African Literature, African Literatures. Cultural Practice or Art Practice?

Abstract

My title is provoked by two tendencies in discussion of literature from Africa. First, a certain hesitancy over last decade in using bold, singular term of decolonisation years: Lit? erature, implication being a pan-African concept. The current conference, for example, refers to plural form, Literatures: versions and subversions, i.e., the multiple facets, themes and styles emerging currently . . . that question hegemonic discourses in this field.1 Second, a tendency?to some extent, in literature studies generally?to subsume literary work under cultural, political, or historical practice. Questions of value or quality simply vanish, there being no reason why, say, Achebe's novels are a better index to, or symptom of, cultural aporias of colonialism or postcolonialism than any number of bestsellers or, for that matter, civil service or medical or prison reports of period. There are good reasons why plural form Literatures should be preferred. Indeed, my own study?originally advertised by publishers as Literature in English?ended up titled Southern Literatures. Literatures remind us that Africa is far from homogeneous in language, culture, religion, style, or in processes of its modernity. Rather, it is what Ali A. Mazrui describes as something of a bazaar (97). Early colonisation in extreme north has resulted in considerable Arabic and Islamic influence; return of South Africa to recognition reminds us that original people at southernmost point?San/Bushmen?experienced harshness first of Bantuspeaking migrations, then Dutch colonial intrusions. There are good reasons, too, why literary text should be regarded primarily as a social document. literature, at least in colonial language, is direct result ofa political act: that of colonisation. The lit? erature is itself, in consequence, often a political act. It is expected that writer address big sociopolitical issues of day. The writer who does not may end up being considered irrelevant. Indeed, I shall suggest that, in Africa, close correlation between texts of politics and texts of art poses challenging questions as to what constitutes a literary culture, what might be regarded as practice of art. Initially, we may consider whether such questions should be pursued under category Literature or Literatures. For both categories have value. The recently published A-Z, The Companion to Literatures (see Killam and Rowe) utilizes plural form, I think, because it recognizes that diversity and heterogeneity threaten to undermine any single map of field. Scholarship over last decade in both West and Africa, for example, has focused not on grand narratives, but on local contexts, whether method be Marxist, feminist, or varieties of post-condition. Criticism may wish, accordingly, to distinguish between African