THE DEAD END OF AFRICAN LITERATURE: BY OBIAJUNWA WALI

THE DEAD END OF AFRICAN LITERATURE: BY OBIAJUNWA WALI

(CHAPTER 40 in the Anthology of African Literature)

A SUMMARY: BY NWANI UCHENNA WILLIAMS

            During a conference of African writers held in Makerere university, Kampala in 1962, African literature as presently defined and fully apprehended, leads nowhere. African writers of English expression such as Wole Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo, and Ezekiel Mphalele dealt with utmost derision, this kind of literature which expresses sterile concepts such as negritude or the African literature.

         Ibidem, the works of Tutuola, one of the most significant writers today was excluded during the conference. This unjust treatment could be because he was grouped in the “negritude school” and somewhat because he has won many awards oversees for using the English expressions that is ‘non-Makerere.’

            However, Obi Wali who is well known for his assertion that African literature should only be written in African languages emphasized the importance that works deemed "African" be written in the languages of the African peasantry and working class rather than in English or other foreign languages. Through an alliance of these classes within the many nationalities of Africa, he predicted an "inevitable revolutionary break with neo-colonialism." He then expressed these views in his controversial essay, “The Dead End of African Literature” which is considered a landmark in the field of African literary modernity. In this essay, Wali writes that "an African writer who thinks and feels in his own language must write in that language.

 Although opposed by some, Wali's essay has been lauded by many African literary giants such as Ngugi wa thiong'o, who changed his name to a traditional African name after reading Wali's argument. Wali is often cited together with ‘Ngugi Wa Thiongo’ and ‘Immeh Ikiddeh’ for what is called the "radicalist" viewpoint – that African literary expression should be exclusively in indigenous African languages.

Additionally, Wali argues that it is necessary for literary critics to learn African languages before analyzing African literary texts and producing theories about their meanings. Wali and Ngugi’s viewpoint that African literature be exclusively written in African languages is often positioned in opposition to the opinions of Chinua Achebe and Amma Ata Aidoo, who argued that African literature can also be written in foreign languages.