The Exclusion of the North African Novel in English from African Literature

African

Photo illustration by Ezinne Osueke / THE REPUBLIC.

THE MINISTRY OF ARTS / LITERATURE DEPT.

The Exclusion of the North African Novel in English from African Literature

The North African novel in English has garnered international accolades and scored representation in the global literary canon, but not yet in the African canon. Why is this still the case?
African

Photo illustration by Ezinne Osueke / THE REPUBLIC.

THE MINISTRY OF ARTS / LITERATURE DEPT.

The Exclusion of the North African Novel in English from African Literature

The North African novel in English has garnered international accolades and scored representation in the global literary canon, but not yet in the African canon. Why is this still the case?

Let us start with this: for a non-African, there is only one Africa—sub-Saharan Africa. For an African, there are two Africas—North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. I argue that there is a colonial detachment, which was initiated in the nineteenth century, that is being ideologically sponsored and employed by several forces to separate people who live alongside each other. It was certainly a powerful decision executed by a powerful force. This separation has deep, historical roots. It magnetizes its power and persistence from major historical decisions, whose consequences remain effective to this moment. I am, of course, implicating those who divided to conquer, those who separated the continent to weaken it. I am implicating the European colonial enterprise. 

It is crucially important to know that this colonial separation is well and alive. It is nurtured by many forces; some opaque, others visible; some international, others continental. The orientalist views of North Africa still frame the region as ‘Arab’, ‘Berber’, ‘Muslim’ or ‘White’. The racial views of ‘sub-Saharan’ Africa still advertise the continent as ‘Black’. True, many international forces nurture the persistence of this separation for several reasons, but I am particularly interested in the African forces that do the same. The African people themselves (both North Africans and ‘sub-Saharans’) still believe that there are two Africas. 

This belief still creates an ‘estrangement’ and a ‘distance’ between ‘North Africans’ and the rest of Africa. It is included in conversations, and, more sinisterly, it is deeply rooted in African societies, establishments and institutions. It has been, in a way, institutionalized. Notably, North Africans rarely associate themselves with the African continent, attributing themselves to the Middle East instead, obeying this colonial value, either consciously or unconsciously. In Algeria, for example, when receiving typically Black African tourists and guests, we refer to them as ‘African tourists’. Even Algerian institutions do so, such as newspapers and TV channels. Similarly, Africans outside of North Africa join us in this orientation, considering us ‘White Arabs’, ‘Berbers’ or ‘blancs’ (Whites). 

Before delving into the main ideas of this article, it is imperative to clarify several points that contextualize it. To begin with, it focuses essentially on Anglophone literature; any references made to language here are about the English language. It argues that the North African novel in English is invisible in the canon of African literature in English. The North African novel in English is a new literary tide that employs the English language as its tool of expression, rather than Arabic or French. It is pioneered and championed by several writers including Egyptian Ahdaf Soueif (The Map of Love, 1993), Noor Naga, another Egyptian, (If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English, 2022), Libyan Hisham Matar (My Friends, 2024), Moroccan Laila Lalami (The Moor’s Account, 2014) and Algerian Hamza Koudri (Sand Roses, 2023).  

THE GENESIS OF THE TWO AFRICAS IN AFRICAN LITERATURE

The conventional definition of African literature generally and consistently seems to only refer to African literature from Central, East, West and Southern Africa. This categorization has been used and overused for so long that it has shaped the perception of African literature both continentally and globally—the colonial separation has been institutionalized, and it also affects literature. It generally asserts that Africa is sub-Saharan, and so are its writers. 

The definitions of African literature, both classical and contemporary, still nurture the exclusion. Those definitions still turn their backs on North Africa, even when they include words such as ‘African languages’ and ‘indigenous languages’. Defining African literature has always been an elusive task, although many writers and scholars like Paul Bandia, Ziad Bentahar, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Chinua Achebe have tried. It was not defined satisfactorily when it was ‘emerging’ during the 1960s and the 1970s, and it is still loosely defined at present. It is a contentious term complicated with many questions. In Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975), a book of essays, Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe famously declared that he did ‘not see African literature as one unit but as a group of associated units—in fact the sum total of all the national and ethnic literatures of Africa,’ (p. 92). He advocated for the inclusion of all languages in the definition, both indigenous and colonial, that are being used in Africa by all Africans. 

