Today the 07th November 2012 is the International day of the…
African Writer
Once upon a time 21 years ago, African leaders attending the Conference of African Ministers of Education and Culture in Coutonou Benin, under the Organization of the African Union (OAU) now AU declared that we as Africans need a day to ” Afford the African people a moment of pause to reflect on the Contribution of African Writers to the Development of the continent” Back in 1991.
Today
A conference celebrating African Writer’s is underway at the University of the Free State in South Africa. Do you Know about it? Former South African President Thabo Mbeki’s is going to deliver a Key Note address on the role of the African Writer today and over the last Century on Saturday the 10th of November.
Organizers hope to form a formidable African Writer’s Organization (union perhaps) to represent African Writer’s and Defend their right to probe and expose injustice. To Write what they like. To write what they see. We are trying to make the world of literature more accessible says the African Writer’s Conference director Raks Seakhoa. There, there shall be music during the writer’s music festival at the weekend to demonstrate that even music starts with writing. His comment made me think of Bob Marley and the Wailer’s song WAR, whose lyrics were literally derived from a speech by the Ethiopian Haile Selassie the 1st, which he delivered before the United Nations General Assembly in 1963:
That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned; That until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation; That until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained; And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique and in South Africa in subhuman bondage have been toppled and destroyed; Until bigotry and prejudice and malicious and inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and good-will; Until all Africans stand and speak as free beings, equal in the eyes of all men, as they are in the eyes of Heaven; Until that day, the African continent will not know peace. We Africans will fight, if necessary, and we know that we shall win, as we are confident in the victory of good over evil. – Haile Selassie
Let us all pause for moment and reflect.
Have you read any of Africa’s Best Books of the Century?
(here’s a list from Columbia University)
1. Abnudi, `Abd al-Rahman (Egypt) al-Mawt `ala al-asfalt (Death on the Asphalt)
2. Achebe, Chinua (Nigeria) Arrow of God
3. Achebe, Chinua (Nigeria) Things Fall Apart
4. Aidoo, Ama Ata (Ghana) Anowa
5. Almeida, Germano (Cape Verde) O testamento do Sr. Napumoceno da Silva Araújo
6. Armah, Ayi Kwei (Ghana) The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born
7. Bâ, Amadou Hampâté (Mali ) L’étrange destin de Wangrin
8. Bâ, Mariama (Senegal) Une si longue lettre
9. Ben Jelloun, Tahar (Morocco) La nuit sacrée
10. Beti, Mongo (Cameroon) Le pauvre Christ de Bomba
11. Brink, André (South Africa) A Dry White Season
12. Bugul, Ken (Senegal) Riwan, ou le chemin de sable
13. Cheney-Choker, Syl (Sierra Leone) The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar
14. Chraibi, Driss (Morocco) Le passé simple
15. Coetzee, J.M. (South Africa) Life and Times of Michael K
16. Couto, Mia (Mozambique) Terra sonâmbula
17. Craveirinha, José (Mozambique) Karingana ua Karingana
18. Dadié, Bernard (Côte d’Ivoire) Climbié
19. Dangarembga, Tsitsi (Zimbabwe) Nervous Conditions
20. Dib, Mohammed (Algeria) La grande maison, L’incendie, Le métier à tisser
21. Diop, Birago (Senegal) Les contes d’Amadou Koumba
22. Diop, Boubacar Boris (Senegal) Murambi ou le livre des ossements
23. Djebar, Assia (Algeria) L’amour, la fantasia
24. Emecheta, Buchi (Nigeria) The Joys of Motherhood
25. Fagunwa, Daniel O. (Nigeria) Ogboju ode ninu igbo irunmale
26. Farah, Nuruddin (Somalia) Maps
27. Fugard, Athol (South Africa) The Blood Knot
28. Ghitani, Jamal al– (Egypt) Zayni Barakat
29. Gordimer, Nadine (South Africa) Burgher’s Daughter
30. Head, Bessie (South Africa) A Question of Power
