Nigerian literature has always existed in the global space as ‘other’ literature, and writers often feel a moral responsibility to represent their ethnic cultures in the mainstream public space.
Recently cultural appropriation has been discussed extensively in literary circles, particularly in regard to fiction: Should writers from dominant racial spaces write from minority standpoints? Can writers from these spaces convincingly and sensitively produce literary work from minority perspectives? Considering appropriation is, at its crux, about power imbalances between majority and minority positions, should minorities have the leeway to create fictive narratives about dominant racial or cultural spaces, or about other minority cultures? While many prominent writers, such as Hari Kunzru, Kit De Waal and Aminatta Forna, suggest that the answer to these questions is a complicated and nuanced yes—fiction in its very nature is an appropriative practice; the work of the writer is to step into the shoes of the ‘other’ and build worlds populated by the ‘other’—the questions continue to swirl.
GLOBAL ISSUE, LOCAL VOICES
Nigeria currently has over 300 ethnic groups. Diverse and disparate, these ethnic groups often form the nucleus of group identity, even before nationality—many people consider themselves Tiv first and then Nigerian, or Yoruba first and then Nigerian—owing to a complex history of artificial national grouping imposed by the British. Writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie...
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