The African Novel, Issue #17

Celebrating African Literature and Performance

Sep 19, 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.

To savor this e-newsletter, we’d highly recommend you patiently read from top to bottom!

Thanks for reading The African Novel! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

IN THIS ISSUE

Editor-in-Chief's Message
Book Review
The African Novel Podcast: Tijan Sallah Part 2
Author Readings: Under the Udala Trees
State of African Literature
Bookshelf
Book Events & More
Our Radio Archives
African Proverb: Zimbabwe

Editor-in-Chief’s Message

An Important Tool to Appreciate African Letters

In the last issue of this electronic newsletter, I wrote about the joy of our team in pointing a way to our readers to enjoy and engage with African literature. My follow-up blog in this issue is about an important tool to help you to relish and immerse yourself in African letters.

The significant tool is Google Alert. Create it today to be informed when interesting articles are published online on African literature. And about African writers, and also about African novels…and on and on.

It’s a painless, easy process that Google explains very well how to accomplish. Here’s a screenshot from Google:

Create your own alerts today and start enjoying an impressive harvest of articles relating to African literature. Do share with us here what you find. All in the name of our shared love of African letters. Cheers!

Enjoy!

Cyril Ibe, Ph.D.

P.S. Perhaps a friend forwarded this email to you. Sign up now to receive The African Novel directly in your inbox.

Please share the enjoyment of reading The African Novel digital newsletter with a friend, family member, or colleague.

Book Review

Title: Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories

Author: Alifa Rifaat

Publisher: Heinemann

Reviewer: Benjamin Kwakye

Alifa Rifaat’s Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories is a revelation of sorts. In this collection, Rifaat manages to present an enlightening kaleidoscope of perspectives on her native Egypt that resonates deeply.

The title story itself is a reflection of a woman’s frustration with her husband’s inattention to her sexual needs and desires. In the stories, Rifaat gently pushes her version of personal freedom. Hers doesn’t seek to overthrow the system but to work within it for the most part.

All told, it is a bold vision that Rifaat presents, especially in its attempt to reconcile change with the dictates of her culture. Whether it is a woman seeking alternative fulfillment in a phantasmagoric union with the supernatural, a woman blind to the facts of her philandering husband, or another repelled by it, Rifaat’s collection is both sad and inspiring at the same time.

Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories is heavily infused with religion – as in the constant call to prayer that seems to serve as a backdrop to many of Rifaat’s stories, and as in the ablutions of its various characters. It is remarkable that with such gentleness, Rifaat shapes alternative visions that pulsate within existing ones. Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories was translated from the Arabic version by Denys Johnson-Davies.

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

Repeat Episode

Part 1: Gambian-born poet Tijan Sallah (l) talks with Cyril Ibe about his new collection of poetry, titled I Come from a Country, published by Africa World Press. He reflects on Chinua Achebe’s literary legacy and shares his elegy on Achebe.

Photo via Zoom

Listen here.

Donate Subscriptions

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

1×

0:00

-7:26

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.

1×

0:00

-1:34

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).

Give a gift subscription

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).