THE HUMANITY IN READING AFRICAN LITERATURE 

We do not really appreciate African Literature as much as it needs to. This books of politico-historical evidence and truth as to the current prevailing state of affairs in African states provides a wake from blindness and exposes cataclysms imposed by the absence of history in most schools curriculum. The story of Biafra and the grave consequences, the tryst of senators(oil-soaked kleptocrats), south African sessionist struggles and the burden of the many negative stereotypes imposed on the African race, are intricately intertwined and told with an urgent call to refublishing, rebuilding and recovering our lost treasures and dignity. Here in this essay, I would be reviewing the following books:

-Chinua Achebe’s There was a country 

-Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart 

-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun 

-John Kolosa’s Let me die alone 

-Wole Soyinka’s The Man Dies 

In There was a country by Chinua Achebe, He tells the story of biafra and this conglomeration vast ancient empires, a heritage called Nigeria from the colonial era, to when Nigeria was born—a collection of fragments held in a fragile clasp or a giant figure with spoonful legs, to the biafra civil war(1967-1970) and the effect on today prevailing political and socio-economic conditions. He tells the story with truth, precision, verisimilitude and humanity using his life as the yardstick. It appears he was a graduate and an editor and ambassador in the heat of the war, recounting his experiences, he narrates his ordeal as an Igbo indigine and as a writer at that time who became more aware of his position and responsibilities in life. Further more, the poems infused in this book serves as a perfect description of the heartfelt emotions of refugees that time who awoke to the sound of missiles and air raids fired accross from “evil forests of soviet technology”, to the sight of ash and smoke and broken bones lingering around like confetti on dust. If anything, if for the excuse of history being boring as most people would fondly say, read the poetry in this book. No greater way to understand the horror of biafra, live the lives of the distressed, torn apart characters and sympathize with the scars and wounds festered. Some of such poems include: 

-Refugee mother and child(a mother in a refugee camp)

-Air raid

-Penalty of the God head 

-Mango seedling 

-1966

In Half of a yellow sun, Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of Biafra through the lives of lovers returning from abroad, educated and settling as professors at the universities of Nigeria. While both Olanna and Odenigbo happen to be lovers and of Igbo tribe, their love is threatened by Olanna’s Elite parents who reject the idea of a shaggy haired professor. Things go well for them after olanna’s move to Enugu, the live happy lives and are rooted in love, joy and mutual support with their houseboy Ugwu performing large chores and eavesdropping on every conversation. Until the war broke out. We see them move from one city to another village in escape from air raids and missiles. We also see them fall from grace of high living to grass of small communal poverty. In the chaos, Olanna fights for pieces of cornmeal and sugar from relief centers, watching her seasoned and sophisticated professor husband  become a rebel leader protesting all day with placards held up high. We see her watch her Aunty butchered into half, her pregnant cousin sliced in two, watch her own people, the Igbos filed and shot one after the other. All painting a vivid picture of what many humans alike went through during this era with an attempt to sympathize with that uneraseable historical fact. In a poem towards the ending of the story where Ugwu for the epilogue of his book-within-the-book describes the ‘kwashiorkwored blown up bellies’, ‘rust-colored hair’, ‘brittle bone’, ‘nimble limbs of malnourished children’ during the war.

The essence of this novel I belief is to sympathize with those who died fighting for our cause, expose and eradicate tribalism and discourage its remergence by revealing the ugly side of war.

In chinua Achebe’s Things fall apart , one of the founding father of African Literature and the book that shot Nigerian literature to limelight, he tells the story of how we as Africans lost our power, our treasures and dignity on the altar of western colonialism.

It happens in a small village in pre-colonial eastern Nigeria. They live simple lives deeply rooted in the culture. They awoke to the crow of the morning cock, gather in circles, break kolanuts, drink freshly tapped from the palm wine, dine and commune with their gods and the living ancestors. Disputes were settled in the village market square. Wealth spread round accross the vast lands of this beautiful kingdom. Folktales, songs and dances with spirited ululation and cosmetic camaraderie’s, spiced with oral tradition were displayed.  Until the white men came. They looked weird—frail albinos, slender limps and eyes, the colour green olives in the sun. One of them spoke a strange igbo that sounded incomprehensible, nasal, flowery and fake. They came with guns they had never seen before, big guns, and a strange custom and religion—establishing churches, courthouses, things that proved an ordeal to years of rich culture. Imposing their culture on us, in a condescending, arrogant mentality that theirs was a superior culture. 

The main character Okonkwo is proud, hardworking and resistant. He works hard to be a successful farmer so that he won’t be like his weak and timid father. His wealth spread all through the village, thus he fights the white man because in his new government he would loose all his acquired stature.

       In the end, the author asserts that it is already too late to change the facts of history, for we as brothers and sisters have fallen apart. This book criticizes and reveals truth as to how the colonizers in a bid to civilize us, broke our bonds and looted us awake. He explains how the reality of this is the consequent failure of many African states at leadership while we still look up to them as masters existing still in the form of neo-colonialism.

The problem of colonialism or imperialism is a strange concept that some African states are still struggling to heal from. While establishing systems, facilities, amenities and new traditions and religions, there was a significant and consequential loss of enormous resources, culture and dignity—Those things that makes us unique.

In John Kolosa Kargbo’s Let me Die Alone, he portrays the ancient Mende Kingdom, in Sierra-Leone. The people of Mende are under the administration of Dr samuel rowe, a representative of the Bristsh imperial majesty. His leadership of one of disrespect for African culture and customs, dividing and annexing lands without recourse to ancient boundary makes and ancestral origin. He ruthlessly flogs Gbanya the king in the open, for daring to go against his colonial policies. Furthermore, Yoko’s discrimination with disdainful, derogatory and disparaging comments about taking over her late husband’s throne because she is a woman reveals gender discrimination. This book reveals the gross disrespect and exploitation perpetuated by colonial rule in an attempt to recover our broken dignity. It also wages war against gender strereotypes. 

In Wole soyinka’s The Man Dies, he asserts that The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny. 

One thing i would say about this book is that it is satirically funny, and at thesame time curiously witty. It surrounds the activities that took place before, during and after the arrest of Wole soyinka. The setting is in the days of oppressive military rule. Wole soyinka, a playwright renounced for his work dares to criticize this brutal, tyrannical government. Thus, he is imprisoned with allegations of treason with watery facts. 

While in prison, Wole wrote this book from a secluded corner of squeezed-

up smuggled papers, shabby floors, cobwebs and dank walls among the shadows, behind iron bars of rage. He was in a tangled web with the military government of Yakubu Gowon. 

In this book, he reveals that an artist is also a citizen. Yes, you write your plays and poems but must also be aware of your responsibilities and rights as a citizen. 

Ambushed in lagos, he recounts his experiences in Kiri kiri. From the horrible condition of the prison, to the ordeal with mallam D, his questioning and final release. One becomes very keenly and intrigued as you engage with this piece—the brutal and barbaric confinement of a citizen, and this because you wrote. It exposes the oppressors of the military era and their dictatorial rule.

In a poem I anoint my flesh, Soyinka expresses his final grief and response to his ordeal, ending with the phrase Let evil die.

In all, there is nothing more essential to the human spirit than stories and there is nothing more humane for every African than reading African Literature. We can collectively sympathize, reconcile and recover whatever was lost beneath the ocean. We can repair our broken dignity, sweep the charred remains of war, step out of the shade into a new dawn, yearned and foreseen , with stories.