W.E.B.

Du Bois Institute

English and the African Writer

Author(s): Chinua Achebe
Source: Transition, No. 75/76, The Anniversary Issue: Selections from Transition, 1961-1976
(1997), pp. 342-349
Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute
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AM AfricanLiterature
ENGLISHAND
THEAFRICANWRIE
From TransitionI8 (I965)
Chinua Achebe
In June I962, there was a gathering
at Makerere University,impressively
styled:"A Conferenceof AfricanWrit-
ers of EnglishExpression."Despite this
sonorous and rather solemn title, it
turnedout to be a verylivelyaffairand
an exciting and useful experience for
many of us. But there was something
thatwe triedto do and failed:to define
"Africanliterature"satisfactorily.
Was it
literatureproduced in Africa,or about
Africa?Could Africanliteraturebe on
any subject,or mustit have an African
theme? Should it embrace the whole
continent,or south of the Sahara, or
just Black Africa?And then the ques-
tion of language. Should it be in in-
digenousAfricanlanguagesor should it
include Arabic,English,French,Portu-
guese,Afrikaans, and so on?
In the end we gave up tryingto find
an answer-partly, I should admit,on
my own instigation.Perhapswe should
not have given up so easily.It seems to
me fromsome of thethingsI haveheard
and read since then thatwe may have
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given the impressionof not knowing
what we were doing,or worse,not dar-
ing to look too closelyat it.
A Nigerian critic,Obi Wali, writing
in Transition io said: "Perhaps the most
importantachievementof the Confer-
ence ... is thatAfricanliteratureas now
definedand understoodleads nowhere."
I am sure thatWali musthave feltvin-
dicated when he saw the report of a
subsequent conferenceheld at Fourah
Bay to discussAfricanliteratureand the
Universitycurriculum.This conference
produced a tentativedefinitionof Af-
rican literature,as follows: "Creative
writingin which an Africansettingis
authenticallyhandled or to which ex-
periences originatingin Africaare in-
tegral."We are told specificallythat
Conrad's Heart ofDarknessqualifiesas
Africanliterature,whileGrahamGreene's
HeartoftheMatterfailsbecause it could
have been set anywhereoutsideAfrica.
A numberof interesting speculations
arise fromthisdefinition,which is, ad-
mittedly,only an interimformulation,
 designedto producea certaindesirable born infants.If you onlylook cursorily,
end-namely,to introduce African stu- one infantlooks very much like an-
dentsto literature set in theirenvi- other;but each is alreadyset on itsown
ronment. But I could not help being journey. Of course, you may group
amusedbythecuriouscircumstance in them togetheron the basis of anything
whichConrad,a Pole,writingin En- you choose-the color of theirhair,for
glish,couldproduceAfricanliterature,instance.Or you may group them on
whilePeterAbrahams wouldbe ineli- thebasisof thelanguagetheywill speak
giblewerehe to writea novelbasedon or the religion of theirfathers.Those
hisexperiences in theWestIndies. would all be valid distinctions,
but they
What all thissuggeststo me is that could not begin to account fullyfor
youcannotcramAfrican literatureinto each individual person, carrying,as it
a small,neat definition. I do not see were,his own littlelodestarof genes.
Africanliterature as one unitbut as a Those who want to exclude North
groupof associatedunits-in fact,as Africa fromthe discussion of African
thesumtotalofallthenational andeth- literature because itbelongsto a different
nicliteratures ofAfrica. traditionsurelydo not suggestthatBlack
A nationalliterature is one thattakes Africa is anythinglike homogeneous.
thewhole nationforitsprovince, and What does Shabaan Robert have in
has a realizedor potentialaudience common with ChristopherOkigbo or
throughout in otherwords,
itsterritory;
a literaturethatiswritten in thenational There are not manycountries in Africa
language. An ethnicliterature is one that
today where you could abolish the language
is availableonlyto one ethnicgroup
withinthenation.IfyoutakeNigeriaas of the erstwhile colonial powers and still
an example,thenationalliterature, as I
retain the facilityformutual communication.
see it,is theliterature writtenin En-
glish;and the ethnicliteratures are in Those Africanwriterswho have chosen to
Hausa, Igbo,Yoruba,Effik,Edo, Ijaw,
write in English or French are not unpatriotic
andso on.
Anyattempt to defineAfrican litera- smart alecs.
turein termsthatoverlookthe com-
plexitiesoftheAfrican sceneis doomed GeorgeAwoonor-Williams? Mongo Beti
to failure.Afterthe eliminationof of Cameroon and PariswithNzekwu of
whiteruleis complete, thesinglemost Nigeria; or what does the champagne-
important factin Africain thesecond drinkingupper-classCreole societyde-
halfof thetwentieth century willbe the scribed by Easmon of Sierra Leone
riseofindividual nation-states. I believe have in common with the rural folk
thatAfricanliterature will followthe and fishermenof J. P. Clark's plays?
samepattern. While some of these differences could
We tendto thinkofAfrican literaturebe accounted for on individual rather
as a newborninfant. Butwhatwe have, than national grounds,a good deal of
in fact,is a whole generation of new- it is also environmental.

ENGLISH AND THE AFRICAN WRITER 343

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 I have indicatedsomewhat offhand-
edly thatthe nationalliteratureof Ni-
geria and of many other countries of
Africais, or will be, writtenin English.
This may sound like a controversial
statement, butit isn't.All I havedone has
been to look at therealityof present-day
Africa.This "reality"may change as a
resultof deliberate,i.e., political,action.
If it does, an entirelynew situationwill
The nondescriptwriterhas littleto tell
us, anyway,so he mightas well tell it in
conventional language and get it over
with. He is like a man offeringa small,
nondescript,routinesacrifice forwhich
a chick, or less, will do. A serious writer
must look foran animal whose blood
can match the power of his offering.
arise,and therewill be plentyof timeto
examine it. At presentit may be more
profitableto look at the scene as it is.
What is it that has conspired to place
Englishin the position of nationallan-
guage in many parts of Africa?Quite
simply,it is the fact that these nations
were created in the firstplace by the
interventionof the British,which (I
hasten to add) is not saying that the
peoples comprisingthese nationswere
inventedby the British.
The countrythatwe know as Nige-
ria todaybegan not so verylong ago as
the arbitrarycreationof the British.It
is true,as William Fagg saysin his ex-
cellent new book NigerianImages,that
thisarbitrary actionhas provedas lucky,
in termsof Africanart history,as any
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enterpriseof the fortunatePrinces of
Serendip.And I believe thatin political
and economic terms,too, thisarbitrary
creationcalled Nigeria holds out won-
derfulprospects.Yet the fact remains
thatNigeria was createdby the British
-for their own ends. Let us give the
devil his due: colonialism in Africa
disruptedmanythings,but it did create
big political units where there were
small,scatteredones before.Nigeria had
hundredsof autonomouscommunities,
ranging in size from the vast Fulani
Empire founded by Usman dan Fodio
in the North to tinyvillage entitiesin
the East. Today,it is one country.
There are,of course,partsof Africa
where colonialismdivideda singleeth-
nic group among two or even three
powers.But on the whole, it did bring
togethermany peoples thathad previ-
ously gone their several ways, and it
gave them a language with which to
talk to one another.If it failed to give
them a song, it at least gave them a
tongue forsighing.There are not many
countries in Africa today where you
could abolish the language of the erst-
while colonial powers and still retain
the facilityformutualcommunication.
Those Africanwriterswho have chosen
to write in English or French are not
unpatrioticsmartalecs,with an eye on
themain chance outsidetheircountries.
They are by-productsof the same pro-
cesses thatmade the new nation-states
of Africa.
You can take this argumenta stage
further to includeothercountriesof Af-
rica. The only reasonwhy we can even
talk about Africanunity is that when
we get togetherwe have a manageable
number of languages with which to
communicate-English, French, and
Arabic.
The other day I had a visit from
Joseph Kariuki of Kenya. Although I
had read some of his poems and he had
read my novels,we had not met before.
It didn't seem to matter.In fact,I had
met him throughhis poems, especially ........;
thro'ughhis love poem "Come Away
My Love," in which he capturesin so
few words the trialsand tensionsof an
African in love with a white girl in
Britain:

Comeaway,mylove,from streets "r :

4hereunkindeyesdivide
And shopwindowsreflect
ourdifference.

By contrast,when I was travelingin

East Africa in I960 and went to the
home of the late Shabaan Robert, the
Swahilipoet of Tanganyika,thingswere
different.We spent some time talking
about writing,but there was no real
contact.I knew fromall accountsthatI
was talkingto an importantwriter,but
just how importantI had no idea. He
gave me two books of his poems which
I treasurebut cannotread-until I have
learnedSwahili. tionto appreciate thevalueof thein- "I could not help
And there are scores of languages I heritance.Or we maygo on resenting being amused by

would want to learn if it were possible.
Where am I to findthetimeto learnthe
half dozen or so Nigerian languages,
each of which can sustaina literature?I
am afraidit cannot be done. These lan-
guageswilljust have to develop as trib-
utariesto feedthe one centrallanguage
enjoying nationwide currency.Today,
forgood or ill,thatlanguageis English.
Tomorrow it may be something else,
although I verymuch doubt it.
Those of us who have inheritedthe
Englishlanguagemay not be in a posi-
it,becauseit cameas partof a package the curious
circumstance in
deal thatincludedmanyotheritemsof
which Conrad, a
doubtful value,especiallytheatrocities
Pole, writingin
ofracialarrogance andprejudicewhich
English, could
mayyetsettheworldon fire. Butletus
produce African
not,in rejectingtheevil,throwoutthe literature."
goodwithit. API Wide World
Last yearI was travelingin Brazil,
meetingBrazilianwriters andartists.
A
numberof thewriters I spoketo were
concernedabout the restrictions im-
posedon thembytheiruseof thePor-
tugueselanguage.I remember a poet

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sayingshe had givenseriousthoughtto
writingin French!And yet theirprob-
lem is not half as difficult as ours. Por-
tuguesemaynot have the universalcur-
rencyof Englishor French,but at least
it is thenationallanguageof Brazil,with
her eightymillion or so people, to say
nothing of the people of Portugal,
Angola,Mozambique, and so on.
Of Brazilian authors I have only
read,in translation, one novel byJorge
Amado,who is not onlyBrazil'sleading
novelist,but one of the mostimportant
writers in the world. From that one
novel, Gabriella,I was able to glimpse
somethingof the excitingAfro-Latin
culturewhich is the pride of Brazil, a
culture quite unlike any other.Jorge
Amado is only one of the manywriters
Brazil has produced. At theirnational
writers' festival,there were literally
hundredsof them.But the work of the
vastmajoritywill be closed to therestof
the world forever,including no doubt
the work of some excellent writers.
There is certainlya greatadvantagein
writingin a worldlanguage.
I thinkI have said enough to give an
indication of my thinkingon the im-
portance of the world language that
historyhas forced down our throats.
Now let us look at some of the most
serious handicaps. And let me say
straightaway thatone of the most seri-
ous handicapsis not the one people talk
about most often:namely,thatit is im-
possibleforanyoneeverto use a second
language as effectively as his first.This
assertionis half truthand half bogus
mystique.Of course,it is true thatthe
vast majority of people are happier
with theirfirstlanguage thanwith any
other.But then,the majorityof people
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are not writers.We do have enough
examples of writers who have per-
formedthefeatof writingeffectively in
a second language.And I am not think-
ing of the obvious names like Conrad.
It would be mnore germaneto our sub-
ject to choose Africanexamples.
The firstname that comes to my
mind is Olaudah Equiano, better
known as GustavusVassa,the African.
Equiano was an Igbo-from thevillage
of Iseke in the Orlu divisionof Eastern
Nigeria,I believe.He was sold as a slave
at a very early age and transportedto
America. Later he bought his freedom
and lived in England. In I789 he pub-
lished his life story,a beautifullywrit-
ten document which, among other
things,set down forthe Europe of his
time somethingof the lifeand habitof
his people in Africa,in an attemptto
counteractthe lies and slanderinvented
by some Europeans to justifythe slave
trade.
Coming nearerto our time,we may
recallthe attemptsin the firstquarterof
this centurybyWest Africannational-
ists to come togetherand press for a
greatersay in the managementof their
own affairs.One of the most eloquent
of thatband was The Honorable Casely
Hayfordof the Gold Coast. His presi-
dential address to the National Con-
gressof BritishWestAfricain I925 was
memorablenot onlyforitssound com-
mon sense,but as a fineexample of el-
egant prose.The Governor of Nigeria
at the time was compelled to take no-
ticeand he did so in characteristicstyle:
he called Hayford'sCongress "a self-
selected and self-appointedcongrega-
tion of educated Africangentlemen."
We may derive some wry amusement
fromthe factthatBritishColonial ad-
ministratorslearned very little in the
following quarter of a century.But
at least they did learn in the end-
which is more than one can say for
some others.
It is when we come to what is com-
monly called creative literaturethat
doubts seem to arise. Obi Wali, whose
article,"The Dead End of AfricanLit-
erature,"I referredto earlier,has this
to say:"Until these writersand their
Westernmidwives accept the factthat
anytrueAfricanliterature mustbe writ-
ten in African languages, they are
merelypursuinga dead end,which can
only lead to sterility,
uncreativity,and
frustration."
But farfromleading to sterility, the
work of many new Africanwritersis
full of the most exciting possibilities.
Take this,fromChristopherOkigbo's
"Limits":
Suddenlybecoming talkative
likeweaverbird
Summoned at offside
of
dreamremembered
Betweensleepand waking,
I hangup myegg-shells
To youofpalmgrove,
Uponwhosebambootowers hang
Drippingwithyesterupwine
A tigermaskand nudespear...
Queenofthedamphalflight,
I havehad mycleansing,
Emigrantwithair-borne
nose,
The he-goat-on-heat.
Or take the poem "Night Rain," in
which J. P Clark capturesso well the
fearand wonder feltby a child as rain
clamorson the thatchroofat night,and
ENGLISH
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his mother,walking about in the dark,
moves her simplebelongings:
Out oftherunofwater
Thatlikeantsfilingoutofthewood
Willscatter
andgainpossession
Of thefloor...
I think that the picture of water
spreadingon the floor"like ants filing
out of the wood" is beautiful. Of
course, if you have never made fire
with faggots,you may miss it. But
Clark's inspiration derives from the
same source thatgave birthto the say-
ing thata man who bringshome ant-
ridden faggotsmust be ready for the
lizards'visit.
I see no sign of sterilityanywhere
here.WhatI do see is a new voice com-
ing out of Africa,speaking of African
experience in a world-wide language.
So my answerto the question,"Can an
Africaneverlearn Englishwell enough
to be able to use it effectivelyin cre-
ative writing?"is certainly, "Yes." If on
the other hand you ask, "Can he ever
learn to use it like a nativespeaker?"I
should say,"I hope not." It is neither
necessarynor desirable for him to be
able to do so. The price a world lan-
guage mustbe preparedto pay is sub-
missionto manydifferent kindsof use.
The Africanwritershould aim to use
English in a way that brings out his
message best without alteringthe lan-
guage so much thatits value as a me-
dium of internationalexchangewill be
lost. He should aim at fashioningan
Englishthatis at once universaland able
to carryhis peculiar experience.I have
in mind here the writerwho has some-
thingnew,somethingdifferent, to say.
The nondescriptwriterhas littleto tell
AND THE AFRICAN WRITER 347
 us, anyway,so he might as well tell it
in conventional language and get it
over with. If I may use an extravagant
simile,he is like a man offeringa small,
nondescript,routinesacrificeforwhich
a chick,or less,will do. A seriouswriter
must look for an animal whose blood
can match the power of his offering.
In this respect,Amos Tutuola is a
natural.A good instincthas turnedhis
apparenthlnguistic limitationintoa wea-
pon of greatstrength-a half-strange di-
alect that serves him perfectlyin the
evocation of his bizarreworld.His last
book (to my mind, his finest)is proof
enough thatone can make even an im-
perfectlylearned second language do
amazing things. In this book, The
FeatherWomanof theJungle,Tutuola's
superb storytellingis at last cast in the
episodic form which he handles best,
insteadof being painfullystretchedon
the rackof the novel.
From a naturalto a conscious artist:
myself,in fact.Allow me to quote a
smallexamplefromArrowofGod which
may give some idea how I approach
the use of English.The Chief Priestis
tellingone of his sons why it is neces-
saryto send him to church:"I want one
of my sons to join thesepeople and be
my eyes there.If thereis nothingin it
you will come back. But if there is
somethingthereyou will bring home
my share. The world is like a Mask,
dancing.If you want to see it well you
do not standin one place.My spirittells
me thatthosewho do not befriendthe
white man today will be saying,'Had
we known .. .'tomorrow."
Now supposingI had put it another
way.Like this,forinstance:"I am send-
ing you as my representativeamong
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those people-just to be on the safe
side in case the new religiondevelops.
One has to move with the timesor else
one is leftbehind. I have a hunch that
those who fail to come to termswith
thewhiteman-maywell regrettheirlack
of foresight."
The material is the same. But the
formof the one is in characterand the
otheris not. It is largelya matterof in-
stinct,butjudgment comes into it,too.
You read quite oftennowadaysof the
problem of the Africanwriterhaving
firstto thinkin his mothertongue and
thentranslatewhat he has thoughtinto
English. If it were such a simple,me-
chanical process,I would agree thatit
was pointless-the kind of eccentric
pursuit you might expect to see in a
modern Academy of Lagado; and such
a process could not possibly produce
some of the excitingpoetryand prose
which is alreadyappearing.
The real questionis not whetherAf-
ricans could write in English, but
whether theyought to. Is it rightthat
a man should abandon his mother
tongue forsomeone else's?It looks like
a dreadful betrayal,and produces a
guiltyfeeling.
But forme thereis no otherchoice.
I have been given this language and I
intend to use it. I hope, though, that
there alwayswill be men, like the late
Chief Fagunwa, who will choose to
writein theirnativetongue and ensure
thatour ethnicliteratureswill flourish
side by side with the nationalones. For
those of us who opt forEnglish,there
is much work ahead and much excite-
ment.
Writing in the London Observerre-
cently,James Baldwin said:
My quarrelwithEnglishlanguagehas been
thatthelanguagerefiected noneofmyexpe-
rience. But nowI begantosee thematter in
quiteanother way.... Perhapsthelanguage
was not myown becauseI had neverat-
tempted touseit,hadonlylearnedtoimitate
it. If thiswereso, thenit mightbe madeto
beartheburdenofmyexperience ifI could
findthestaminato challenge it,and me,to
sucha test.

I recognize,of course,thatBaldwin's
problemis not exactlymine,but I feel
thattheEnglishlanguagewill be able to
carrythe weight of my Africanexpe-
rience. But it will have to be a new
English, still in full communion with
its ancestralhome, but altered to suit
its new Africansurroundings.

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