New Daughters of Africa

by Margaret Busby

  That restorative African feminist lineage is something Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie finds in the conclusion to her iconic essay “We Should All Be Feminists”:

  My great-grandmother, from stories I’ve heard, was a feminist. She ran away from the house of the man she did not want to marry and married the man of her choice. She refused, she protested, spoke up whenever she felt she was being deprived of land and access because she was female. She did not know that word feminist. But it doesn’t mean she wasn’t one. More of us should reclaim that word. The best feminist I know is my brother Kene, who is also a kind, good-looking and very masculine young man. My own definition of a feminist is a man or a woman who says, “Yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better.”

  All of us, women and men, must do better.

  Self-image is examined in numerous ways. “You will get your hair done” is the refrain in Bridget Minamore’s piece, “New Daughters of Africa”. Zadie Smith, accepting her Langston Hughes medal, concludes her acceptance speech, poignantly and humbly, by saying:

  . . . I am so thankful that tonight it has stretched far enough to include a Black-British woman like me, a freckle-faced woman like me, a mixed-marriage woman like me, a green-card holder like me, an immigrant like me, a second-generation Jamaican like me, a distant but not forgotten daughter of Africa, like me. Thank you.

  The importance of nomenclature is a recurrent theme. Ellah Wakatama Allfrey in “Longchase”, linking her Zimbabwean heritage—specifically the saga of her great-uncle, a veteran of colonial warfare—to her own engagement with the world and the perennial traversing of borders, reflects that it is “an imprecise thing, this English naming of Africans”. For the main protagonist of Chibundu Onuzo’s story (“Sunita”), Toni Morrison’s epiphany “that the subject of the dream is the dreamer” could not be more apt, while Nana-Ama Danquah in “Saying Goodbye to Mary Danquah” points out:

  The practice of conferring Christian, or English, names on African children was introduced by missionaries from the Western world who came to what they considered the Dark Continent for the purpose of religious indoctrination. In many cases, children were required to have Christian names in order to register and attend classes in the missionary-run schools. Usually that meant balancing an existence of duality—using one name when operating within the colonial system and using another when operating within one’s native culture.

  The process of translation from one culture to another is amplified when it comes to language itself. This anthology, though, of course, limited by resources, gives a rich glimpse of the dynamic range of original sources out there to be discovered. Trifonia Melibea Obono’s La Bastarda was the first book by a woman writer from Equatorial Guinea to be published in English and I am delighted to be able to include a passage of her work, “Let the Nkúkúmá Speak”, translated by Lawrence Schimel, who also provided translations of the poems by multilingual Benin writer Agnès Agboton, whose mother tongue is Gun.

  The genres represented here are widely varied—fiction of different types, including short stories and extracts from longer works; essays; journalism; columns; blogs; poetry; speeches; extracts from plays and film scripts; poetry; other experimental forms . . . An unexpected pleasure is to read writers expressing themselves in a genre with which they are not normally associated. Who knew that Nadifa Mohamed, one of Granta’s “Best of Young British Novelists” in 2013, was also a fine poet? Adrienne Kennedy, best known as a playwright, contributes the memorable poem “Forget” about her white grandfather. Zoe Adjonyoh, from whom cookery writing might have been expected, delivers a memoir of her father that is indeed “A Beautiful Story”.

  As much as the contributors are all grouped together as writers, they are each made up of many parts, that if labeled according to the work they do would run almost the gamut of the alphabet: academics, activists, bloggers, campaigners, children’s writers, critics, curators, diarists, directors, dramatists, editors, essayists, fiction writers, filmmakers, historians, journalists, lecturers, lyricists, memoirists, novelists, painters, performance artists, playwrights, poets, politicians, producers, publishers, science fiction writers, screenwriters, short-story writers, speculative fiction writers, travel writers, young adult writers . . . and more.

