and Other Poems, and Praise Song for The Land, among other poetry titles.
Readers will find the collection, Seed Time, full of human concerns and hopes that carry the search for truth and an illuminating showcase of the poet’s imaginative resources that make experiences significant through imaginative flights.
In addition to numerous awards, Anyidoho recently received the African Literature Association’s Fonlon-Nichols Award for African literature.
Editor’s Note: Reviewer Benjamin Kwakye is The African Novel’s “Resident Novelist.”
Repeat Episode
Part 1: Gambian-born poet Tijan Sallah talks with Cyril Ibe about his new collection of poetry, titled I Come from a Country, published by Africa World Press.
Photo via Zoom
Past Podcast Episodes:
Retired Liberian-born political science professor, D. Elwood Dunn, pays to tribute to fellow countryman, journalist, writer and scholar Similih Henry Cordor.
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
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 Author/English Professor Jeanne-Marie Jackson.
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?
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).
Book Events & More…
6th Accra International Book Festival declares that it is the biggest “public celebration of literature in Africa” with over 300 activities, featuring writers, published authors, poets, performers, musicians, scientists, politicians, and even environmentalists. The book festival is slated for Nov. 15-18.
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 May 2022 to present.
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).
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African Proverb
“Do not allow the belly to make you useless.” — Maasai proverb
Our Team
Cyril Ibe, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief (Ohio)
Resident Novelist/Reviewer Benjamin Kwakye (Michigan)
Nollywood Director/Filmmaker/Novelist Cyprian Josson (Chartres, France)
Contributor/Writer Kabuika Kamunga (Rochester, Minnesota)
Past Issues of The African Novel eNewsletter:
Issue #4
Thanks for reading The African Novel! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.