An African Reader's Comment on Binyavanga Wainaina and NoViolet Bulawayo's Guardian Arguments

Binyavanga Wainaina's interview on the Guardian and NoViolet Bulawayo's counter-argument are important pieces of literature. Such dialogue should be encouraged in all literature, but particularly in the thing we must all call African literature. Writers like Bulawayo and Wainaina, and, of course, Chimamanda, Gappah, including others who prefer to commucate only through their fictional writing, are very important. For one, they are arguing in a context that has awarded their works. The Caine does not mince words; it is designed to recognize the best of African short fiction  that's succeeding in doing something for the [African] literary world. If I was a winner of such an award, I wouldn't shy away from representing a large chunk of African literature; doing so is a  responsible thing, it's like putting my influence to work: Africa, this ONE place, needs such voices. Good job Binya and NoViolet. Your readers appreciate what you have done for yourselves and for Africa....

Here is a link to a report on Binyavanga Wainaina's argument.   Go here to read NoViolet Bulwayo's response.   Now there is another response from a Betty Caplan, based Turkey; her essay is entitled "Wainaina Has No Right To Speak For All Africans." Arguments like this are not new. The first generation of African writers always argued, often arguing with the West, arguing from places like the UK, the United States, Norway. There have always been schools of literary thought, the eurocentric and afrocentric approaches. Some, such as Simon Gikandi,  argued subtley; others, such as Chinweizu, argued loudly, were ready to fight; they were prescriptive and descriptive, giving the reader their definitions of African literature, African writer, African critic, and so on. Such arguments are necessary; we have whole departments of African Literature or postcolonial studies; those students and scholars needs to know about these views, they need to write their theses and dessertations. So, allow all available views; allow them to represent Africa, to define Africa; allow them to oppose each other, to show the world that they may both (now back Bulawayo and Wainaina), but they don't necessarily view the world the same way. Allow them to canonize (people like J.M. Coetzee, awards like the Caine and Commonwealth) African literature...why not?

At the end of the day, what matters is we are writing well, and that we are reading.

I will make an official response to this debate (after the final exams at my college) in December at Moments in Literature.