STATEMENT OF THE JUDGING PANEL FOR THE COMMONWEALTH WRITERS PRIZE 2010—AFRICA REGION
I speak on behalf of the 2010 judging panel for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Africa Region:Elinor Sisulu, who acted with resourcefulness as Chairperson and also as a judge representing Southern Africa; Ajoa Yeboah-Afari, who very capably represented West Africa; and I, who represented Eastern Africa.
More than 50 bookswere submitted for the 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize, Africa Region. Of these, the clear majority were from South Africa and Nigeria, both of which continue to dominate literary production on the continent. While the books by South African writers who entered for the prize were published predominantly within South Africa itself, which has, in relative terms, a strong publishing industry, a high percentage of the entries by Nigerian writers were published in Europe and North America. What is also striking about the Nigerian case is the large number of writers who live and write outside the borders of the country. In addition to Nigeria and South Africa, we also received a few entries from Ghana and Kenya, and a single entry from Sierra Leone. No entries were received from Botswana, Cameroon, Gambia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
It is noteworthy that of the 14 books that made it onto the shortlists this year 10 are by women, which is unprecedented in the history of the CWP, Africa Region.
Given the exceptional depth and variety of books submitted for the prize, it is not possible to reflect at length about every single highpoint. However, there are a few interesting trends about which the panel of judges would wish to comment. These broad trends can be seen in the thematic content of the books, elements of interesting formal innovation and also areas of glaring problems.
One of the remarkable aspects of the entries was the high number that concentrated on human trafficking and migration. The most striking of such novels were Eyo by Abidemi Sanusi (Nigeria), On Black Sisters’ Street by Chika Unigwe (Nigeria) and Refuge by Andrew Brown (South Africa). Reading these entries, the panel of judges was struck by the way slavery, in new guises,has come to speak powerfully of the plight of a generation of Africans who have come of age at a time of destitution, political repression and out-migration—a time when home is all too often quite unhomely.Yet, in spite of the harrowing experiences presented in these novels, none of them resort to the neat endings that readers may expect after being shown so much suffering. Instead, they deliberately disappoint readers, in keeping with the gritty realismthat lies at their heart. The short stories of Chimamanda Adichie, presented in a remarkable collection called The Thing around Your Neck, departed somewhat from the sad tone of the three novels and approached the experience of migration with humour, wit and insight. Nonetheless, all the above mentioned texts on migration and human trafficking are outstanding commentaries on the conditions that make life in home countries unbearable, the casual cruelties meted out on strangers as they travel, and the indifference that sustains it all.
Stories about growing up, especially in contexts of political repression, had a particularly strong presence in the entries that we received. However, the broad problems of political crisis were usually given treatment through an imaginative focus on domestic scenes and individual lives. South African authors, in particular, presented a large number of entries about growing up during apartheid, especially in white, working class neighbourhoods. Many of these entries told harrowing tales of the sexual abuse of children, but what was most striking about such stories was the sense of agency that made it possible for child protagonists to survive. A particularly impressive example of such novels is Erica Emdon’s Jellydog Days, a heart-rending piece which we shortlisted in the Best First Book category. Jacques Pauw’s Little Ice Cream Boy provided a grueling account of an abusive childhood in a white working class family in apartheid South Africa, with tragic results for the protagonist. Mark Behr’s Kings of the Water—which is an honest and sensitive confrontation with sexuality, race, inheritance and political change—presented us with deep, ethical reflection on the nature of responsibility to family and community. Another important entry that had as its core the theme of growing up is Ayesha Harruna Attah’s Harmattan Rain, a richly-woven and ambitious novel that spans three generations of women in a half-century of modern Ghanaian history.Zake Mda’s Black Diamond, for its part, made satirical commentary on the culture of politics, class mobility and conspicuous consumption in a South Africa in transition.
If the pieces entered for the prize are anything to go by, African writers in English continue to keep an interest in historical fiction—in the evocation of the past in all its complexity. We were particularly impressed by the depth of historical research that went into the writing of entries from southern Africa, with the following as notable examples: The Shape of Him by Gill Schierhout, Tsamma Season by Rosemund Handler, The Double Crown by Marié Heese and The Story of Hunadi by Klaas Mokoka Mashishi. However, we also had moments of comic relief when we encountered texts whose sense of history simply defied belief.
We were pleased to receive a large number of books which, though tailored to include readers of popular fiction, were couched in the idioms and styles of the best literary fiction.This is an extremely important development, for the future of African writing lies precisely in the ability of writers to appeal to as many readers as possible. Most of the texts in the popular fiction mode were crime, boardroom and political thrillers. Key examples are Beasts of Prey by Rob Marsh, Pirates by Femi Osofisan and Shark by Karel van der Merwe. Of such texts in the popular literature mode, the one that really stood out was a slim collection called A Fistful of Tales by Ayodele Arigbabu in which we are made to see Lagos through sci-fi, comic book and spy-thriller storylines. We were unanimous that Arigbabu is a writer to watch.
The panel of judges also took note of the brilliant evocation of place in a large number of the entries, especially those set in Lagos. In all such cases, the ways in which place shapes character was conveyed with skill, most memorably in the way the frequent electricity blackouts in Lagos engender both patience and inventiveness. Rosemund Handler’s Tsamma Season, which is set in the Kalahari, is another book that stood out in this regard, for its elemental portraits of the interaction between humans and the desert landscape.
A key complaint among readers of African writing is that it tends to be sad and overly focused on historical suffering and humiliation, and thus much less joyful than popular music and other forms of popular art. The claim is that African writing rarely captures the full range of human emotion and experience, focused as it is said to be on suffering. It was therefore with much pleasure that we read novelsthat stand out fortheir commitment to laughter in the face of troubling realities.Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s I Do Not Come to You by Chance, as a key example, uses humour and irony to dealwith the difficult moral dilemmas it presents, thuspreventing the story from descending into the kind of sermonizing and moralizing that would deny the humanity of its characters.Nonetheless, the panel of judges strongly felt that there is further scope in African writing for exploring African realities in ways that evoke deep reflection and deep laughter too, for the purpose of fiction is not only to inform, but also to entertain.
In addition to the historical inaccuracies alluded to above, key shortcomings in the entries for the 2010 prize include the following. There were many examples of the sloppy use of language. One of the judges was particularly amused by the strange phrase “That evening after lunch…”! Some entries did not have a realistic sense of their readers and therefore overestimated the receptiveness of readers to lengthy passages and phrases in languages such as Afrikaans, Yiddish and Twi. Some writers got caught up in futile experimentation, opting for fragmented storylines that would test the patience of even the most dedicated readers, while others chose to end on notes of fantasy stories that were otherwise consistently realist. These problems all draw attention to the state of the publishing industry on the continent and the obstacle this presents to aspiring writers, who, with few exceptions, have to do without the sort of guidance and support writers elsewhere take for granted. It is no wonder then that, with the exception of South Africa, the most competent of the entries were generally published in Europe and North America, which today seem to have a stronger role in African writing than was the case in the 1960s and 70s. This remains a central challenge for African publishers.
In spite of these problems, the panel of judges is satisfied that African stories continue to be told in ways that draw attention to the specific conditions of being a part of this vast continent while also speaking, with empathy, of our common humanity.
Dr Dan Ojwang