The term ‘African literature’ has been redefined throughout the years, enhanced, debated and reshaped to include a new generation of African writers, modern concerns and niche aesthetics. It advertises new natures now: diasporic, transnational and transcultural. It has eradicated some stereotypes, but also strengthened others. However, that one feature remains unchanged—it still obscures North Africa and its emerging Anglophone literature. It still considers writers outside of North Africa its sole legitimate representatives and prominent authors. 

I do not dispute the classical definitions of English-writing African literature that exclude the Maghreb and North Africa. They had a plausible reason. Who, during the 1960s and 1970s, was prominently writing in English in Francophone North Africa? The region’s countries had just earned their independence from France, and their authors, certainly, wrote in French, not even in Arabic. Although Algeria gained its independence in 1962, its first Arabic novel did not make its appearance until 1971 when Abdelhamid Benhedouga published Rih al Ganub (Wind from South). The region was naturally obscured, only occasionally mentioned as part of the African literary tradition. In addition, as I will explain below, the African Writers Series (AWS) and its engineers played a major role in this orientation. 

My disagreement, however, is with relatively contemporary definitions of African literature that still exclude the North African novel in English, despite its notable presence and global success. To illustrate with one example, let’s observe Bandia’s contemporary definition of African literature. In Translation as Reparation (2014), he states that it, ‘can be assumed that African literature remains that literature which conveys African thought both traditional and modern, and deals with the African experience, both ancient and contemporary. It is the sum total of all the national and ethnic literatures,’ (p.13). The verb ‘remains’ implies stability, steadiness and unchangeability. Reading his book, one prepares for a thorough exposition of ‘African thought’, but he only refers to the usual suspects: Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Thiong’o and Gabriel Okara. He also mentions a younger generation—Ben Okri, Chris Abani, Calixthe Beyala and others, all sub-Saharan. 

Simply put, there is some process of exclusion at work, either advertent or inadvertent, either conscious or unconscious. It is persistent. It is clear. It is prevalent. Now, the following questions beg to be asked: what are the literary roots of this exclusion? Who/what keeps this tradition effective? 

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WHO STARTED IT?

In Marxism and Literature (1977), Welsh scholar and novelist, Raymond Williams, scouts the field of literature from the sixteenth century onwards, theorizing the existence of a discriminatory approach to valorising literary works and determining literary values. Williams observes that not all ‘fiction’ was considered ‘imaginative’ and not ‘all that had been written’ was mentioned, but only certain ‘great’ or ‘major’ works were selected relatively for criticism and ‘attention’ (p. 50-51). One impact is this, ‘consequent grading of “minor” works and an effective exclusion of “bad” or “negligible” works, and a practical realisation and communication of the “major” values.’ This process, he explains, became a ‘selection’ and a ‘tradition’ (p.50) of ‘an actively shaping force’ (p.114). This is Williams’ theory of ‘selective national tradition.’ 

Additionally, Williams alerts that this selective tradition is the ‘most powerful practical means of incorporation,’ and that it is, ‘powerfully operative in the process of social and cultural definition and identification,’ (p. 114). It is, ‘an evident expression of the dominant and hegemonic pressures and limits,’ and an ‘aspect of contemporary social and cultural organization, in the interest of the dominance of a specific class,’ (p.116). This hegemonic development, consequently, often obscures and leaves certain groups ‘stranded’. 

Certain anglophone North African authors are considered ‘negligible’ as African writers by virtue of tradition. North African authors and their creative works are unidentified as ‘African’ by several forces, adhering to a selective tradition, continental rather than national. The creative hegemony of African writers excluding the north impressively and recognizably started in the 1960s and 1970s and continues to this moment, unabatedly. They are credited for the most creative output and input in English. This trend, shaped by several forces, has generated a ‘cultural organisation’ that conventionally expects creative works in English from a ‘specific class’ (African outside the north) and leaves certain groups who do not conform to ‘certain values’ stranded and excluded from the literary heritage of the continent (North African writers).  

