Under African Skies Read online

  As always—and as in so many cultures—short stories have appeared profusely in newspapers across the African continent, but they tend to be more journalistic than literary, more sensational than subtle. I met a young writer in Zimbabwe who had published more than a hundred such stories in his country’s newspapers, but of the dozen or so that he offered me when I asked for his most important work, none was of more than passing significance; nearly all were closer to the news stories found in American tabloid newspapers than to literary fiction. I do not mean to denigrate this kind of writing but simply observe that few writers, historically, have made the transition from sensationalism (exaggerated sex and violence) to aesthetic realism of lasting value. The gap between the two (and the study of popular writing) has been a subject of critical debate in Western literature for years. Perhaps it is no surprise that similar patterns exist within the emergent African literature of the second half of the twentieth century. Again, to quote Nadine Gordimer: “Writers in Africa don’t have enough readers; comic-book literacy does not mean an ability to read a story, poem or novel that has more than a vocabulary that consists largely of grunts and exclamatory syllables.”

  At the beginning of this introduction, I referred to the resiliency—the indomitable survival—of African fiction in the past half century. Its enormous variety, its versatility, should also be praised. One immediately thinks of the oral tradition out of which Amos Tutuola and the earliest writers began their careers, assuming incorrectly that that fine tradition of storytelling has somehow slipped away during the post-colonial era. But that is not true, as recent works by Ben Okri, Véronique Tadjo, and some of their peers demonstrate. The oral tradition is never lost, as cultures move from being analphabetic and literature becomes written, as griots are complemented by highly educated writers with international and cosmopolitan backgrounds.

  As much as possible, the stories in this collection have been arranged to reflect the sequence of their writing, though the date at the end of each story is the date of first publication. Any errors are mine alone. I must say, however, that finding original publication dates for some of the stories included here was very difficult. This arrangement is intended to demonstrate the changes that have taken place in African short fiction in the past several decades, during the transition from colonial to post-colonial, as well as with respect to the other issues mentioned earlier.

  If the most recent South African short stories in this volume are any indication, apartheid’s long reach would finally appear to be broken. Es’kia Mphahlele’s “Mrs. Plum,” the longest story in the collection, was published when Mphahlele was in exile. Bessie Head’s “The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses” appeared in 1973, when Head was in exile in Botswana. Though widely different, both stories give pessimistic accounts of black life in South Africa; both also project the possibility that things will change. Don Mattera’s more recent story, “Afrika Road,” would appear to be the apex of apartheid horror, though Mattera’s stark realism clearly extends beyond the confines of his own country of birth.

  With Sindiwe Magona’s “I’m Not Talking About That, Now” and Mandla Langa’s “A Gathering of Bald Men” (1996), a change is in the works, as South Africa itself moves from apartheid to post-apartheid. Magona’s story, the more traditional of the two, depicts the rapid disintegration of family structures and values within her country. But Langa’s story—certainly one of the most invigorating in this volume—achieves a total turnaround, not only reversing the situation of blacks and whites in post-apartheid South Africa but, in its fast-paced narration, presenting us with a rare example of African comedy. I mention this because for years readers have asked me to direct them to African comedies (stories, poems, novels), and I have been hard-pressed to find examples.

  One other enormous change that I mentioned earlier is the literary limelight shared today by women writers. This change has not been sudden but gradual, and at times has not occurred at all. Of the first generation of African writers—those who emerged during the fifties and sixties—very few were women, since education had largely been denied them. They were, by my estimate, one out of twenty: five percent; and too many were published solely because of their gender. In choosing the selections for this anthology, I reread stories by many of them and, I am sorry to say, was appalled at how poorly written some were. Consequently, few of the early selections in this anthology are by women writers.

  Happily, this situation has changed in the last eight or ten years. The literary silence of African women has come to an abrupt end, as novelists such as Mariama Bâ and Calixthe Beyala have daringly shown us. Beyala’s four extraordinary novels to date place her in the first rank of contemporary African writers. Unfortunately, the short-story form has yet to interest her. Not so with Sindiwe Magona, Yvonne Vera, and Véronique Tadjo—all of whom are represented in this volume. Nor is this proliferation likely to subside, as African women writers’ networks across the continent demonstrate.

  Finally, I must mention the increased presence of female characters in recent works by any number of younger African writers who happen to be men. Mzamane Nhlapo has staked out his identification with women’s issues. Is it possible to forget Azaro’s incredible mother (as well as her loving portrait) in Ben Okri’s The Famished Road or Songs of Enchantment? Or Camara Laye’s much earlier homage to his own mother in L’enfant noir (The Dark Child), for that matter? The most frequent theme of Western literature, romantic love, still remains offstage in the works of most African writers. But who knows but that women’s increasing presence may soon alter the literary scene in a way that they—or we—have yet to imagine.

  The art of African storytelling is no doubt as old as our common paleolithic ancestor Lucy’s presence on the continent itself. What this collection hopes to demonstrate is the richness and wisdom of some of the most recent expressions of African writing.