31. Honwana, Bernardo (Mozambique) Nos matamos o cão tinhoso
32. Hove, Chenjerai (Zimbabwe) Bones
33. Isegawa, Moses (Uganda) Abessijnse Kronieken
34. Jordan, Archibald Campbell (South Africa) Ingqumbo yeminyanya
35. Joubert, Elsa (South Africa) Die Swerdjare van Poppie Nongena
36. Kane, Cheikh Hamidou (Senegal) L’aventure ambiguë
37. Khosa, Ungulani Ba Ka (Mozambique) Ualalapi
38. Kourouma, Ahmadou (Côte d’Ivoire) Les soleils des indépendances
39. Laye, Camara (Guinea) L’enfant noir
40. Magona, Sindiwe (South Africa) Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night
41. Mahfouz, Naguib (Egypt) The Cairo Trilogy
42. Marechera, Dambudzo (Zimbabwe) House of Hunger
43. Mofolo, Thomas (Lesotho) Chaka
44. Monenembo, Tierno (Guinea) Un attieké pour Elgass
45. Mutwa, Vusamazulu Credo (South Africa) Indaba, My Children
46. Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Kenya) Caitaani Mutharaba-ini (Devil on the Cross)
47. Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Kenya) A Grain of Wheat
48. Niane, Djibril Tamsir (Senegal) Soundjata ou l’épopée mandingue
49. Nyembezi, Sibusiso (South Africa) Inkinnsela yaseMgungundlovu
50. Okigbo, Christopher (Nigeria) Labyrinths
51. Okri, Ben (Nigeria) The Famished Road
52. Oyono, Ferdinand (Cameroon) Le vieux nègre et la médaille
53. P’Bitek, Okot (Uganda) Song of Lawino
54. Pepetela (Angola) A geração da utopia
55. Saadawi, Nawal El (Egypt) Woman at Point Zero
56. Salih El, Tayyib (Sudan) Season of Migration to the North
57. Sassine, Williams (Guinea) Le jeune homme de sable
58. Sembene, Ousmane (Senegal) Les bouts de bois de Dieu
59. Senghor, Léopold Sédar (Senegal) Ouevre poétique
60. Serote, Mongane (South Africa) Third World Express
61. Shabaan, Robert Bin (Tanzania) Utenzi wa vita vya uhuru
62. Sony Labou Tansi (Congo) La vie et demie
63. Sow Fall, Aminata (Senegal) La grève des battus
64. Soyinka, Wole (Nigeria) Death and the King’s Horsemen
65. Tchicaya U Tam’si (Congo) Le mauvais sang – feu de brousse – à trisse-coeur
66. Tutuola, Amos (Nigeria) The Palm-wine Drinkard
67. Vera, Yvonne (Zimbabwe) Butterfly Burning
68. Vieira, José Luandino (Angola) Nós os do Makulusu (Excerpt available online)
69. Vilakazi, B.W. (South Africa) Amal’eZulu
70. Yacine, Kateb (Algeria) Nedjma
Scholarship/non-fiction
71. Amin, Samir (Egypt) Accumulation on a World Scale
72. Amadiume, Ifi (Nigeria) Male Daughters, Female Husbands
73. Andrade, Mario de (Angola) Os nacionalismos africanos
74. Appiah, Anthony (Ghana) In My Father’s House
75. Cabral, Amilcar (Guinea-Bissau) Unity and Struggle
76. Chimera, Rocha (Kenya) Kiswahili, past, present and future horizons
77. Diop, Cheikh Anta (Senegal) Antériorité des civilisations nègres
78. Doorkenoo, Efua (Ghana) Cutting the Rose
79. Hayford, J.E. Casely (Ghana) Ethiopia Unbound
80. Hountondji, Paulin (Benin) Sur la philosophie africaine
81. Johnson, Samuel (Nigeria) The History of the Yorubas
82. Kenyatta, Jomo (Kenya) Facing Mount Kenya
83. Ki-Zerbo, Joseph (Burkina Faso) Histoire de l’Afrique noire
84. Krog, Antjie (South Africa) Country of My Skull
85. Mama, Amina (Nigeria) Beyond the Mask, Race, Gender and Identity
86. Mamdani, Mahmood (Uganda) Citizen and Subject
87. Mandela, Nelson (South Africa) Long Walk to Freedom
88. Marais, Eugene (South Africa) Die Siel van die Mier
89. Memmi, Albert (Tunisia) Portrait du colonisé suivi de portrait du colonisateur
90. Mondlane, Eduardo (Mozambique) The Struggle for Mozambique
91. Mphahlele, Ezekiel (South Africa) Down Second Avenue
92. Mudimbe, V.Y. (Dem. Rep. of Congo) The Invention of Africa
93. Nkrumah, Kwame (Ghana) Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah
94. Plaatje, Sol (South Africa) Native Life in South Africa
95. Soyinka, Wole (Nigeria) Ake: The Years of Childhood
96. Van Onselen, Charles (South Africa) The Seed is Mine
Literature for Children
97. Asare, Meshack (Ghana) Sosu’s Call
98. Al-Homi, Hayam Abbas (Egypt) Adventures of a Breath
99. Mungoshi, Charles (Zimbabwe) Stories from a Shona Childhood
100. Tadjo, Veronique (Côte d’Ivoire) Mamy Wata et le monstre
Jedi Ramalapa 