The African Novel in English: An Introduction

African novels are not easy reading. The African novel differs from European and American novels in its social and historical background and in its aesthetics. African novelists make important use of formal strategies and techniques that are derived from African cultural traditions. They also make extensive use of imported European forms. As Booker explains, the African novel is a hybrid of African and imported Western literary conventions. Proper appreciation of the hybridity of African novels is one of the most important and daunting tasks facing Western readers who must resist the temptation to read African literature either according to strictly Western criteria or as exotic specimens of cultural otherness. American and European students reading African novels often have to completely overhaul lifelong habits of reading. They must keep in mind certain basic issues if they are to read African novels effectively. Postcolonial African literature reacts against decades of European colonial rule in Africa while challenging the long legacy of negative representations of Africa and Africans in European and American writing. Indeed, as Booker shows, the very choice of a language in which to write is a highly political act for an African novelist.
The role of the African novel in the restoration of African history and culture gives African literature a relevance and vitality that Western readers should find exciting. Moreover, the obvious importance of African literature to the social and political world of Africa serves to demonstrate the overall social and political importance of literature. African novels raise a number of formal and ideological issues that are different from the issues students typically meet within the European or American novel. This very difference can help students to understand Western literature better. Booker concludes that Americans and Europeans have every reason to study the African novel, in so doing they will become familiar with one of the most powerful cultural forces in the world today. They will also see their own cultures in new and exciting ways.

M. Keith Booker is Professor of English at the University of Arkansas.