Afterlives, by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Esteemed Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah shines a light on Germany's violent history in Africa.

German empire building in early 20th century Africa is a subject not commonly addressed in Western literature. In Afterlives, by Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, the ravages of German colonisation are illuminated in violent detail.

The story starts around 1907 and mostly concentrates on the fortunes and misfortunes of a young man named Hamza. Forced to leave his home, he is conscripted into the Schutztruppe Askaris, native African soldiers who fight in the name of the German empire. As the First World War looms, and European powers fight over their African possessions, Hamza experiences the cruelties and racism of the Germans. Exploited and abused by his superiors, one deranged field officers slashes him with a scabbard and he barely survives.

Afterlives is an eye-opener of a novel, giving a detailed account of the brutal conditions of empire, the racism and exploitation. Gurnah writes a neat and compelling narrative, interweaving a complex and broad cast of characters over several decades. The book does get weighed down a bit in the last third, as it describes Hamza's marriage, but speeds up to a dramatic end.

A scrupulous account of the Germans in Africa.

Black Sunday, by Tola Rotimi Abraham

 

Four siblings describe growing up in Lagos as virtual orphans, left to fend for themselves.

Covering a period of twenty years (1996 – 2015), Nigerian writer Tola Rotimi Abraham’s debut novel, Black Sunday, describes the mixed fortunes of four siblings. There are the twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike, and brothers Peter and Andrew. Each sibling has an alternating chapter in which they chronicle their lives in a Lagos slum.

The book begins when the siblings are all young children. Their mother has lost her government job due to political reasons out of her control, and their father loses all his money in some dodgy business dealing. Both parents run out on their children, leaving them in the care of their grandmother.

What follows is the story of each child growing up in poverty and uncertainty, vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. There is no real plot to Black Sunday, it’s more a series of vignettes of Nigerian street life, even a rake’s progress as the children’s lives become more miserable and compromised. That makes Black Sunday sound pretty grim, and it is, but it’s also shot through with plenty of dark humour.

An unvarnished look Lagos’ urban underbelly, featuring a rogues’ gallery of street hustlers, crooked businessmen and hypocritical religious figures. The book paints a particularly disturbing picture of the life of young women – raped, exploited and demeaned, with little to no chance of getting ahead in a world where the cards are stacked against them.

Often uncomfortable, yet necessary reading.

Black Sunday, by Tola Rotimi Abraham. Published by Cannongate. $19.99

First published at northmelbournebooks.com.au November 2020

The Freedom Artist, by Ben Okri

Ben Okri addresses issues of political oppression and the meaning of life in this beautifully written novel.

In a yellow house a young boy named Mirababa is reading an ancient myth to his grandfather. Some time later the grandfather dies and the boy is visited by a group of old bards. The bards lead Mirababa into the forest. He is to be initiated as the new myth-maker. 

In another house, a young man named Karnak is with his lover, Amalantis, a fearless woman who quests for the truth. One morning they hear three knocks at the door. When they open the door they see three men. The men take away Amalantis.

In alternating narratives, we follow Mirababa and Karnak’s differing paths. Mirababa experiences a spiritual journey, visiting a mysterious garden and finally becoming a boy-warrior, a semi-divine figure. Karnak suffers much as he tries to find Amalantis. The all-powerful Hierarchy, an omnipotent yet invisible government bureaucracy, ensures his search is frustrated. The Hierarchy has banned books. All the original myths have been rewritten. Even planting seeds, to grow plants and flowers, is forbidden. 

Yet there is hope. Flyers are found flapping in the breeze with the slogan “Uprise!” on them. An image of a rose keeps appearing. People are starting to learn that they can be free. The boy-warrior, Mirababa, helps the people learn this.

Ben Okri’s new novel is a political allegory, or as Okri notes in the preface, “a fable of our times”. The novel describes an almost Orwellian world of state oppression, where reality is re-written as propaganda. The central idea of the story is that we are all born into a metaphorical prison. Life is a prison and our very thoughts perpetuate this imprisonment.  But there is a way out. We can re-write our story and live a new reality, one of freedom.

While much of The Freedom Artist has a dystopian flavour, its poetic language and evocative imagery save it from being bleak. The book is organised into six parts and has the feel of a long, extended dream sequence. It’s a great pleasure to read. Okri explicitly avoids any didactic message and asks the reader to take their own meaning from the text. This may make the novel appear difficult or opaque, but that’s not the case. Okri’s vision sweeps you along and the big issues it addresses makes it a work of urgent contemplation.

A plaintive, poetic novel that has a soaring message of hope, despite its disturbing narrative.

The Freedom Artist, by Ben Okri.  Published by Head of Zeus. RRP: $29.99

Not Without Laughter, by Langston Hughes

A vivid and joyous rendering of African American life in the early years of the 20th century.  

Langston Hughes (1901 – 1967) was a much acclaimed African-American poet, playwright and columnist. His first novel, Not Without Laughter (1930), is set in the town of Stanton, Kansas. A coming of age story, the novel centres around the young boy, Sandy, as he grows to young adulthood.

