Back to Index

New club promotes African literature
Ruth Butaumocho, The Herald Entertainment (Zimbabwe)
May 08, 2008

Being an African rooted in the fundamentals that tie a brother to his roots, what will you do on discovering that your son, who has just graduated from university cannot quote from any African author, but can quote glibly from Shakespeare's works.

Worse still, how will you feel when your niece barely through her primary education is able to say a line or two from Hamlet, and already has books from Charles Dickens, Jane Austin and Shakespeare as part of her collection and none from African writers, even our own Charles Mungoshi?

This is the predicament that many African families today face.

Often they realize too late that they were not able to bequeath a legacy of African literature to their children, leaving them to import foreign cultures.

The dearth of African literature has become a cause for concern in African, prompting several African countries to put measures to preserve this heritage for future generation.

It is within that context that 36-year-old, Marcellina Chikasha, from Harare recently launched a book club that focuses on collection of African Literature by African writers for posterity.

The 36 year-old accountant-turned-artist, through her organization, Talent Tavavanhu African Literature Enterprise will source and donate books from African literature to some of the country's libraries, as part of its effort to encourage a reading culture of books by African literature emanates from her upbringing, which limited her access to such writers.

"I grew up being bombarded by alien quotes from my university educated African father "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark", "to be or not to be . . . " "all the world is a stage . . . , and many others" she said.

"Even up to now the quotes from African Literature are not as familiar or as often used.

"I am hard pressed to quote Ngugi waThiong'o, Chinua Achebe, Chenjerai Hove or Dambudzo Marechera."

Chikasha added that Talent, which will expose African Literature and create a love for it both in the young and the old, will also motivate young writers and would be writers by giving them exposure to writers whose works have been published, especially works about contemporary Africa.

The member-driven organization, will every month afford its members an opportunity to read and appreciate books by African writers.

The books will later be donated to schools and community libraries throughout the country.

To kick start its programme, Talent started off by giving out a book from internationally acclaimed writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Half of a Yellow Sun, to academics and its members to read.

"It is really surprising that there are quite a number of people, who have no idea of authors who are in the background, yet they do have an interest, a passionate one too for writers across the globe, whom the will probably never meet, but do resonate with their ideologies.

"Why then can't we adopt the same attitude towards our own and be able to support their cause?" she queried.

Already the book club has plans to bring the award-winning writer to Zimbabwe to share his inspiring works with scholars, students and the general public.

A Pan Africanist at heart Chikasha, firmly believes that African Literature cannot just sink into oblivion, looking at the economic vagaries that made it difficult for the majority of them to get published.

"As Africans we certainly need to be self aware and where better to start than by reading and appreciating our own literature" she added.

Academics and governments across Africa have for a long time been calling for an appreciation of African literature. Just like history, African literature is a reflection of certain epochs in a continent's journey from the past into the future.

It has however, become a tragedy that most countries in Africa through their syllabuses have failed to embrace and appreciate the importance of the literature.

It's such a dilemma that the likes of Ngugi wa Thiongo question in his book, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, when he asks what African literature is.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP