RICHARD RIVE (South Africa)

By I M Soqaga

South African literature has a lush and remarkable numbers of writers who are actually fascinating and they continue to grow by leaps and bounds.  It is absolutely noteworthy to see literature in South Africa in particular in the post apartheid, being celebrated with utmost glee.  Richard Rive is one of the illustrious names from the 60s and 70s in particular.

Imperatively, apartheid presented a serious morass that deserved to be abrogated.  In fact its application was abysmal and thoroughly lacked sanity for human dignity and progress.  In the past because of apartheid South African writers, ineluctable had to expect unpleasant treatment because of their zealous literary forte which they used to showed with profound agility.  However, today the situation is congenially different because writers can write without being countered.  Today, South African writers are relishing their works with absolute glee.  And moreover there are colourful literary festivals throughout the country which are stupendously held with the intention to showcases disparate literary genre and the ambience is lucidly resplendent.

To highlight there are past events that remain and will of course remembered as unpalatable grotesque as a result of apartheid.  Many pre-eminent writers suffered a lot under apartheid; writers like Nat Nakasa and Lewis Nkosi were awarded Nieman Fellowship to study abroad.  They were refused passport and were forced to leave South Africa on an exit permit.  As a result they lost their South African citizenship.  Nat Nakasa died in exile after a fall from the seventh floor of a building in New York and the Afrikaner poet Ingrid Jonker, commits suicide by drowning in Cape Town.

What about Dennis Brutus, Es’kia Mphahlele, Bessie Head, Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer and Richard Rive? Dolefully, these writers in their lifetimes were faced with a serious predicament during apartheid times and their sole nefarious transgression was to partake in writing.  Literature that they produced was completely banned by apartheid government and their literary flair was flagrantly commended and appraise outside South Africa.  Dennis Brutus’ work, his first collection, Sirens, Knuckles and Boots won an Mbari Prize (University of Ibadan, Nigeria) and notable the collection was also published in Nigeria while he was in prison (Robben Island).

On his own part, Richard Rive’s first novel “Emergence” which takes the events leading to the Sharpeville massacre is actually a tour de force.  A protest against apartheid, Emergency was written about the Sharpeville crisis and was quickly banned by the South African government.

The role that Richard Rive played in literature was categorically mind-blowing. Inasmuch, from his early life Richard Rive cultivated multitudinous number of exhilarating works of literature.  His enormous efforts in producing such dazzling ilk of literature stamped him out as one of the few courageous wordsmiths in the face of fierce racial discrimination under apartheid.   

Indeed, Rive was a very well gifted, versed and prodigious writer whose erudition which was coupled with excellent prowess to produce such hunky-dory work of literature will be invariable recollected in the world of letters.   Rive enchanting literary works will be reminisce with South African magazines such as Drum and Fighting Talk including  European and American magazines.  Alas, his untimely death robbed South Africa and the world an exceptional, brilliant and versatile writer.

Nevertheless, it is utterly essential for modern African writers to regard Richard Rive death as a signal of inspiration.  He died as an unremitting literary activist whose interest was to see literature being palatable and lawful.  Specifically the responsibility is on writer’s shoulders to ensure that Rive works lives on indefinitely.  An open secret is that the West is not ignorant about the contribution and the impact which their writers have made over the years in advancing literature.  For centuries, the West have been showing alacrity and patriotic verve by making sure that their writers are greatly celebrated with incredible delectation by writing essays, reviews, critical works etc on them as the cue for appreciation. Bronte Sisters, Charles Dickens and so on are such prominent examples of writers that are still recognized as outstanding in the West. 

Tragically, Richard Rive was viciously killed by being stabbed to death at his home in Cape Town in 1989; of course his life of writing depicted him as an earnest writer who was extraordinary committed in propagating literature.  Inevitably, Rive vivacious contribution in literature cannot be ignore but it must somewhat be celebrated, appreciated and relished with stupendous enthusiasm.

MIRIAM TLALI (South Africa)

The very first black woman to publish a novel in South Africa. It has a very nice ring to it. For ever. That is the lofty achievement of the skilled writer, Miriam Tlali (who died in early 2017).

It breaks the heart to see so many early pioneers of African literature departing this world rapidly!  For the past years Africa has been reeling over its literary giants who departed this world, icons like Chinua Achebe, Es’kia Mphahlele, MbuleloMzamane, Grace Ogot, Lauretta Ngcobo, Buchi Emecheta and recently Miriam Tlali.

