Writer got it wrong on localising literary discourse

By John Mwazemba

Tom Odhiambo’s article, ‘Some Variety and Literary Criticism, Please’ (Literary Discourse, August 31) must not go unchallenged.

The piece was stimulating and exasperating, as inspiring as it was disappointing. It was a potent mix: part consolation, part clever triangulation and part brilliant jujitsu laced with ruthless and relentless fire — all made to sound (through measured word choice) like the lilting cadence of a trained crooner.

The writer was admirably bold in his insights and in questioning the status quo. He was at times razor-sharp in his insights, breathtaking in his summary of judgments but disappointing, nonetheless.

First his triumphs: he encouraged contributors of Literary Discourse (LD) to "raise the bar of performance". As a believer in excellence that was apt, we can do better.

Now my contention with some of Odhiambo’s misleading thoughts and advice. He scoffed with a whiff of sarcasm so strong it jumped off the pages: "I have consistently read reviews of books published elsewhere, even by individuals who sign off as publishing managers".

It smacked with the echoes of someone fed up. His contention was that LD should focus almost exclusively on local books. The writer, as a lecturer, already knows about the universality of literature and surely needs no reminder on the parallelisms that can be drawn from ‘literatures’ of different regions.

All serious literary forums from The New York Times to The Washington Post book reviews focus on both local (in that case American) and international literature. It was, therefore, hypocritical to feign surprise at reading in LD criticism of books beyond our borders.

A practical experience in my life as a publisher would demonstrate why we need not be overly obsessed with ‘Kenyanising’ all literature as we may miss out on important worldviews. After the post-election crisis, we set out to do an anthology, The Ten Shillings and Other Stories. We wanted to include a story to reflect the disturbing events in the country.

We did not want a story that mentioned particular tribes by name for obvious reasons and we settled for a short story entitled Half of a Yellow Sun (it has since been expanded into a book with the same title) by Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The short story, about the Biafran War, had striking parallels with our post-election violence. It was set in a different place with different tribes (the Igbo and Yoruba instead of the Kikuyu, Kamba or Luo).

In such a case, we were not less patriotic for choosing the story (other Kenyans are featured in the anthology).

Local book versus global voices

However, it was considered that gleaning lessons from Nigerian literature was wiser than stoking flames by mentioning actual events in Kenya or particular tribes and places.

The point is: local books should be reviewed alongside other global voices, even if that is not politically correct to say. We cannot straitjacket literature or limit its viewpoint to our narrow borders. How can we not discuss the works of Homer and Aristotle because they were Greeks? Or how can we cower from criticising the works of Dante because he lived in the Medieval Age or Tasso and Ariosto because they lived during the Renaissance.

Our pens should dry off their inks if we shy away from writing about Leo Tolstoy, Tegenev or Gogol just because they were Russians or Ernest Hemmingway because he was American.

We cannot keep mum about great masterpieces like the Inheritance of Loss by Keran Desai or the brilliant The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy because the writers are Indians. What about staying silent about A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini because he is Afghani?

Then he took a swipe at those of us in the publishing industry for not reviewing local books. Simply because a review has not been published does not mean it was not written. What is published on LD is a decision made by editors.

unbiased criticism

Then again, literary critics in the publishing industry are not the best candidates to always review local books. Sometimes criticism calls for serious deconstruction and tearing down titles, which if a critic working in a publishing firm did on another firm’s book may be misconstrued as malice.

This is why the likes of Odhiambo should write literary criticism, which is not biased. Unfortunately, we have been debating on how to debate (criticising the critic) more than critiquing works of writers.

It is high time we moved beyond this point of debate though it is occasionally welcome. We should critique local books alongside international books. There is nothing paradoxical about this. We cannot localise this column; that would be absurd and suicidal.

Contributors should also remember there is nothing personal about debates in this column. We should criticise and be ready to be criticised, heeding the sage advice in the ancient poem, Desiderata: "Speak truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story."

—The writer ([email protected]) is the publishing manager of Macmillan Kenya Publishers.