West Africa

Introduction

2012 was a good year for West African literature with new publications from established authors, some notable debuts and recognition for West African writers in global and continental awards.

Chinua Achebe’s long awaited There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra is a mixture of memoir (childhood and early career), narrative and reflections on the Biafran War. It includes memories of Christopher Okigbo and reflections on the role of the writer in politics, war and nation building. Some of this material has been previously published and the second half of the book, an account of the Biafra War, does not devote much space to personal memories. Among numerous reviews the most notable are those in The Guardian by Noo Saro-Wiwa (www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/05/chinua-achebe-there-was-a-country-review), in The London Review of Books by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n19/chimamanda-adichie/things-left-unsaid), in The New York Times by Adam Nossiter (www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/books/review/there-was-a-country-by-chinua-achebe), and in The Telegraph by Tim Ecott (www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/historybookreviews/9589852/There-Was-a-Country-by-Chinua-Achebe-review.html).

Wole Soyinka published Of Africa, a volume of reflections on the cultures, spirituality and current state of Africa, reviewed by Adam Hochschild in The New York Times (www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/books/review/of-africa-by-wole-soyinka.html).

Noo Saro-Wiwa, daughter of the executed writer and activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, grew up in Britain, with an ambivalent attitude to the country of her birth. Looking for Transwonderland is an insightful travelogue from an established and accomplished travel writer but also a personal account of an exile in search of her roots. It attracted many reviews. See, for example, www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/29/looking-transwonderland-saro-wiwa-review. For students and lovers of West African writing, Noo Saro Wiwa’s conversation (pp90ff) with the President of the Student Association at Ibadan University, a young woman studying literature who wants to be a writer, is particularly telling:

It seems that Nigerian writers who make it are from the diaspora. I want to write a book, but I’m scared. Will I be able to publish it? People don’t seem to want to read books by Nigerians living in Nigeria. Do I have to travel abroad for people to like my work?

Ben Okri published his third poetry collection, after a thirteen-year gap, Wild. He discusses the collection in an interview in New Statesman: www.newstatesman.com/books/2012/03/books-interview-ben-okri.

Three debut novels have attracted much attention and have been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize. Chibundu Onuzo was still an undergraduate, reading History at King’s College, London when The Spider King’s Daughter was published. It is set in Lagos and tells the story of a rich man’s daughter and her relationship with a young street hawker. The author regularly updates her blog (http://authorsoundsbetterthanwriter.blogspot.co.uk/.) Ajaegbo Ifeanyi’s Sarah House deals with the dark world of human and organ trafficking and forced prostitution. Ifeanyi is a Development and Communications consultant living in Port Harcourt who has already won prizes for his writing, most notably the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa in 2005. Thirdly, E.E. Sule, already an established poet, published his first novel Sterile Sky, centred around a teenaged boy in Kano.

Chika Unigwe was awarded the 2012 Nigeria Prize for Literature for On Black Sisters’ Street and a new novel Night Dancer, first published in Dutch, was published in English. Her website www.chikaunigwe.com/ gives access to poems, short stories and articles in both English and Dutch.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave the annual Commonwealth Lecture under the auspices of the Commonwealth Foundation on the theme “Connecting Cultures” at the Guildhall, London on 15 March 2012. She also took part in the Commonwealth Day Observance in Westminster Abbey.

Nigerian, Rotimi Babatunde, won the 2012 Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story Bombay’s Republic, which describes the experience of a Nigerian soldier fighting in the Burma campaign of World War II, published in Mirabilia Review (http://mirabilia.webs.com/). An interview with Babatunde on the BBC World Service can be accessed at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00trr25#p00vd576

Port Harcourt was named the World Book Capital for the year 2014 by a Selection Committee composed of representatives from the international organisations representing the three major sectors of the book industry and from UNESCO. The city of Port Harcourt was chosen “on account of the quality of its programme, in particular its focus on youth and the impact it will have on improving Nigeria’s culture of books, reading, writing and publishing to improve literacy rates” (http://www.ifla.org/en/news/port-harcourt-named-world-book-capital-2014).