And now Miriam Tlali has done a very wonderful work as a fervent African writer.  It is important for one to reckon that her literary fame was not an easy achievement.  From the onset since she begin to write, her works were disrupted and thwarted by apartheid in South Africa.  Miriam Tlali is known by her masterpiece-a novel which makes her to be recognized as the first female African writer to write a novel in South Africa.  As things are-we are all aware how she struggled to be published especially her first novel Muriel at Metropolitan which was finally published in 1975 after six years of rejection by 'white publishers' in South Africa.

However, we need to ponder that Miriam Tlali works became famous through incredible sacrifice of critics who ensured that her works are scrutinized.  It is vitally important to comprehend that it is via critics that Mriam Tlali works flourished worldwide.  

Nevertheless this literary genre has been view as problematically nuisance and uninviting obstacle that is advocated by other iconoclastic writers whose interest is to besmirch African literature.  As far as things are, African writers always believe that whatever they produce literary must be automatically being venerated and unanimously celebrated.    

Imperatively, criticism in literature is not something that is preposterous; but its role in literature is to ameliorate literature.  It is absolutely absurd for some people to reject their works to be criticised.  Writers need to appreciate this type of literary genre because its role in literature is graphically significant.  Africa has lot of talented writers and because of being obstinate to literary criticism its writers are not well known in the world.   

Miriam Tlali as critic herself will feel dejected if Africa continues to shun out critics in literature.  During her life time she understood the enormous value critics add to promote literature.  Consequentially writers or whoever aches to be part of literature need to be familiar with this type of literary genre.  For instance, in football there are rules and a football player cannot ignore them.  Like a player cannot use a hand to score a goal but instead he/she is anticipated to use a leg, head and so on.

Furthermore, it can be argued as whether what apartheid censorship did especially towards many African writers in South Africa was critical correct to banned their books.     Apartheid censorship was not immersed in literature but its existence was basically racially biased.   Miriam Tlali would elaborate: “Oh, I suffered a lot of harassment by the system in South Africa, by the police.  They used to visit my house long after midnight and harass us, with Saracens and Casspirs, fully armed and so on, in their efforts to discourage me from writing.  I wrote a lot about it.  Articles of mine have been printed abroad.  The Index on Censorship printed two lengthy articles of mine where I speak about this kind of harassment and what I was suffering, and about censorship in general against South African writers.” (Reflections: Perspectives on Writing in Post-Apartheid South Africa).  Edited by Rolf Solberg & Malcolm Hacksley, Nelm Interviews Series Number Seven.

Miriam Tlali's literary contribution will invariable remain immortal inspiration to lot of literary aficionados in the world.  Her passionate affection to literature began at the time when she was in school until she was ultimately published.   Her courageous love and unflinching demeanour for literature make her one of the awesome literary giant that the world had ever produced. I M Soqaga

MAJOR STUDIES

Grappling with patriarchies : narrative strategies of resistance in
Miriam Tlali's writings by Christina Cullhed

Writing as transformational : a Marxist feminist analysis of Miriam
Tlali's works by Mante Mphahlele 

ATO QUAYSON (Ghana)

Ato Quayson - a revered African academic and critic

By M. I Soqaga

Think of the best of Ghanaian literature or writing; and many automatically latch on to the likes of Kofi Awoonor, Ayi Kwei Armah, Ama Ata Aidoo...but others like Ato Quayson are world class too.

It is categorically not surprising to see African literature flourishing so considerably in the world of letters today.  Actually its optimal influence and popularity in the world is completely fascinating.  Obviously, from the outset African literature subsisted as a result of enormous diligence and invaluable efforts which African writers have shown over the years.

To accentuate, Africa has passed through the uphill situation or period were things were thoroughly unwholesome.  Sometimes, in the past Africans were mistakenly degraded as barbaric animals that cannot do things independently.  Specifically, the situation and delusion-myopic theory which linked Africans with cannibalism, was utterly proven erroneous by the African themselves, through their nifty efforts.

To reminisce, inevitable about “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, certainly one will always be inspired.  The illustrious book caused even the belligerent adversaries of Africa to re-examine their belief concerning African people.  Chinua Achebe deserved much kudos because of his remarkable efforts and many other gem of African writing too.  The eminent prominence of African wordsmith breathtakingly influenced the near-sighted detractors of Africa to retract their uninviting belief.