This traditionalist pattern of identification and incorporation has become a monopoly, an essentialist approach that constantly reads African literature as ‘sub-Saharan’. This literature, in other terms, has been racialized to represent sub-Saharan writers, in general. Tradition, as Williams asserts, is the ‘surviving past’ (p.114). In this view then, it is imperative to refer to the history of African literature to understand its current definition, which has been influenced by several literary forces—publishing houses, the institutions of literary prizes and famed magazines. It is not a secret that Heinemann’s African Writers Series, officially initiated in 1962, delivered African literature to international readers. The series embraced and commercialized Achebe, Thiong’o, Nadine Gordimer, Nuruddin Farah, Leila Aboulela, Jamal Mahjoub, and many others. 

Arguably, without the AWS, non-African readers would not have known of African literature. The late Alan Hill, who Achebe praised for promoting African literature, was Heinemann’s publisher who inaugurated the series. In his autobiography, In Pursuit of Publishing (1988), he writes that the series was to ‘to alter the world’s perception of Africa and its people,’ (p.145). It certainly has, particularly in institutionalizing Africa south of the Sahara as the leading bearer of African literature, a cultural image that still stands globally and continentally to this moment. Before the ground-breaking series was launched, most of the literature disseminated in the British Empire’s colonies were educational textbooks, written by British writers, distributed by British publishers. Heinemann, essentially an Educational Publisher, rallied to the continent, among other publishers, because of the imposition of a British educational system in the colonies. The market was booming and solely secured for British book traders. 

As Becky Clarke terms it in her article, ‘The African Writers Series: Celebrating Forty Years of Publishing Distinction,’ this scramble was largely a ‘colonial mission’ (p.163). And the mission was to fill a literary vacancy, because—as she adds referring to the literature of the region—‘there was no canon of established texts.’ The resurgent popularity of the AWS opportunely coincided with a major movement that was expanding in the region in the 1950s. Freshly independent anglophone African countries were replacing the previously forced British educational system—which undoubtedly highlighted British writers—with African works written by Africans. The AWS, thus, was embraced by various educational institutions that valorised them, inserted them into their curriculum and taught them as African literature. Achebe pioneered the African Writers Series with Things Fall Apart (1958). Other writers followed his lead, sprouting from East, West and Southern Africa, where the British Empire exercised the most lingual and colonial dominion. 

It is important to learn that the AWS was meant essentially for ‘Black African writers’. It underscored Black writers actively and deliberately. Alan Hill admits this in his memoirs, writing that, ‘the plan was to start a paperback series, confined to black African authors,’ (p.123). Blackness was a guiding criterion. This institutionalization is condensed perfectly in the previous article by Becky Clarke who writes that the AWS was, ‘established as the canonical series of African literature… the series has become the standard bearer—the canon,’ (p. 165). Still, despite the argument above, I have to acknowledge that the AWS did anthologize and publish particular, controversial North African creative works translated from the Arabic, such as Season of Migration to the North (1966) by Tayeb Salih. Indeed, Heinemann publishing house played a consequential role in the classification and thereby canonization of African literature; and many other institutions, operating today, still respect this tradition, still ignoring the North.  

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WHO STILL NURTURES IT?

This previously mentioned institutional initiative has created a monopoly, currently patronized by the publishing industry. In The Field of Cultural Production (1993), French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, underscores that, ‘the fundamental stake in literary struggles is the monopoly of literary legitimacy,’ (p. 42). Contextualizing his view here, I contend that the publishing industry and award institutions have assumed the role of literary gatekeepers, deciding ‘who are authorized to call themselves [African] writers,’ (Bourdieu 1993, p.42). They have the authority to exclude as well as to include. They have the authority to affect how we see certain writers and literatures. This monopoly is an extension and a culmination of Heinemann’s institutional value, still operative and adamant. 