The Young Ghanaian poet and academic physicist, Martin Egblewogbe, has set up a new web resource at http://ghanaianbookreview.com. It has poetry, short stories, reviews (including reviews of theatrical performances) and links to authors’ blogs. Egblewogbe has published a new collection of poetry Mr Happy and the Hammer of God.

Bibliography

Poetry

Abala, Imali J. A Fallen Citadel and Other Poems 68pp Langaa RPCIG (Bamenda) £15.95.

Egblewogbe, Martin Mr Happy and the Hammer of God 140pp Ayebia (London) £8.99.

Fonkeng, E.F. and Fonsah, E.G. First Harvests: a Collection of Poems from Nkongho-Mboland 76pp Langaa RPCIG (Bamenda) £25.95.

Inyang, Ekpe Death of Hardship 82 pp Langaa RPCIG (Bamenda) £15.95.

Jua, Roselyne M. The Betrayed Town and Other Poems 76pp Langaa RPCIG (Bamenda) £14.95.

Ndi, Bill F. Epigrams 106pp Langaa RPCIG (Bamenda) £15.95.

Ndi, Bill F. and Burns, Loretta My Brother, My Sister 96pp Langaa RPCIG (Bamenda) £15.95.

Obiwu Tigress at Full Moon 78pp African Heritage Press (New Rochelle, NY) £15.95.

Oke, Ikeogu In the Wings of Waiting 146pp Manila Publishing (Nigeria) £15.95.

Okri, Ben Wild 96pp Rider (London) £12.99.

Drama

Utoh-Ezeajugh Out of the Masks – A Play Matatu 39 pp 647-75 [2011].

Fiction

Aidoo, Ama Ata Diplomatic Pounds & Other Stories 176pp Ayebia (London) £10.99.

Ekinhamenor Victor Excuse Me! 270pp Parrésia (Nigeria).

Fonkeng, E.F. The Sunbird 152pp Langaa RPCIG (Bamenda) £15.95.

Hollist, Pede So the Path Does Not Die 296pp Langaa RPCIG (Bamenda) £17.95

Ibrahim, Abubakar Adam The Whispering Trees: Short Stories Parrésia (Nigeria) £6.70

Ifeanyi, Ajaegbo Sarah House 170pp Picador Africa (Johannesburg)

Iduma, Emmanuel Farad 216pp Parrésia (Nigeria) £6.69.

Inyang, Ekpe Death of Hardship 82pp Langaa RPCIG (Bamenda) £15.95.

Nwokolo, Chuma The Ghost of Sani Abacha: Tales of Life and Love in the Aftermath of Autocracy 309pp County Books £9.50.

Ojaide, Tanure The Old Man in a State House 156pp African Heritage Press (New York) £15.95.

— Stars of the Long Night 278pp Malthouse (Lagos) £18.95.

Onuzo, Chibundu The Spider King’s Daughter 278pp Faber (London) £12.99.

Osha, Sanya An Underground Colony of Summer Bees 210pp Langaa RPCIG (Bamenda) £17.95

Sokko, Hamza They Came from Ghana 290pp Sub-Saharan (Accra) £19.95.

Sule, E.E. Sterile Sky (Heinemann African Writers Series) 296pp Pearson £8.45.

Unigwe, Chika Night Dancer 272pp Jonathan Cape (London) £12.99.

Watson, Christie Tiny Sunbirds Far Away 352pp Quercus (London) £7.99.

Miscellaneous

Achebe, Chinua There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra 333pp Allen Lane (London) £20.

Saro-Wiwa, Noo Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria 309pp Granta (London) £14.99.

Soyinka, Wole Of Africa 199pp Yale University Press (New Haven, CT) $24.

Criticism

General Studies

“The Aesthetic of Rage in Recent Nigerian Poetry in English: Olu Oguibe and Ogaga Ifowodo” Sule E. Egya Matatu 39 pp99-114 [2011].

African Literature: Gender Discourse, Religious Values and the African Worldview Safoura A. Salami-Boukari 270pp African Heritage Press (London and New York) £19.95.

