Writers who have influenced me

I read a lot as a child; read everything I could lay my hands on. I fact, it is possible that virtually all I did until I was twelve or thirteen was live people’s lives through fiction. Nothing seemed to matter more. I still read a lot, though more discriminately, and without the sense of wonder I had then. Very few books are able to remove me from myself. So I guess it is the periodic book that leaves me in a fever of excitement for one reason or another that affects my writing directly these days. In the past year, a few books have been influential: Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Froer. I loved the fresh cocky voice of the writer, and the way the novel spoke to something very common in literature: visitors speaking about you as if they know you better than you know yourself. I call this the Kapuscinsky Complex: people who make themselves powerful in the West, by turning Africa or some other place into their very own territory – one which anything and everything is possible – except the truth. This marvelous book addresses this idea in a very satisfying way. I have also rediscovered James Baldwin’s short stories, and Saul Bellow’s earlier short stories, which are marvelous. I tried to read Henry James, and found him boring. He may be the Master, but I have no interest in Tea Parties and life among the English gentry. I have too little time to read to have to endure them. The Dubliners, by James Joyce still moves me, unbearably.

I have had a particular gripe this past year, maybe because of being in England. Reading European or American Writing on Africa, I have discovered that many writers use the continent cynically to examine their own light, or their own liberalism; and the end result is often books that treat African characters as cardboard cut-outs; exotic backgrounds to their own quests. To me this violates a deep respect I have for the humanity of writing. Rychard Kapuscisnky is the most arrogant and visible of the Big Men in Africa. In his latest book, Shadow of the Sun, he distorts fact so much, claims so much that is unclaimable that he becomes a sort of Kurtz, a man who has so much of a sense of his own literary power, he has lost perspective and believes he can get away with any claim. Reportage becomes myth and he is the mythmaker. Here is a little sample of a quote by him in an article for Granta.

'The European mind is willing to acknowledge its limitations, accept its limitations. It is a skeptical mind. The spirit of criticism does not exist in other cultures. They are proud, believing that what they have is perfect.'

Paul Theroux’s recent book, Dark star Safari spend hundreds of pages seeking an epiphany, and finally, in Malawi, he tells us His Solution For Africa: That Africa needs to ignore donors and do things for itself. Two seconds on Google would have given him this answer, even unprogressive donors came to this conclusion over a decade ago. What has he been reading?

I find myself valuing VS Naipaul’s work more and more. Although his dislike of black people and Muslims and Africans is now legend, many of his works display a close and honest examination: he prefers to tell things are his blighted eyes see them; and he takes nothing for granted – a skill that seems easy, but is possibly the hardest to acquire, and the most important, especially for writers who do not belong to the trajectory of European history, but write in European languages. English carries within in many assumed cultural values that we sometimes use without context.

Under the Skin By Nina Bawden, a book that is out of print, rescued me from a particular cynicism. It is the only work of literature written by white person about Kenya, where black Kenyan characters are believable and meaningful. Bawden spent only six months in Kenya on the early sixties and was able to see through the dynamics of power in Colonial Kenya. This comedy of manners is beautifully written, timeless, a masterful study of race politics; of the naivety of the independence middle classes of Kenya; and a withering attack on liberal vanities.

Decolonising the mind, by Ngugi wa Thiongo, which I read when I was seventeen, changed by view of Kenyan forever. The Road, by Wole Sonyika is an all time classic for me; as is Camara Laye’s lyrical and sad The African Child. Mongo Beti wrote what is for me, the funniest book written on the continent, about the pretentious Jean Marie Medza. Recently I have been reading Noni Jabavu’s Red Ochre People, which is unique: she has found a way of rendering Xhosa dialogue in English without losing much meaning. Noni Jabavu, maybe because of her unique and quite startling history, is able to render a kaleidoscope of world views in one little scene; her insights into the ways South Africans digested the influences of Europe during colonial times is unique and deeply insightful. Her books should be read by every African creative writer writing in English.

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