West Africa

Introduction

A number of what have come to be seen as classical texts by Nigerian-born and Nigerian-diaspora writers were reprinted in 2021. These included novels such as Wole Soyinka’s The Interpreters (first pub 1965) and Seasons of Anomy (first pub 1973); Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen (first pub 1974), and Ben Okri’s The Famished Road (first pub 1991) and Astonishing the Gods (first pub 1995) (see Fiction). CNC Publications is keeping alive the memory of Esiaba Irobi (1960–2010) with Put out the Lights while some of Bode Sowande’s plays were reissued as e-books (see Drama). The year saw an adaptation of Nigerian-American writer of science fiction and fantasy for both children and adults Nnedi Okorafor’s short story “On the Road” in the form of a graphic novel titled After the Rain (see Miscellaneous).

2021 debut novels from Ghana included Bisi Adjapon’s The Teller of Secrets, which explores the theme of family traumas and confidences and recalls Taiye Selasi’s Ghana Must Go (2013), and Yasmin Angoe’s Her Name Is Knight, which focuses on human trafficking and slavery writ large. Of relevance to future critical examinations of both these novels is Stephen Bishop’s Scripting Shame in African Literature (see Criticism: General Studies), which explores the ways in which sub-Saharan African literature employs the trope of shame “to encourage, deflect, and alter desires for specific identities, whether individual or group, and attendant social transformation” (Bishop 2021: 3).

In criticism, there has also been considerable attention to genre fiction: for instance, to work by Nigerian-American novelist Tomi Adeyemi and to Nnedi Okorafor (see Studies on Individual Writers).

Olaudah Equiano’s 18^th-century work, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, the African, foundational to African, African-diaspora and black literature, has inspired three scholarly articles exploring themes and issues ranging from nonhuman animals through “utility” to surveillance. However, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie dominates the critical listings this year, with articles examining her work’s dialogue with different feminisms and publics (see Criticism: Studies on Individual Writers). The notion of the public sphere in her work becomes a space for activism, intellectual intervention and youth-culture styles, expressions, and media. Her efforts to develop African writing through the Creative Writing Workshop are promising, with the publication of the short story collection All Shades of Iberibe by Kasimma, an alumnus of the program (see Fiction).

While the Niger Delta crisis in Nigeria and the activism around it may have amplified Nigerian literature on ecology and ecocriticism, similar themes in the works of Sierra Leonean writers, including Aminatta Forna’s Ancestor Stones (2006) and The Memory of Love (2010) have also received critical attention [see Criticism: Studies on Individual Writers].

The year’s two special journal issues, respectively on Teju Cole and Eustace Palmer, are noteworthy, as is the consistency of the Journal of African Literature’s Critical Masters Series initiated by its late editor, Teju Olaniyan.