“Controlling Deviant Wives: Marriage and Justice in the Ghanaian Novel” Helen Yitah and Kari Dak Journal of Postcolonial Writing 48(4) pp359-70.

“Earth in the Balance: The Commodification of the Environment in The Eye of the Earth and Delta Blues & Home Songs” U. Nwagbara Matatu 40 pp61-79.

“Exploiting Resources of Yoruba Drum Poetry for Contemporary Global Relevance” Mobalanye Ebonoluws Sotunsa Matatu 40 pp401-10.

“Family and the Igbo Novel” Iwu Ikwubuzo African Study Monographs 33(3) pp145-63.

“Go by Appearances at Your Peril”: the Raina Kama Writers’ Association in Kano, Nigeria, Carving out a Place for the “Popular” in the Hausa Literary Landscape” Graham Furniss and Abdalla Uba Adamu Research in African Literatures 43(4) pp 88-111.

“Historicity, Power, Dissidence: The Third-Generation Poetry and Military Oppression in Nigeria” Sule E. Egya African Affairs 111(444) pp424-41.

Lagos: A Cultural and Historical Companion Kay Whiteman 271pp Signal Books (Oxford) £12.

“A Lingering Nightmare: Achebe, Ofoegbu and Adichie on Biafra” Françoise Ugochukwu Matatu 39 pp253-72 [2011].

“Mami Wata and the Occluded Feminine in Anglophone Nigerian-Igbo Literature” M. Krishnan Research in African Literatures 43(1) pp1-18.

Metaphor and the Slave Trade in West Africa Literature Laura Murphy Ohio University Press (Athens, OH) 243pp £32.99

“Modality as a Discourse Strategy in New Nigerian Poetry” Romanus Aboh Journal of Nigeria Studies 1(2). www.unh/nigerianstudies/articles/Issue2/Modality_in_New_Nigerian_Poetry.pdf

“A Political Economy of Lifestyle and Aesthetics: Yoruba Artists Produce and Transform Popular Culture” Debra Klein Research in African Literatures 43(4) pp128-46.

“Rulers against Writers, Writers against Rulers: The Failed Promise of the Public Sphere in Postcolonial Nigerian Fiction” Ayo Kehinde Matatu 39 pp55-74 [2011].

“Signs of Feminity, Symptoms of Malaise: Contextualising Figurations of ‘Woman’ in Nollywood” Jane Bryce Research in African Literatures 43(4) pp71-87.

“Situational Variables in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Chinua Achebes’s A Man of the People” Faith O. Ibhawaegbele and J.N. Edokpayi Matatu 40 pp191-208.

“Songs of Biafra: Contrasting Perspectives of the Igbo genocide in Chukwuemeka Ike’s Sunset at Dawn: A Novel of the Biafran War (1993) and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (2007)” Maurice Taonezvi Muziki: Journal of Music Research in Africa 9(1) pp15-40.

“Thematization and Prospectivization of Conflict in Selected Yoruba Literary Genres” Arinpe Adejumo Matatu 39 pp221-51 [2011].

Studies on Individual Writers

Abani, Chris “Narrating the Postcolonial Metropolis in Anglophone African Fiction: Chris Abani’s GraceLand and Phaswane’s Mpe Welcome to Our Hillbrow Hilary Dannenberg Journal of Postcolonial Writing 48(1) pp39-50.

— “‘Suspended City’: Personal, urban and national development in Chris Abani’s GraceLand” Sarah K. Harrison Research in African Literatures 43(2) pp95-114.

— “‘What do I have to do with all this?’ Eating, Excreting and Belonging in Chris Abani’s GraceLand” Dolores B. Phillips Postcolonial Studies 15(1) pp105-25.

Achebe, Chinua “Assessing the Dilemma of a Nation at the Crossroads Protest as Landscape in Chinua Acebe’s Anthills of the Savannah” Niji Akingbe Matatu 40pp 21-32.

— “At the Crossroads: Culture and Cultural Identity in the novels of Achebe” Neena Gandhi African Identities 10(1) pp55-62.

— “Chinua Achebe at Leeds: When the Great Share the Good” Brendon Nicholls Leeds African Studies Bulletin 73 pp42-45 [2011.