  —Charles R. Larson

  Harare, Naxos, Washington

  August 1996

  Amos Tutuola

  (BORN 1920) NIGERIA

  Amos Tutuola’s writing career began in 1948, when he mailed The Wild Hunter in the Bush of Ghosts to the Focal Press in London. In an earlier letter, Tutuola had described the ghost narrative, claiming that the text would be accompanied by photographs of Nigerian spirits. According to Bernth Lindfors, when the Focal Press received the work, “the 77-page handwritten manuscript had been wrapped in brown paper, rolled up like a magazine, bound with twine, and sent via surface mail. When the sixteen negatives accompanying it were developed, all but one turned out to be snapshots of hand-drawn sketches of spirits and other phenomena featured in the story. Tutuola had hired a schoolboy to draw these illustrations and had photographed them. He had also included a photograph of a human being sitting by the lagoon in Lagos because he felt that she adequately represented ‘the old woman who sat near the river’ in the story.”

  In Tutuola’s enchanting narrative, there are illegitimate and cannibalistic ghosts, a sixteen-headed ghost, and a Salvation Army ghost, plus an educated ghost who teaches the narrator to read and write. More disturbing, the Yoruba afterworld (the domain of the spirits described in the story) has become fully bureaucratic, so complicated in its red tape that it’s surprising that anyone ever passes on.

  The Focal Press—publishers of photography books—quickly lost interest in Tutuola’s novel, which languished until Lindfors edited the work for publication in 1982. Well before that time, Tutuola had become a worldfamous writer, primarily because of the publication of The Palm-Wine Drinkard , in 1952. Reviewing the book, the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas noted: “This is the brief, thronged, grisly and bewitching story, written in young English by a West African, about a journey of an expert and devoted palm-wine drinkard through a nightmare of indescribable adventures, all simply and carefully described, in the spirit-bristling bush.” The term “young English” confused the literary world, which quickly assumed that all subsequent Anglophone African writers would write in a similar s
tyle.

  Clearly, Amos Tutuola’s creative world is bewitching, extraordinarily vivid, and unforgettable. The Yoruba cosmology, which is central in each of the author’s seven published books, often springs spontaneously alive when a character opens a door (perhaps in a tree) and enters into an entirely new world. As I wrote years ago, Tutuola’s eschatology provides “a bridge between the internal and the external world (the ontological gap), between the real and the surreal, between the realistic and the supernatural.”

  Amos Tutuola was born in Abeokuta, Western Nigeria, in 1920. He completed six years of primary-school education, followed by training as a blacksmith, while serving in the R.A.F. in Lagos throughout World War II. The Palm-Wine Drinkard was written while Tutuola was working as a messenger for the Department of Labor. “The Complete Gentleman” has been excerpted from The Palm-Wine Drinkard as an example of oral storytelling incorporated into a written narrative. Other versions of this story exist in many West African languages. (See, for example, “The Chosen Suitor,” from Dahomean Narrative, edited by Melville and Frances Herskovits, 1958.)

  THE COMPLETE GENTLEMAN

  THE DESCRIPTION OF THE CURIOUS CREATURE—

  He was a beautiful “complete” gentleman, he dressed with the finest and most costly clothes, all the parts of his body were completed, he was a tall man but stout. As this gentleman came to the market on that day, if he had been an article or animal for sale, he would be sold at least for £2,000 (two thousand pounds). As this complete gentleman came to the market on that day, and at the same time that this lady saw him in the market, she did nothing more than to ask him where he was living, but this fine gentleman did not answer her or approach her at all. But when she noticed that the fine or complete gentleman did not listen to her, she left her articles and began to watch the movements of the complete gentleman about in the market and left her articles unsold.

  By and by, the market closed for that day then the whole people in the market were returning to their destinations etc., and the complete gentleman was returning to his own too, but as this lady was following him about in the market all the while, she saw him when he was returning to his destination as others did, then she was following him (complete gentleman) to an unknown place. But as she was following the complete gentleman along the road, he was telling her to go back or not to follow him, but the lady did not listen to what he was telling her, and when the complete gentleman had tired of telling her not to follow him or to go back to her town, he left her to follow him.

  DO NOT FOLLOW UNKNOWN MAN’S BEAUTY

  But when they had traveled about twelve miles away from that market, they left the road on which they were traveling and started to travel inside an endless forest in which only the terrible creatures were living.

  RETURN THE PARTS OF BODY TO THE OWNERS; OR HIRED PARTS OF THE COMPLETE GENTLEMAN’S BODY TO BE RETURNED

  As they were traveling along in this endless forest then the complete gentleman in the market that the lady was following began to return the hired parts of his body to the owners and he was paying them the rentage money. When he reached where he hired the left foot, he pulled it out, he gave it to the owner and paid him, and they kept going; when they reached the place where he hired the right foot, he pulled it out and gave it to the owner and paid for the rentage. Now both feet had returned to the owners, so he began to crawl along on the ground, by that time that lady wanted to go back to her town or her father, but the terrible and curious creature or the complete gentleman did not allow her to return or go back to her town or her father again and the complete gentleman said thus: “I had told you not to follow me before we branched into this endless forest which belongs to only terrible and curious creatures, but when I become a half-bodied incomplete gentleman you wanted to go back, now that cannot be done, you have failed. Even you have never seen anything yet, just follow me.”