  Now, as in past decades, the nature of the publishing industry has a bearing on what reaches the marketplace. In Daughters of Africa I touched on the importance of pioneering black publishers—including New Beacon Books (founded in 1966) and Bogle-L’Ouverture, begun half a century ago by Jessica Huntley, who responded to the 1968 “Rodney riots” that followed the banning from teaching in Jamaica of Guyanese scholar Walter Rodney by producing his book The Groundings with My Brothers in 1969. (Earlier in that same year Allison & Busby—the publishing company I co-founded—defied all odds by turning Sam Greenlee’s subversive first novel The Spook Who Sat by the Door into a publishing success.) Other imprints to be remembered include the Black Ink Collective, and Buzz Johnson’s Karia Press, credited with having “rediscovered” Claudia Jones by reprinting her writing. Both Jessica Huntley and I were founding members of an initiative called Greater Access to Publishing (GAP), campaigning to bring about a more multiracial publishing industry, and a 1988 article that I authored (together with Lennie Goodings of Virago) in trade magazine The Bookseller began with a statement by Toni Morrison that chimed with our reasoning thirty years ago, and remains relevant: “It’s not patronage, not affirmative action we’re talking about here, we’re talking about the life of a country’s literature.”

  Lasting change in the publishing workforce as a whole has yet to be achieved, although the aspirational mantra of inclusivity and diversity has become increasingly routine in today’s mainstream and corporate industry. The category of African literature, let alone literature by women of African descent, is debatable, depending on who is doing the categorisation. Lesley Lokko in her essay “‘No more than three, please!’” says:

  The tensions over classification are exacerbated by the fact that much African literature is published outside Africa, for audiences that may include Africans, but not exclusively, with everyone having a view on what it should be, what it should say, who can write it and who may read it. Yet the confusion and contestation are liberating. The “real” question is whether current and aspiring African writers will invent forms of their own.

  Verna Wilkins, founder in 1987 of the children’s imprint Tamarind Books, in “A Memory Evoked” explains what frustrates and motivates her:

  Having witnessed, year after year, over more than a quarter of a century, the exclusion of Black and ethnic minority children from books aimed exclusively at children, something had to be done . . .

  I . . . began working in diverse classrooms in the UK. The existing barriers that exclude children of colour from books aimed at children could start with the children. They should see themselves as the authors, editors, designers, illustrators and publishers of the future.

  It was in 2000 at a publishing party that I first met Ellah Wakatama Allfrey—we could hardly have missed each other, being the only two black women present. She was at the time working at Penguin Books, and the connection we made then has been sustained through many a project. (For example, at her request I wrote an introduction to the Penguin Modern Classics edition of Bessie Head’s A Question of Power.) Beyond that, the role she has played in mentoring others is exemplary, culminating in her taking on the laudable adventure of becoming Publishing Director of new publishing house the Indigo Press. Likewise, the indefatigable Bibi Bakare-Yusuf of Cassava Republic Press is a role model for how to grow a respected independent list.

  Individual editors have an opportunity to make change happen, particularly where they lead imprints, as in the UK with Sharmaine Lovegrove heading Dialogue Books at LittleBrown, or Valerie Brandes at Jacaranda. Other ventures to applaud include gal-dem, Digitalback Books, and Knights Of, as well as such online resources as Mostly Lit, Brittle P
aper, Kinna Reads, Africa in Dialogue, and James Murua’s blog. Among those to whom kudos is due in the US are Amistad, founded by Charles Harris, a ground-breaking publisher in an era that also saw flourish the likes of Paul Coates of Black Classic Press, and the late Glenn Thompson of Writers and Readers.

  Festivals and literary celebrations—Aké Arts and Book Festival in Nigeria, Abantu in South Africa, Mboka in The Gambia, Bare Lit and Africa Writes in London, the Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad, Calabash in Jamaica, the Yari Yari conferences put on by the Organization of Women Writers of Africa, and the African Writers Trust in Uganda, the Harlem Book Fair in New York—have played their part in nurturing literary careers, as have initiatives such as Africa39 (represented in these pages by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Monica Arac de Nyeko, Jackee Budesta Batanda, Nana Brew-Hammond, Edwige Renée Dro, Hawa Jande Golakai, Nadifa Mohamed, Glaydah Namukasa, Chibundu Onuzo, Taiye Selasi, Namwali Serpell, Lola Shoneyin, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, Chika Unigwe and Zukiswa Wanner), Granta’s “Best of” lists of novelists (the British choices including in 2013 Nadifa Mohamed, Taiye Selasi and Zadie Smith, who also featured in 2003; the American choices listing Edwidge Danticat and Chinelo Okparanta), and prizes and competitions such as the Caine Prize for African Writing, winners over the years including Leila Aboulela, Monica Arac de Nyeko, Makena Onjerika, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor and Namwali Serpell (intimations of Chimamanda’s increasingly stellar talent came when she was a runner-up, in 2002 when I was a judge, pipped to the post by the visionary Binyavanga Wainaina, who used his prize money to found the influential Kenyan journal Kwani?), the Brunel African Poetry Prize (winners including Warsan Shire and Safia Elhillo), the SI Leeds Literary Prize, the Etisalat Prize, the Golden Baobab, and the Bocas Prize, which has showcased the gifts of Tiphanie Yanique, Edwidge Danticat, Jacqueline Bishop, as well as Daughters of Africa alumnae Lorna Goodison and Olive Senior.