— “History as Project and Source in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart” Emad Mirmotahari Postcolonial Studies 14(4) pp373-85 [2011].

— “The Coming of Literacy: Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe” Neil ten Kortenaar in Postcolonial Literature and the Impact of Literacy: Reading and Writing in African and Caribbean Fiction Cambridge University Press (Cambridge) pp22-60.

— “Where in the text? Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart” B. Ayeluru Matatu 39 pp273-83 [2011].

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi “Abjection and the Fetish: Reconsidering the Construction of the Postcolonial Exotic in Chmamada Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun” Madhu Krishnan Journal of Postcolonial Writing 48(1) pp26-38.

— “Composite Consciousness and Memories of War in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun” Christopher E.W. Ouma English Academy Review 28(2) 2011 pp31-39.

— “Domesticating the Subaltern in the Global Novel in English” Lee Erwin Journal of Commonwealth Literature 47(3) pp326-39.

— “Embodied Genealogies and Gendered Violence in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Writing” Tony Simoes da Silva African Identities 10(4) pp455-70.

— “Ethnic Conflict and the Politics of Greed: Rethinking Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun” Nick Mdika Tembo Matatu 40pp173-89.

— “No Humanity in War: Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun” Umelo Ojinmah Journal of Nigeria Studies 1(2) http://www.unh/nigerianstudies/articles/Issue2/Half_of_a_Yellow_Sun.pdf.

— “Oppression and Revolt in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus” I.E. Egbung Sophia: An African Journal of Philosophy 14(1) pp106-09.

— “Sex as Synecdoche: Intimate Languages of Violence in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and Aminatta Forna’s The Memory of Love” Zoe Norridge Research in African Literatures 43(2) pp18-39.

Aidoo, Ama Ata Essays in Honour of Ama Ata Aidoo at 70: A Reader in African Cultural Studies Anne V. Adams (ed) Ayebia Clarke (Banbury) 530pp £16.99.

— “‘Not a Girl to Meet Every Day’: Feminist Identity Transformation in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa” Wumi Raji Matatu 39 pp503-09

Akpan, Uwem “War and Absurdity: Viewing the Manifestations of Trauma in Uwen Akpan’s Luxurious Hearses O.H. Okolocha Matatu 40 pp159-72.

Armah, Ayi Kwei “Ayi Kwei Armah’s Professional Correspondence, Unveiling the Ordeals of a Gifted American Author” Ode S. Ogede Matatu 40 pp143-58.

— “The Fanonian Dialectic: Masters and Slaves in Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born Jarrod Dunham Journal of Commonwealth Literature 47(2) pp281-94.

— “A Weak Utopianism of Postcolonial Nationalist Bildung: Re-reading Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born” Hugh Charles O’Connell Journal of Postcolonial Writing 48(4) pp371-83.

Atta, Sefi “An Interview with Seti Atta” Elena Rodriguez Murphy Research in African Literatures 43(3) pp106-14.

Darko, Amma “What’s in a Title? A Reading of Amma Darko’s The Housemaid” Joseph Nsiah and Charles Marfo Matatu 39 pp363-75 [2011].

Eghagha, Hope “Motherhood and Sundry Preoccupations in Hope Eghagha’s Mama Dances into The Night and Other Poems Sunny Awhefeada Matatu 40 pp 81-101.

Iyayi, Festus “On the Threshold of Combat Poetics: The Novels of Festus Iyayi” Jude Agho and Ayodele Bamidele Matatu 39 pp301-18 [2011].

Ojaide, Tanure “Aesthetic Metamorphosis Oral Rhetoric in the Poetry of Tanure Ojaide” Ogaga Okuyade Matatu 40pp 35-50.

— “Art of Resistance: Negation, Ojaide and the Remaking of the Niger Delta” Uzoechi Nwagbara African Identities 10(1) pp77-93.

— “The Cumulative Neglect of Collective Responsibility: Postcoloniality, Ecology and the Niger Deltascape in the Poetry of Tanure Ojaide” Matatu 39 pp115-31 [2011].

— “The Quest for Diplomatic Leadership in the Poetry of Tanure Ojaide” Kola Eke Matatu 40pp51-60.