  When they went furthermore, then they reached where he hired the belly, ribs, chest, etc., then he pulled them out and gave them to the owner and paid for the rentage.

  Now to this gentleman or terrible creature remained only the head and both arms with neck, by that time he could not crawl as before but only went jumping on as a bullfrog and now this lady was soon faint for this fearful creature whom she was following. But when the lady saw every part of this complete gentleman in the market was shared or hired and he was returning them to the owners, then she began to try all her efforts to return to her father’s town, but she was not allowed by this fearful creature at all.

  When they reached where he hired both arms, he pulled them out and gave them to the owner, he paid for them; and they were still going on in this endless forest, they reached the place where he hired the neck, he pulled it out and gave it to the owner and paid for it as well.

  A FULL-BODIED GENTLEMAN REDUCED TO HEAD

  Now this complete gentleman was reduced to head and when they reached where he hired the skin and flesh which covered the head, he returned them, and paid to the owner, now the complete gentleman in the market reduced to a SKULL and this lady remained with only Skull. When the lady saw that she remained with only Skull, she began to say that her father had been telling her to marry a man, but she did not listen to or believe him.

  When the lady saw that the gentleman became a Skull, she began to faint, but the Skull told her if she would die she would die and she would follow him to his house. But by the time that he was saying so, he was humming with a terrible voice and also grew very wild and even if there was a person two miles away he would not have to listen before hearing him, so this lady began to run away in that forest for her life, but the Skull chased her and within a few yards, he caught her, because he was very clever and smart as he was only Skull and he could jump a mile to the second before coming down. He caught the lady in this way: so when the lady was running away for her life, he hastily ran to her front and stopped her as a log of wood.

  By and by, this lady followed the Skull to his house, and the house was a hole which was under the ground. When they reached there both of them entered the hole. But there were only Skulls living in that hole. At the same time that they entered the hole, he tied a single cowrie on the neck of this lady with a kind of rope, after that, he gave her a large frog on which she sat as a stool, then he gave a whistle to a Skull of his kind to keep watch on this lady whenever she wanted to run away. Because the Skull knew already that the lady would attempt to run away from the hole. Then he went to the back yard to where his family were staying in the daytime till night.

  But one day, the lady attempted to escape from the hole, and at the same time that the Skull who was watching her whistled to the rest of the Skulls that were in the back yard, the whole of them rushed out to the place where the lady sat on the bullfrog, so they caught her, but as all of them were rushing out, they were rolling on the ground as if a thousand petrol drums were pushing along a hard road. After she was caught, then they brought her back to sit on the same frog as usual. If the Skull who was watching her fell asleep, and if the lady wanted to escape, the cowrie that was tied on her neck would raise up the alarm with a terrible noise, so that the Skull who was watching her would wake up at once and then the rest of the Skull’s family would rush out from the back in thousands to the lady and ask her what she wanted to do with a curious and terrible voice.

  But the lady could not talk at all, because as the cowrie had been tied on her neck, she became dumb at the same moment.

  THE FATHER OF GODS SHOULD FIND OUT WHEREABOUTS THE DAUGHTER OF THE HEAD OF THE TOWN WAS

  Now as the father of the lady first asked for my name and I told him that my name was “Father of gods who could do anything in this world,” then he told me that if I could find out where his daughter was and bring her to him, then he would tell me where my palm-wine tapster was. But when he said so, I was jumping up with gladness that he should promise me that he would tell me where my tapster was. I agreed to what he said; the father and parent of this lady never knew wh
ereabouts their daughter was, but they had information that the lady followed a complete gentleman in the market. As I was the “Father of gods who could do anything in this world,” when it was at night I sacrificed to my juju with a goat.

  And when it was early in the morning, I sent for forty kegs of palm wine. After I had drunk it all, I started to investigate whereabouts was the lady. As it was the market day, I started the investigation from the market. But as I was a juju-man, I knew all the kinds of people in that market. When it was exactly 9 o’clock a.m., the very complete gentleman whom the lady followed came to the market again, and at the same time that I saw him, I knew that he was a curious and terrible creature.

  THE LADY WAS NOT TO BE BLAMED FOR FOLLOWING THE SKULL AS A COMPLETE GENTLEMAN

  I could not blame the lady for following the Skull as a complete gentleman to his house at all. Because if I were a lady, no doubt I would follow him to wherever he would go, and still as I was a man I would jealous him more than that, because if this gentleman went to the battlefield, surely, enemy would not kill him or capture him and if bombers saw him in a town which was to be bombed, they would not throw bombs on his presence, and if they did throw it, the bomb itself would not explode until this gentleman would leave that town, because of his beauty. At the same time that I saw this gentleman in the market on that day, what I was doing was only to follow him about in the market. After I looked at him for so many hours, then I ran to a corner of the market and I cried for a few minutes because I thought within myself why was I not created that he was only a Skull, then I thanked God that He had created me without beauty, so I went back to him in the market, but I was still attracted by his beauty. So when the market closed for that day, and when everybody was returning to his or her destination, this gentleman was returning to his own too and I followed him to know where he was living.