The action of the story takes place in the 1910s. Sandy is being raised by his grandmother, Aunt Hager. She is a kind, hardworking, God fearing woman, the backbone of her family. She has three daughters. Annjee, Sandy’s mother, works a thankless and humiliating job as a housekeeper for a white woman, Mrs Rice. Anjee is married to Jimboy, an itinerant worker and guitar player who is not the most responsible of fathers. Aunt Tempy, the second daughter, has married well to a man with a regular job. She’s often harsh and critical of Black folks, especially their popular culture, and is determined to gain acceptance from whites, even if it means being like them. Lastly there is Harriet, the youngest. She has fire in the belly and deeply resents her treatment by white society. She stays out late, runs away from home and makes a living for herself as a singer.

Through the portraits of these four Black women – Aunt Hager, Annjee, Aunt Tempy and Aunt Harriet – the reader is shown the breadth of the African American experience, with all its frustrations, heartaches and contradictions. People of colour try to gain acceptance from whites by playing to their rules, but of course they can never win. The game is stacked against them. Then there are those that resist, and believe in fighting, like Aunt Harriet. Yet their position is precarious.

Not Without Laughter is a magical reading experience. Its style and rhythm is full of music, joy, sorrow, laughter and heartache. Langston Hughes is a master of dialogue, vividly bringing his characters to life. The beauty of African American speech infuses every page; it’s a book that sings. While there is much struggle and hardship, there is also joy and hope, hope for a better future.

Sandy grows to be a young teenager and is faced with a choice, whether to pursue an education or stay in a dead end job. The strong women that have raised him and that dominate this novel  – his mother, grandmother and aunts – their voices in the end guide him to the right decision.

Not Without Laughter is a magnificent novel, a joy to read and an education in how American people of colour lived a century ago, shortly after the end of slavery.

Not Without Laughter, by Langston Hughes. Published by Penguin. RRP: $27.99

Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe’s multi-million seller Things Fall Apart (1958) is widely considered the first major piece of African literature written in English. It dramatises the conflict between the Igbo people and their traditional way of life in a Nigerian village, and the successful incursion of Christian Missionaries who bring not only their religion, but laws and government as well. The novel is remarkable for its simple elegance of style. Achebe’s prose never over reaches itself, always finding the exact right word to describe character and situation. What’s all the more remarkable is that Things Fall Apart, which is mature in tone and outlook, was written by a young man in his twenties whose first language was not English.

Excessive Masculine Values of Okonkwo, and Their Consequences

The story centres around clansman Okonkwo, a famed wrestler who through hard work builds up his position in his village, Umuofia. Okonkwo’s most powerful motivation to succeed as a respected (and perhaps feared) member of his village is the poor example of his weak and spendthrift father, Unoka. Unoka irresponsibly borrowed too much money and never bothered about paying his creditors back in a timely fashion. He was also cowardly in battle. Overall, Okonkwo thinks his father was far too effeminate and womanish. Being too much like a woman is a common criticism in the novel, describing a prevailing attitude of the clansmen (but not necessarily of Achebe himself).

Okonkwo’s urge to define himself in distinction from his father leads to some fatal character flaws. He becomes too rigid and masculine, frequently beating his wives and showing a general intolerance for anything he perceives as weakness. His strong masculine values soon turn out not to be a sign of strength, but rather of weakness: Okonkwo worries excessively about how he is viewed by others, which leads him to conform to the clan, rather than exercise more independent judgement. His masculine values end up being more about keeping up appearances, rather than personal integrity.

The most tragic and disturbing example of this wanting to conform to majority opinion is when Okonkwo kills Ikemefuna, the boy prisoner who is taken from another clan as a peace settlement. What makes this episode doubly shocking is the fact that Ikemefuna has almost become like a family member, but when the clansmen decide Ikemefuna must be killed (they have received a message from the Oracle), Okonkwo is warned by the oldest man in the village to have nothing to do with this killing. But Okonkwo doesn’ t listen, and attends. Worse still, when Ikemefuna realizes he is in mortal danger from the clansmen he calls out to Okonkwo for help, only to receive the fatal blow from his own foster father.

This first part of the novel, which makes up for a substantial part of the story, delineates the culture, laws, religion and customs of the Umuofia. Achebe shows both the cruelties and humanity of this African village culture. His descriptions of the people also shows considerable psychological insight. The over all picture is one of a nuanced, fully functioning society.

The Coming of the Christian Missionaries

In parts two and three of Things Fall Apart, the plot moves quickly. Okonkwo finds himself exiled for seven years after accidently killing a clansman. When he returns, in part three, he finds the Umuofia undergoing massive changes. Christian missionaries have turned up on the scene and have set up a rival Church. The Church makes steady inroads into the village, its new Christian doctrine appealing to many. The Church is only the tip of the iceberg though, as Christianity is just a preamble for white government, economy and law. Once Okonwko realizes his fellow clansmen are unable to resist this steady incursion, he makes a decision that ends in tragedy.

Much of Things Fall Apart has the air of a Greek tragedy, as Okonkwo walks inexorably towards his fate. The novel gives a balanced view of both sides in this struggle between white colonialists and African villagers. The Igbo people and their way of life are not romantacised, nor are its more disturbing aspects sanitised. Achebe, it seems, has striven to give a realistic and dignified picture of indigenous culture. The Christian missionaries vary in their style and approach. Mr Brown is more culturally sensitive and careful of the villagers, while Reverend James Smith is dangerously arrogant. Things Fall Apart shows how a potent and powerful Christian theology can be used, almost unconsciously, to usher in an aggressive cultural and political take over.

Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. Published by Anchor. ISBN-13: 978-0385474542