Okigbo, Christopher “Christopher Okigbo, Print and the Poetry of Postcolonial Modernity” Nathan Suhr-Sytsma Research in African Literatures 43(2) pp 40-62.

Okri, Ben “No Longer Praying on Borrowed Wine: Agroforestry and Food Sovereignty in Ben Okri’s Famished Road Trilogy” Jonathan Highfield in Byron Caminero-Santangelo and Garth Andrew Myers eds Environment at the Margins: Literary and Environmental Studies in Africa Ohio Univ Press (Athens, OH) pp141-58 [2011].

Olafioye, Tayo “Autobiographical Memory, Identity Re/construction and Stylistic Creativity in Tayo Olafioye’s Grandma’s Sun” Adeyemi Adegoju Matatu 40 pp123-41.

Oyeyemi, Helen “Ghostly Girls in the “Eerie Bush”: Helen Oyeyami’s The Icarus Girl as Postcolonial Gothic Female Fiction” Research in African Literatures 43(3) pp 21-31.

— “Helen Oyeyemi and the Yorouba Gothic: White Is for Witching” Helen Cousins Journal of Commonwealth Literature 47(1) pp47-58.

Rotimi, Olu “Gender Stereotyping in Olu Rotimi’s Man Talk, Woman Talk: A Social Semiotic Reading” Adeyemi Adegoju English Academy Review 28(1) pp73-84 [2011].

Soyinka, Wole “The Body Unbound: Ritual Scarification and Autobiographical Forms in Wole Soyinka’s Até: The Years of Childhood” F. Fiona Moolia Journal of Commonwealth Literature 47(1) pp 27-46.

— “Pastoral Verbal Performance and Visual Aesthetics: Brother Jero’s Cape as a Sign” Mabel Evwierhoma Matatu 39 pp493-502 [2011].

— “Paths of Revolutionary Contestation: Wole Soyinka’s Poetry and the Dialectic of Liberal Humanism” Udu Yakubu Matatu 39 pp77-98 [2011].

— “Perspectivization in Fiction: A Deictic Study of Wole Soyinka’s Aké” Akin Odebunmi and Kiti Olaniyan Matatu 39 pp285-99 [2011].

— “Publishing Wole Soyinka: Oxford University Press and the Creation of ‘Africa’s own William Shakespeare’” Caroline Davis Journal of Postcolonial Writing 48(4) pp361-72.

— “Tokens of Metaphoric Expressions in Yoruba Anthroponyms: Wole Soyinka’s Poetry and the Dialectic of Liberal Humanism” Joshua Abiodun Ogunwale Matatu 40 pp191-208.

Tanyi-Tang, Anne “Arrah’s Existential Dilemma: A Study of Anne Tanyi Tang’s Arrah” Matatu 39 pp557-70 [2011].

Tutuola, Amos “‘He Being Dead Yet Speaketh’: the Legacy of Amos Tutuola” Timothy T. Ajani Journal of Nigeria Studies 1(2) http://www.unh/nigerianstudies/articles/Issue2/The_Legacy_of_Amos_Tutuola.pdf

Unigwe, Chika “Global Flows: Ecotrauma, Dis-location and Diaspora Imagination in Chika Unigwe’s The Phoenix” Chris Chinemera Onyema Ofo: Journal of Transatlantic Studies 1(2) pp23-54 [2011].

Utoh-Ezeajugh, Tracie “‘Breaking the Head of the Masquerade’: Tracie Utoh-Ezeajugh’s Out of the Masks and Theatre of Exclusion” Nick Mdika Tembo Matatu 40pp21-32.

Verissimo, Jumoke “Interview with Jumoke Verissimo” Nereus Yerima Tadi Matatu 40 pp209-17.

Wosornu, Ladé “Bringing Hinduism to Bear on the Ghanaian Situation” Gordon S.K. Adisa Matatu 39 pp163-78 [2011].

Yerima, Ahmed “The ‘Inside’ Wife and the ‘Outside’ Wives in Ahmed Yerima’s The Sisters” Kola Eke Matatu 39 pp 543-56 [2011].