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Academic and founder and editor of Brittle Paper, Ainehi Edoro-Glines, has often heard that the African novel is simply the European novel with African themes: ‘I think that’s BS. African novels are something entirely different. Read Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka or Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater, and there is NOTHING in the European canon that can explain the innovations taking place in those texts.’
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About the Author
is a Nigerian academic and an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a joint appointment in the African Cultural Studies Department. She is the founder and editor of Brittle Paper, a leading online platform dedicated to African writing and literary culture.
Nigerian novelist, poet and author of Graceland, Chris Abani, does not believe ‘Nigerian literature’ exists as a category: ‘It is a common misconception that there is a fixed category that can be read as essentially “Nigerian literature”. Nigeria has 500 nations, 500 languages and about 2,000 dialects. While culture and language can overlap, the level of diversity is such that Nigerian literature cannot be easily narrowed down.’
For the co-founder and publishing director, of Cassava Republic Press, which marks its 20th anniversary this year, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, it is telling that African literature is often pronounced dead in recent years, when more women and queer voices are becoming more prominent: ‘The loudest obituary writers about African literature tend to be men. These elegies seem to come from a tacit sense of personal or generational displacement rather than from the actual state of the field.’
Nigerian poet, novelist and author of Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Broken-Hearted, Ben Okri, argues that Nigerian literature doesn’t always have to be about Nigeria: ‘Nigerian literature limits itself to Nigeria and then limits even the ways in which the country can be written about. What we want is a vast literature, a great literature…that speaks to all humanity.’
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