Africa’s integration: Toyin Falola Interview Series’ panel makes case for improved utilisation of African languages

In seeking better integration and more vibrant society, a panel of discussants put together by the Toyin Falola Interview Series has insisted that improved utilization of local African languages in modern African literary expression has become crucial to the overall wellbeing and development of Africa.  

Speaking at a one-day forum put together by erudite scholar, Professor Toyin Falola, and streamed on various social media platforms on Sunday, August 7, 2022, the panel of discussants was made up of Mwamwingila Goima Peter, who is an author/writer of children and adult literature using Kiswahili; Dr Wale Okediran, medical doctor, former member of the Nigerian Parliament, author of several novels, and Secretary-General of the Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA); Ashraf Aboul-Yazid, an Egyptian poet, novelist, cultural journalist, president of the Asia Journalist Association, and Editor-in-Chief, The Silk Road Literature Series; Monica Cheru, Vice-President of Pan-African Writers’ Association (South African region), chair of the Zimbabwe Writers’ Association, and author of short stories and anthologies; and Dr. Cherno Omar Barry, Vice-Chancellor of the International Open University, and President of the Writers Association of The Gambia.

Ashraf Aboul-Yazid was very quick to note while responding to a series of questions raised by the chief panellist, Professor Falola, that: “The aim of choosing the language (for modern African literary expression) justifies the need to do so. If literature is directed locally for education, enlightenment, communication, entertainment and creative exhibition, then there is nothing better than native languages to do all of these. If we want to choose from available works of literature from local languages, what represents us before the world, let our evaluation be the choice of these works of literature to be transferable to a foreign language.”

When asked how many contributions their crafts have made to African literature, the members of the panel reeled out their engagements.

Cherno Omar Barry told the audience “I have done most of my studies on comparative literature, and therefore has been more of a literary analyst and critic. I have been able to, in the process, discover much of African literature and in the comparative nature looked at the northern and southern voices in my research. I have been one of those promoting Gambia literature beyond the shores. I have written several articles on African literature and Gambia literature in particular.”

Female activist and writer, Monica Cheru said “I write short stories mostly and my keen interest is presenting Africa as another place where people live, laugh and love. I am not a keen fan of the bleak story of Africa. In spite of whatever people may be going through, I like to capture that happiness. I am working on translating works of two famous Zimbabwean writers from Shauna into English.”

Nigeria’s Dr Wale Okediran, who found a nexus between literature and medicine said “I am a novelist; I have had about 14 published books, many of which have won international and local literary awards. I use my experience as a medical doctor to write my stories. I write mostly about the social environment that I live in; I was a member of the parliament in Nigeria for some years. This gave me the raw material to write about in my book: Tenants of the House. The book is now on Netflix as a movie. I am currently working on another faction about the ongoing insurgency in Nigeria. The book is entitled Madagali. The Nigerian edition came out last year; later this year, the UK edition will be launched at Oxford. Between all these, I work as the Secretary-General of the Pan-African Writers Association where I try to coordinate the activities of writers on the continent.”

North African poet and culture enthusiast, Ashraf Aboul-Yazid revealed thus: “Currently I am interested in making anthologies. What I am publishing at the moment is Arabian Nights. I think these kinds of anthologies are a good space to collect creative poems from the entire world, not only from one language but from more than one language. I am giving much of my time to cultural journalism, and from there I am creating one of my new works of fiction which showcases my travels to Korea.”

For Tanzanian children and adult literature author, Mwamwingila Peter: “I am promoting a very good campaign that is known as Books Everywhere: I Won’t Stop Reading. This is a promotional activity which encourages children to know and understand that a book is the only thing that associates an individual with every other thing, and thus can be found anywhere, whether in a hotel, public transport, a school, etc. Wherever you are, the book must be by your side as a weapon. I am a member of Tanzania Literature Fund. It is an NGO which organises funds for writers, especially children so that they can start writing their tales and stories, and ensure that they publish books. Last year, we had a competition and award. From the six who won the award, we made books for three of them.”

Speaking on the difference between a writer and critic, and the reward system which subsists in relation to them, Cheru noted that: “The writer is the content producer; the one who actually puts the work together whatever genre it may be. The critic is the one who then analyses the work and may be handpicked it for the audience. As a writer, you are driven to just communicate, to put out your thoughts whether it is poetry, prose, play or a script. The critic is the one who puts it in context to say ‘possibly these are the themes; what the plot is; who the characters are; how all of these come together; how it passes for a commentary on society, how futuristic or perhaps what genre this should be regarded as.’

“Writers don’t approach their careers as professionals. You have got skill as a writer; if you intend to get paid from that skill, you then pursue a career path that leads you to be paid as a writer. There are people who sell their manuscripts; there are people who do engagements based on what they write. There are also commissioned works where when you have created a niche for yourself you can be paid to produce certain things. I really don’t see the excuse for writers being poor or not being able to put food on their table.”

In its contribution to promoting African literature, PAWA, represented by both its Secretary-General, Dr. Okediran and its Southern African regional Vice-President, Monica Cheru, stated that while much work has been done, more needs to be done, just as it canvassed for funding.

According to Dr. Okediran, “What PAWA has been doing is to coordinate African literature in five major languages; some people call it colonial languages: English, French, Swahili, Arabic, and Portuguese. There has been a clamour of recent for us to go into indigenous African languages. But we all know that this would be a very big task because of the multiplicity of African languages. We coordinate African literature by organising seminars and conferences; we institute literary prizes; we also assist in sponsoring literary events, including residency programs. By and large we have formed ourselves into a literary think-tank for Africa and we hope that in the nearest future we will be able to do more. We had a congregation of writers from about 40 countries at the University of Ibadan. We believe that this congregation of writers is strong enough to move ahead with the agenda of using literature to promote African unity and fight against terrorism and insurgency on the continent.”

He equally added that “for us at PAWA, we have set up a bureau which is based in Cairo, Egypt and the idea is for us to see how many books we can translate from one language to the other. This is herculean. It is expensive to translate. We have to pay translators and publishers. We are lucky because some of our members are volunteers in translating their works. This is what we are doing now. This does not mean that we don’t need support. We are reaching out to many foundations that are involved in translation. We are lucky that we have one or two of them that are agencies under the African Union. This is what we are pursuing now. In the next few weeks, we will have a workshop here in Ghana specifically on translation. The idea is to train trainers. We want to have a large body of translators that will help us. We had this challenge in Ibadan during our conference.”