What about today?  Many of us, we are completely impressed by the world where human beings are equally recognised, where things like books are readily available and accessible.  Absolutely, Ato Quayson serves as a consummate example.  Ato is the pre-eminent academic and critic.  One thing should be realised is that African academics are not alike.  For instance, there are those who understand the situation which is pertinent to Africa.  Frequently, you will see them write books of fiction, poetry, essays, criticism etc.  In addition, their dazzling books and their literary contribution are more familiar to the people.  Ato Quayson is such kind of outstanding African writer.  Unlike overweening academic African writers whose artistic works are curtail to certain people and are subsequently unpopular.  Africa although it has achieved world recognition but developmentally is gradually progressing.  Lack of literacy, civil wars, brutal violation of human rights and dearth of many other important things apposite for human survival are actually procrastinating headway in Africa.  Without books, education, technology, schools, teacher’s etc Africa will demise and be depreciating to debris of ashes. 

Of course Ato Quayson literary contribution which is simultaneously cum with his profound erudition is dramatically awesome.  Definitely, he is one of the exceptional African writers who deserved countless compliments.  His striking book’s, essays and so on are idyllically ravishing.  Certainly, Africa should count itself fortunate to have arresting writers like Ato Quayson. 

Books

·         Oxford Street, Accra: City Life and the Itineraries of Transnationalism, Duke University Press, 2014. Draws on a variety of concepts and disciplines such as anthropology, urban geography, literary theory, and spatial theory to retell the history of Accra from the perspective of a single street from the 1650s to the present day — the first such interdisciplinary study or urban life African urban studies.

·         Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature, 2 vols, ed. Cambridge University Press, 2012. The first attempt at bringing together essays dealing with the literary history of postcolonial studies, with 42 contributors covering a wide range of topics, divided equally between geographical topics (Postcolonialism and Arab Literature; Postcolonial Literature in Latin America; Canadian Writing and Postcolonialism) and thematic ones (Indigenous Writing in Canada; Orality and the Genres of African Writing; Postcolonial Auto/Biography).

·         Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation, Columbia University Press, 2007. Focusing primarily on the work of Samuel Beckett, Toni Morrison, Wole Soyinka, and J. M. Coetzee, the book launches a thoroughly cross-cultural and interdisciplinary study of the representation of physical disability. The first book to fully bring Euro-American writers alongside postcolonial ones for a discussion of the ubiquitous trope of disability, it is now an acknowledged classic in the fields of disability and postcolonial studies, and chapters from it have been anthologized in various collections.

·         Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing: Orality and History in Rev Samuel Johnson, Amos Tutuola, Wole Soyinka and Ben Okri. Oxford and Bloomington: James Currey and Indiana University Press, 1997. Seeking to trace Nigerian literary history from the perspective of a Yoruba matrix of cultural resources that informed the work of the writers in the title, the book fundamentally critiqued a by-then standard idea in the field that there was a natural relationship between orality and literacy in the work of African writers and rather argued that the presence of orality in African literature was due to the exercise of strategic aesthetic choices, some of which had nothing to do with orality but more to do with the pressures of identity-formation in the evolving nation-state that is Nigeria. The book has gone on to become a classic and is to be found in all African literature survey courses worldwide.

·         Blackwell Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism, ed. with Girish Daswani, New York: Blackwell, 2013. A co-edited volume that brings together for the first time essays dealing with both diaspora and transnationalism, normally kept apart in the literature. It clears the ground for seeing the two as mutually interrelated for our understanding of multi-ethnic liberal polities that have been shaped by the presence of diasporic communities.

·         The Cambridge Companion to the Postcolonial Novel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)

·         Oxford Street, Accra; Urban Evolution, Street Life and Itineraries of the Transnational (Duke University Press, 2014).

·         Blackwell Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism Studies (with Girish Daswani; New York: Blackwell, 2013).

·         The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature, 2 volumes (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

·         Labour Migration, Human Trafficking and Multinational Corporations (with Antonela Arhin; New York: Routledge, 2012).

·         Fathers and Daughters: An Anthology of Exploration (Oxford: Ayebia Publishers, 2008).

·         Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).

·         African Literature: An Anthology of Theory and Criticism (with Tejumola Olaniyan; Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).

·         Calibrations: Reading for the Social (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2003).

·         Relocating Postcolonialism (with David Theo Goldberg; Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).

·         Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice or Process? (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).

·         Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing (Oxford and Bloomington: James Currey and Indiana University Press, 1997).