  From the Myriad First Drafts Competition, which in 2018 focused on women of African descent, came two excellent winners whom we gladly welcomed on board, Anni Domingo, with an excerpt from her debut novel Breaking the Maafa Chain, about Sarah Forbes Bonetta, and Rutendo Chabikwa with “Mweya’s Embrace” from her work-in-progress Todzungaira. Mention must in addition be made of the shortlisted candidates—Christine Amede, Gila K. Berryman, Emmanuella Dekonor, Malika K. McCoy, Ethel Maqeda, Morenike May, Melita Vurden and Roxanne Young—who all, it is to be hoped, will be emboldened to keep creating.

  Many glorious firsts are represented among contributors, whether Diane Abbott becoming in 1987 the first black woman elected to the British parliament, or Warsan Shire, who won the inaugural African Poetry Prize in 2013, in 2014 being appointed the first Young Poet Laureate for London, or Safia Elhillo becoming the first Sudanese American to win the George Ellenbogen Poetry Award in 2018. We must aim high and strive to break through glass ceilings and barriers; but let us be wary of the trap of remaining “the only”. Ponder the words of Karen Lord: “If we want people to walk this path again, we have to tell more than facts. We must tell truths, root-deep, tree-tall testaments to understanding . . .”

  Countries represented include Antigua, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Benin, Bermuda, Botswana, Brazil, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, England, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Norway, Portugal, Puerto Rico, St Thomas, US Virgin Islands, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Scotland, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, USA, Wales, Zambia, Zimbabwe . . .

  Yet the history of these regions is driven by constant social and political change—the Bahamas of Patricia Glinton-Meicholas probably connects with that of Meta Davis Cumberbatch more in terms of memory than actuality, yet she says defiantly: “I ain’t goin’ nowhere/this land and me is one.” Nevertheless, few of us remain static forever. Deise Faria Nunes, born and raised in Brazil, and living in Norway for the past two decades, as she embarks on an exploration of Candomblé, with its West African roots, writes in “The person in the boat”:

  Some fellowships we do not choose: we are born into them. Others we walk voluntarily into, with our eyes wide open, even though we do not know what will meet us on the other side.

  There is legitimacy in the joy and burden of one’s place of origin, the joy and burden of one’s place of settlement, the joy and burden of one’s adopted homeland, the affiliations rejected or chosen. I feel some native pride that Ghana is a chosen subject or destination for many who originally hail from elsewhere—Candace Allen, Attillah Springer, Sandra Jackson-Opoku and others—knowing also that I have familial ties in Dominica, Trinidad, Barbados, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Europe, America . . . We are universal, and it is the right of any artist to resist categorization or the sort of pigeonholing that sets out to be restrictive and stifling. But just as naming oneself can be liberating, so we need never feel limited by labels. Explaining why she does not mind being called a black writer or a black woman writer, Toni Morrison has said: “I really think the range of emotions and perceptions I have had access to as a black person and as a female person are greater than those of people who are neither . . . So it seems to me that my world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger.” Wasafiri magazine, the literary journal that since 1984 has been a champion of black and diasporic writers worldwide (its name deriving from a KiSwahili word meaning “travellers”), marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of Daughters of Africa with a special issue in December 2017, a feature of which was brief testimony from a handful of writers about what their first encounters with the anthology meant to them. Hailing the milestone, Bermudian Angela Barry spoke of her thrill at coming across a contributor whose father was from her island, allowing her to feel “that I also was a daughter of Africa and that I too had something to say.”

  Goretti Kyomuhendo revealed: “I first encountered Daughters of Africa nearly ten years after it was first published—and my first reaction was that of total excitement. I carried a few copies back with me to Uganda, which I shared with nearly forty members of FEMRITE—The Uganda Women Writers Association, which I was directing at the time. Daughters of Africa was to become the gift that never stopped giving . . .” Somali novelist Nadifa Mohamed testified that her writer’s block was cured as the result of a copy of the anthology being passed on to her, enabling her to follow the thread of writers “who left their stamp on the world only through the written word.”

  Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, who as Commonwealth Poet in 2014 performed her poem “Courage—it takes more” at Westminster Abbey, wrote: “We were behind the bars of apartheid—we South Africans had been cut off from the beauty and majesty of African thought traditions, and Daughters of Africa was among those works that replenished our starved minds, connecting us to the Black planet of memory and imagination, correcting the imbalance of information and awakening our own potential in ourselves . . . Daughters of Africa brings our separate spaces on the planet into each other’s purview, our experiences accented by our geographical and historical conditions, a text that creates solidarity, appreciation and reminds us that we are never alone . . . Putting African experience at the centre of our understanding, at the centre of ourselves, we learn more about how to be together, to heal ourselves and to plan for the most fabulous future.”

  Edwige Renée Dro from Côte d’Ivoire talked about the fact that, as she was starting out on her literary journey, “literary columnists were talking about the rise of African writing, a wonderful fact for me even if the majority of the writing they were praising seemed to come from Nigeria. Or from anglophone Africa . . .” She continued:

  So here I was, heralding from a country that needed its name translated for people to have any idea, living in England and writing in English. Here I was also immersed in a literary milieu that defined Nigerian writing as African writing. What was a lacking-in-confidence aspiring francophone writer living in England to do but set her novel in Nigeri
a? It is during that time that I stumbled upon a copy of Daughters of Africa at my local library . . . I let out a Yes! as I recognised names like that of my compatriot Véronique Tadjo, but also other francophone writers including Aminata Sow Fall or Mariama Bâ or Marie Vieux-Chauvet with their works set in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Haiti. From that moment, I stopped the transportation of my story to a country I hadn’t even been to. The writer’s block lifted and my confidence returned. It was as if the daughters of Africa featured in that anthology were telling me, their daughter and grand-daughter, to bravely go forth and bridge the literary gap between francophone and anglophone Africa.

  That these intrepid writers have found their rightful place in New Daughters of Africa is a source of immense satisfaction to me, and I trust to them as well.

  The passing years since this book’s ancestor, Daughters of Africa, appeared have meant saying goodbye to irreplaceable friends and family. My own mother, my dedicatee in 1992, had died the previous year (my father in 1981), so could not share the pleasure of seeing the project come to fruition. Many whose words graced those pages we will not see again:

  Maya Angelou (1928–2014), Toni Cade Bambara (1939–1995), Valerie Belgrave (1946–2016), Louise Bennett (1919–2006), Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000), Barbara Burford (1944–2010), Octavia Butler (1947–2006), Aída Cartagena Portalatín (1918–1994), Alice Childress (1916–1994), Michelle Cliff (1946–2016), Lucille Clifton (1936–2010), J. California Cooper (1931–2014), Jayne Cortez (1934–2012), Noémia de Sousa (1926–2002), Alda do Espirito Santo (1926–2010), Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017), Mari Evans (1919–2017), Beryl Gilroy (1924–2001), Rosa Guy (1922–2012), Kristin Hunter (1931–2008), Noni Jabavu (1919–2008), Alice Perry Johnson (1932–2011), Amryl Johnson (1944–2001), Marion Patrick Jones (1931–2016), June Jordan (1936–2002), Caroline Khaketla (1918–2012), Ellen Kuzwayo (1914–2006), Audre Lorde (1934–1992), Lina Magaia (1940–2011), Anne Moody (1940–2015), Gloria Naylor (1950–2016), Lauretta Ngcobo (1931–2015), Flora Nwapa (1931–1994), Grace Ogot (1930–2015), May Opitz (1960–1996), Anne Petry (1908–1997), Carolyn Rodgers (1940–2010), Sandi Russell (1946–2017), Ntozake Shange (1948–2018), Zulu Sofola (1935–1995), Maud Sulter (1960–2008), Efua Sutherland (1924–96), Elean Thomas (1947–2004), Miriam Tlali (1933–2017), Adaora Lily Ulasi (1932–2016?), Margaret Walker (1915–1998), Myriam Warner-Vieyra (1939–2017), Dorothy West (1907–1998), Sherley Anne Williams (1944–1999).