FG Palliatives: A Grain Of Rice For Each Household!

 By Tunde Olusunle

If you were a student of English in my generation, there were au­thors and titles, African and for­eign, you just had to encounter. Nigerian writers like Daniel Fagunwa, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Chris­topher Okigbo, John Pepper Bekeder­emo-Clark, Timothy Aluko, Gabriel Okara, Elechi Amadi, Ola Rotimi, Zulu Sofola, Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa, all members of the “first generation” of Nigerian writers; they were irrevo­cable constants.

On the African scene, Nadine Gordimer, Dennis Brutus, Pe­ter Abrahams, Lenrie Peters, Alan Pa­ton, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Meja Mwangi, Simon Gikandi, Camara Laye, Kofi Awoonor, Kofi Anyidoho, Ayi Kwei Armah, Sembene Ousmane, Frantz Fanon, Sonne Mbella Dipoko, Nagu­ib Mahfouz and so on were featured variously on our reading lists. Indeed, in several instances, we had prior ex­posure to the works of some of these icons in the syllabuses of our ordinary school leaving and higher school cer­tificate examinations respectively. In our multi-generic poetry, prose, drama, oral literature and stylistics classes in the university, these legends were fur­ther encountered in various ways.

'Things Fall Apart', Achebe’s Magnum Opus, To Be Adapted For Television

In 1958, Chinua Achebe’s first novel, Things Fall Apart, established African literature on the world stage. More than 60 years later, it remains the most widely read African novel. 

It has sold more than 20 million copies in English alone and has been translated into more than 60 languages. Time Magazine named it “One of the 100 greatest novels of all time,” and Encyclopedia Britannica, one of the “12 novels considered the greatest books ever written.” 

In 2020, as the world confronts systemic racism and battles the COVID-19 pandemic, Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and his two other novels—Arrow of God, and No Longer At Ease—that make up The African Trilogy, remain relevant, profound and crucial. 

Changing Dialogue With Dialogue: Confronting The Language Of Ebola

 

 

US President Barack Obama meets with ebola 

survivor,  Dr. Kent Brantly at the oval office on 

September 16, 2014 (pix Pete Souza/White House)

By Emma Fox

The African continent – which is so often unjustifiably spoken of collectively and dismissively throughout the globe as a one entity – can truly claim a unity through its diverse and eye-opening library of great literature and language.

Whether it is in the dreamlike magical realism of Ben Okri, the underlying critiques so carefully yet organically articulated by Nadine Gordimer, or the poignant and profound work of Assia Djebar, Africa’s many shapes and sounds have been delivered in a perpetual life poem which has courageously addressed various social challenges and defined the continent as a rich and creative Diaspora of contemporary literature. 

 

While these works detail issues and triumphs which are focused on a particular region, they also encompass the bigger picture – just take Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, for example – which has accumulated some truly remarkable responses to the heavy footprint of colonialism and the rest of the world’s inability to look at Africa and African countries separately through an unclouded lens. It is through language and literature where reclamation, liberation and life transform, a vital tool through which lies the potential for change, and is especially crucial in combating the recent challenges which certain parts of western Africa are facing.

Achebe Family Mourns Nadine Gordimer

*Nadine Gordimer 
(pix:southafrica.usembassy)

The family of late literary icon, Prof Chinua Achebe, has joined the rest of the world to mourn Nadine Godimer, a leading South African writer and Nobel Laureate, who passed away in Johannesburg on July 13, 2014, at the age of  90. In a statement issued on July 20 and signed by Professor Christie Chinwe Achebe for the Chinua Achebe Family and Estate, the Achebe family  said it was joining "the world in mourning the passing of Nadine Gordimer" whom it described as a "precious friend, great supporter of African arts and letters [and] an elegant soul..." 

Achebe’s Children: Africa’s Suspended Revolutions

 
      

You Are Cordially Invited To Join

WITS UNIVERSITY PRESS and the  
Mail & Guardian

on Friday 30 August 18:00 for 19:00

At the Opening event of the 4th Annual M&G Literary Festival

Achebe’s Children: Africa’s Suspended Revolutions

Adam Habib, the new vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, 
 will confront the main topic in the festival’s keynote address: South Africa’s
 suspended revolution.

Habib’s new book, South Africa’s Suspended Revolution: Hopes and Prospects 
 (Wits University Press), argues that “individuals and institutions can, with
 imagination, act against the grain of a given historical moment and transform 
the options available to society”.

Habib will also participate in a discussion on Saturday 31 Aug as part of the 
M&G Literary Festival with Hlumelo Biko and Adriaan Basson
 (see below for details)

When: Friday 30 August 2013 at 18:00 for 19:00

Where: The Market Theatre
Cnr Bree and Miriam Makeba
Newtown, Johannesburg
GPS Coordinates
-26.200845,28.03256