To illustrate, consider the literary history of two African writers who share analogous experiences: Laila Lalami (Moroccan) and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigerian). They both share the following history: they left their respective African countries for education in the US as youths (Lalami was 22, Adichie 19); they write in English; they currently live—even if partly—in the US (a host country), where they also work; they are diasporic writers, who also spend extensive time in their home countries. Notably, both their debut works were published by the same press: Algonquin Books. Despite these similarities, however, only Adichie’s works have been canonized automatically into African literature, considered essential and—in her words—‘are being studied across the continent of Africa.’ She is publicly identified as African by publishing houses and award institutions. Purple Hibiscus (2003), her debut novel, was reviewed by The Telegraph as ‘a fresh new voice out of Africa.’ 

More importantly, upon publication, The Observer deemed Purple Hibiscus, plus other qualities, distinctly ‘African’. First, what makes The Observer’s columnists the judge of this? And secondly, I wonder, what makes certain novels ‘African’ while others ‘non-African’? Lalami’s works, apparently, are ‘non-African’. She is labelled by institutions as either American or Moroccan, never African. Her debut novel, Secret Son (2009), was longlisted for the 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction as fiction from ‘Morocco’. The 2015 Man Booker Prize announced her as an ‘American,’ which clearly troubled her, prompting her to announce forthrightly that she is ‘African’. 

Reputable magazines and mainstream newspapers foster this tradition of excluding the North African novel. Fiammetta Rocco of The New York Times wrote in 2015 that, ‘one of the most remarkable literary developments of the past decade has been the more or less simultaneous eruption onto the world stage, after a long fallow period, of nearly a dozen popular new novelists from Africa.’ The adjective ‘new’ promises change, revision and inclusion. But as the article reveals, it perpetuated the same old tradition of naming several authors from Central, East, West and Southern Africa: ‘Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, NoViolet Bulawayo, Teju Cole, Alain Mabanckou and Dinaw.’ I find what she exposes next and how she frames it particularly exclusionary. She informs that, ‘these writers voices… are as distinct as the African countries they come from, whether Nigeria in the west, Zimbabwe in the south or Ethiopia in the east.’ She, surprisingly, stops here. What about the north? 

As I explain above, this traditional exclusion is a colonial value that promotes the existence of two Africas. It is deeply rooted in the continent and engrained in the African people. This colonial value is also tenaciously implanted in African academia, and it is manifested in the curricula of African universities, which still define—either advertently or inadvertently—an African writer as a sub-Saharan writer, which still consider the African novel to be a sub-Saharan novel. This literary organization influences canon formation. Canons are the classic works that are repeatedly taught in certain educational institutions. 

In Making of the English Literary Canon: From the Middle Ages to the Late Eighteenth Century (1998), academic Trevor Ross confirms that canons, ‘are made and preserved within critical and academic institutions’ (p. 4-5). The word ‘preserve’ is a key word. Canons keep a book alive, read and taught by posterity. They keep ‘certain values’ alive by teaching them, reproducing them and ensuring their existence and persistence. This is exactly what the traditionalist educational systems of African universities do. They preserve the literary organization that highlights sub-Saharan writers and obscures anglophone North African writers. 

Consider the following research conducted by scholars, Lily Saint and Bhakti Shringarpure. In 2020, they published a continental survey entitled African Literature Is a Country, which they had carried out to determine which works are taught most in African universities. They contacted more than 250 African literature professors, many of whom were members of the prestigious African Literature Association, to learn which works and writers occupy their curricula. The research reveals that, ‘671 texts’ were listed. They disclose the following count: ‘novels (369), short stories (101), memoirs, biographies and autobiographies (46), poems (56), plays (39), essays and non-fiction books (28) and anthologies (32).’ They also inform that, ‘South Africa dominated with 106 authors on the list, followed by Nigeria (62) and Kenya (30).’ Unsurprisingly, recurrent authors on the list include: Thiong’o, Coetzee, Achebe, Adichie, Tsitsi Dangarembga and Bulawayo. 

