LITR 5831 Colonial-Postcolonial
Literature
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Jessica Peterson
Orality in African Literature: The Reconciliation of Past, Present and Future Storytelling
My first research post on the colonial and post-colonial history of Rwanda made me want to narrow the focus on my second posting and discuss the historical and present-day literature in Rwandan culture. My background of interest is on the class discussion we had about Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart and how significant the oral tradition of storytelling is in authentic African cultures. My question is how to reconcile the past concept of orality with modern African literature and how both oral and written stories have a purpose in African literature.
A new term that I came across when
doing online research was diaspora, which means to disperse or be displaced. The
International Institute for Diaspora Studies provided an accessible explanation
of this foreign term: “These
three stages are that of: home, away, and return in some form, whether in
physical return migration or a persistent turning towards the homeland, to help
it and be helped by it. This situation is complicated in recent decades by the
fact that "home" has lost its centrality for some diasporas but remains a very
important nodal point in the new diasporic networks that have developed in the
era of transnationalism and globalization” (www.diasporastudies.org).
In focusing specifically on Rwandan natives, Rwanda is home. Rwandans are then
displaced (or relocate) to a new area of settlement and then “return” to their
homeland, to improve the social and economic structure of their homeland or
receive assistance via support or encouragement from their fellow native
Rwandans. Rwandans must be able to assimilate into the new culture, while
maintaining the cultural integrity of their homeland. This is why there is a
necessity to integrate the past oral tradition with the contemporary literature,
to maintain a connection to homeland while also forming a connection with their
new area of settlement.
African literature and the African Diaspora often contain a
variety of literary vernacular elements derived from the Africanization of
European languages. These linguistic variations cause multicultural literature
to have rich cultural perspectives and ideologies, embracing a more authentic
image of the diaspora and the people affected by transnational migration.
Africanized English, or “Ebonics”, is often unfairly
judged for lacking the intellect and “proper” grammar of Standard English. In
Joseph McLaren’s article “African Diaspora Vernacular Traditions and the Dilemma
of Identity”, he highlights how the removal of Africanized English would
diminish the value of African linguistic elements and decrease the role of
homeland identity for Africans. Educator Robert L. Williams organized a
conference in 1973 in St. Louis, MO titled
Language and Cognitive Development of the
Black Child.
Participants
at the conference felt that labels such as nonstandard and broken English were
derogatory and reflected “some degree of white bias” (Williams, Intro. vi–viii)”
(McLaren 98).
Ebonics is an element of authentication in literature of
the African diaspora, a sign of the actual language patterns spoken by the
literary characters. Africanized English has a purpose in diaspora literature;
“creative writers such as [Chinua] Achebe may help the trend towards the
Africanization of English” (McLaren 99). To maintain the cultural integrity of
the African homeland for its native writers is to assert their traditional
identity, while also assimilating into English literature and making the
Africanized English Literature an accessible literary genre for readers of
varying cultural backgrounds. From Achebe’s use of the pidgin dialect in his
1960s novels No Longer at Ease and
A Man of the People, to Caribbean
author Patricia Powell’s novel Me Dying
Young in
1993, these authors rely on their [homeland] English as the narrative voice to
convey cultural influence of their homeland and the reliance on literary
tradition of their native roots. The Harlem Renaissance period of the 1920s and
even white American authors such as Mark Twain [Huckleberry
Finn] used the “Negro dialect” to assimilate the influence of blues lyrics
with commonly used jive expressions and create a modern black vernacular
literary tradition.
While poetry,
non-fiction and fiction literary genres have relied on Africanized English as a
language of cultural identity and awareness, other forms of artistic expression
rely on ebonics of the oral tradition to convey the meaningful role of oral
storytelling of the past in modern literary situations. “Sunba”, an old Malinke
story combining narration and musical portions, has gained a foothold in
contemporary media in the past 20 years; 3 popular pop stars in Mali have
created “spoken word”-esque pieces to make “Sunba” popular to a modern and
younger listening audience (Tamari). These pieces show how necessary and vital
the oral tradition is to the current generation in Mali, Guinea and other parts
of West Africa. This new musical style is appealing to both the artist and
audience alike, creating a connection with shared cultural experiences of the
past and visions for the future.
While literary
figures continue to gain an audience and garner attention, much needs to be done
in Rwanda for literature to be successful. Their publishing sector is no help in
this endeavor. According to editor Felcien Gapfizi in The Rwanda Focus, the lack
of publishing support in Rwanda does not deter from the fact that “I believe
Rwanda has known a variety of experiences that can generate interesting
stories”. Without lack of adequate publishing, Rwanda will continue to follow
the orginial oral tradition of storytelling and the stories will be fabricated
or risk being lost forever in the current channels of print and social media
outlets. Another issue that Gapfizi addresses is the low literacy rate in
Rwanda; “we have a number of children and young writers with interesting
stories, but they are still often stuck in the use of their native language and
are not yet able to write in English or French”. It seems the lack of proper
education and encouraging a bilingual (or trilingual) learning environment
impedes the youth from being motivated to learn other languages and use their
education to access their potential in these other languages. Another suggestion
mentioned in the article is the creation of writing and/or reading competitions.
By giving students an incentive to write and read, as well as revealing the
enjoyment and fun that can be gained from literacy, this would likely increase
in interest in pursuing writing professionally after gaining an education.
The
displacement of African natives, combined with the treating of Africanized
English in current literature and offering solutions to the publishing crisis in
Rwanda, makes it evident that multicultural literature needs to do more to raise
awareness of the stories that native Africans have to tell and do more to help
them tell their stories in print. While oral storytelling is just as vital to a
culture as its other traditions and rituals, we must reconcile orality with
print literature and make the two types of stories a thing of the present and
future, “not transmitted simply as a collection of information, but rather as a
life-trend” (Nzabatsinda
and Mitsch
101).
Works Cited
McLaren, Joseph. “African Diaspora, Vernacular Traditions
and the Dilemma of Identity”. Research in
African Literatures 40.1 (2009): 97-111.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 20
November 2011.
Nzabatsinda, Anthere and R. H. Mitsch. “The Aesthetics of
Transcribing Orality in the Works of Alexis Kagame, Writer of Rwanda”.
Research in African Literatures
, Vol. 28, No. 1, The Oral-Written Interface (Spring, 1997), pp. 98-111.
Published by Indiana University Press.
The Rwanda Focus. “Rwandan Publishing Sector Would Make any Writer Woeful”.
Posted 3 April 2010. Accessed 22 November 2011.
http://focus.rw/wp/2010/04/rwandan-publishing-sector-would-make-any-writer-woeful/
Tamari, Tal. “Oral Literature as Moral Guide:
Sunba in Contemporary Media”.
Research In African Literatures
40.1 (2009): 57-73. Academic Search Complete.
Web. 19 Nov. 2011.
