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- Convenors:
-
Mpalive Msiska
(Birkbeck College, University of London)
David Maxwell (Keele University)
- Stream:
- Literature, media and the visual arts
- Location:
- G2
- Start time:
- 12 September, 2006 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
none
Long Abstract:
The panellists will consider some of the key themes in the recent literature produced by migrant African writers such as leaving, journeying, and managing cultural difference. They will also debate the broader context of Diasporic writing. To what extent has this new literature eclipsed or erased writing emanating from the African continent itself? Does the difficulty of publishing within Africa mean that we will only learn about contemporary African experiences as the Diaspora mediates them? What kind of connections are emerging, or might in the future emerge, between publishers in Africa and writers in the diaspora?
Accepted papers:
Session 1James Procter (Newcastle University)
Paper long abstract:
This paper will argue that current conceptions of diaspora (with their discursive emphasis on dislocation) are inadequate in that they invite us to overlook or efface place. Exploring recent examples of African writing in Britain, from Jackie Kay's Glasgow and Leila Aboulela's Aberdeen, to Jack Mapanje's Scarborough, it asks what (if any) difference place makes to the politics of representation within a 'devolving' diasporic context. It goes on to suggest that such a focus must not only pay attention to alternative sites of literary production and representation, but to alternative sites of reception and readership beyond London. If it is the case that interpretations of diasporic writing are predominantly informed by metropolitan reading formations, what might a new emphasis on 'local' readers in Africa and the UK contribute to understandings of a 'global' formation like the African diaspora?
Muhtar Bakare (Farafina, Kachifo Limited)
Paper long abstract:
Difficult market conditions with only limited effective interest in new material/writers. Issues of format, distribution and marketing. Maintaining editorial standards and objectives. Establishing successful publishing of internationally recognized writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Use of magazine formats such as Farafina to develop writers internationally. Use of new media.
Chuma Nwokolo (Ashmolean Museum)
Paper long abstract:
The Journey is integral to the African story. [mbe echipu… (and tortoise sets out…) begins an Igbo folksong] Memory and experience can be intensified by 'exile' There is a coming and a going at the root of life and literature, a borrowing and a lending that increases borrower and lender. In the ebb and flow of civilisations, cultures can keep the fire while others go to sleep. Diasporic writing unleavened by journeying and experience soon dries out its roots. The Diasporic Journey as a process becomes tragic for the hearth when it fails to go full circle.