It is significant to learn that this survey was undertaken and published four years ago—08 August 2020. To frame this further, the two scholars interviewed the Senegalese writer, Boris Boubacar Diop. He told them that, ‘African authors are taught in both [Nigeria and Senegal] however they are almost the same ones since the time of independence.’ He added that, ‘sometimes it feels like students can recite entire passages from these books but also that they only know these.’ Why do students/readers only know these? It is simple—the canon is closed to some writers. It remains traditional. 

Authors from Central, East, West and Southern Africa with literary agency influence the separation, especially with their symbolic capital, which Bourdieu defines as ‘the degree of accumulated prestige,’ (1993, p.07). It covers knowledge, recognition, celebrity, honours, and reputation. This symbolic capital enables writers from Central, East, West and Southern Africa to speak and act as authorities on African literature. They, either home-based or diasporic, are always questioned about African literature in interviews and talks, about its definition, its representatives and its future. Those questions are always broached, and most of those writers do not abstain from offering definitions of African literature and recommendations of the best African works and authors to be read. Through their literary and cultural involvement in the field, they have the authority to include whomever they consider ‘African’.  In this regard, a well-known, well-credentialed author such as Adichie (who is followed by millions on social media) can effortlessly canonize any African work that her taste deems worthy and canonical. 

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WHAT ARE ITS CONSEQUENCES?

This exclusion has serious consequences on North African writers and their books. Because their Africanness is obscured, and their works do not circulate in the continent they remain unrecognized and, thus, unrepresented. In other words, they are not read because they are not considered canon-worthy. They do not conform to the geographical and racial values that could score them a canonical status. They come from the ‘other Africa’ that does not represent the ‘real Africa’. This exclusion damages the circulation, recognition and representation (CRR) of the north African writer’s works in the African market. Kenyan scholar, Doseline Kiguru, states in her article, ‘Literary Prizes, Writers’ Organisations and Canon Formation in Africa’ that, ‘the uneven distribution of economic and cultural capital results in misrepresentation, or lack of representation, within the canon,’ (p. 204). 

The uneven—or non-existent—distribution of the North Africa novel in Africa impacts CRR. If a North African novel is unrecognized, unrepresented and unadvertised as a part of African literature, it will unlikely circulate in the African market, and thus, unlikely be represented within the canon of English-language writing. Nobody knows of its existence. It is invisible. It will unlikely reach African readers in bookshops. It will unlikely be taught in an African literature course. Therefore, the meagre distribution—or nonexistence—of this anglophone literature in the region cripples the circulation and recognition of the North African novel in the continent. 

In Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation (1993), American literary critic, John Guillory ,emphasizes that one of the problems that affect canon formation is the ‘problem of access to the means of literary production and consumption,’ (p. 09). In this regard, being absent from the African canon obscures the North African writer and cripples the consumption of their works in particular locations, in particular markets. It marginalizes them. It limits their readership. It denies the writer economic and cultural capital by depriving them from publication. It excludes them from having access to literary prizes, funds and opportunities that are associated with African literature. 

Let us consider a hypothetical situation.  Let’s assume that University of Ibadan wanted the invite an ‘African writer’ to speak about African literature. Would it invite Hisham Matar, or Ben Okri? Would it invite Laila Lalami, or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie? The selection would certainly gravitate towards Okri and Adichie. But no matter, let’s avoid hypotheticals and focus on facts. One is the fact that all the authors mentioned here, West African and North African, share many similarities that should include them in the same universe of the African Canon, in terms of literary concerns, ideologies, authorial choices and certain linguistic practices. All of them clearly care about our continent; they write about it, about its beauties, its potential. They write about its growing influence. 

And their works should be included in the same canon. The literary proximity of the two Africas should match their geographic proximity and fuse them together. The general term African literature should mean that—African, rather than Africa excluding North Africa. This colonial separation promotes differences and cripples the circulation and representation of works that are distinctly and clearly African. Literature has the power to unite people and it is my conviction that this potential attachment will certainly achieve that—rejoin the two regions

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