Postcolonial Literature and the Impact of Literacy: Reading and Writing in African and Caribbean Fiction

234 Pages·2011·1.5 MB·English

by  Neil ten Kortenaar

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Postcolonial literature and the
imPact of literacy
examining images of literacy in african and West indian novels,
neil ten Kortenaar looks at how postcolonial authors have thought
about the act of writing itself. Writing arrived in many parts of
africa as part of colonization in the twentieth century, and with
it a whole world of book learning and paper pushing; school and
bureaucracy; newspapers, textbooks, and letters; candles, hurricane
lamps, and electricity; pens, paper, typewriters, and printed type;
and orthography developed for formerly oral languages. Writing
only penetrated many layers of West indian society in the same era.
This book examines what the experience of writing and its material
culture mean to postcolonial writers. The range of writers is wide,
and includes chinua achebe, Wole soyinka and V. s. naipaul. The
chapters rely on close reading of canonical novels, but discuss gen-
eral themes and trends in african and caribbean literature. ten
Kortenaar’s sensitive and penetrating treatment of these themes
makes this an important contribution to the growing field of post-
colonial literary studies.
neil ten kortenaar is director of the centre for comparative
literature at the university of toronto.

Postcolonial

liter ature and the
imPact of l iter acy
Reading and Writing in African and Caribbean Fiction
neil ten Kortenaar
cambridge university press
cambridge, new york, melbourne, madrid, cape town,
singapore, são Paulo, delhi, tokyo, mexico city
cambridge university Press
The edinburgh Building, cambridge cb2 8ru, uK
Published in the united states of america by cambridge university Press, new york
www.cambridge.org
information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107008670
© neil ten Kortenaar 2011
This publication is in copyright. subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of cambridge university Press.
first published 2011
Printed in the united Kingdom at the university Press, cambridge
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Kortenaar, neil ten.
Postcolonial literature and the impact of literacy : reading and writing in african
and caribbean fiction / neil ten Kortenaar.
p. cm.
includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-1-107-00867-0 (hardback)
1. commonwealth fiction (english)–history and criticism. 2. literacy in
literature. 3. african fiction (english)–history and criticism. 4. caribbean fiction
(english)–history and criticism. 5. Postcolonialism in literature. i. title.
pr9080.5.k67 2011
823′.90996–dc22
2011008032
isbn 978-1-107-00867-0 hardback
cambridge university Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in
this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is,
or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
To Luc and Anja

Contents

Acknowledgements page viii
1 introduction 1
2 The coming of literacy: Arrow of God by chinua achebe 22
3 The contents of the tin trunk: Ìsarà by Wole soyinka 63
4 mr Biswas finds a home in the world on paper: V. s. naipaul 107
5 literacy in the world not ruled by paper: Myal by erna Brodber 135
6 southern africa’s houses of hunger 163
7 conclusion: the frontiers of writing 187
Notes 193
Bibliography 208
Index 220
vii
Acknowledgements

This book was written during my term as a fellow at the Jackman
humanities institute (Jhi) at the university of toronto and owes every-
thing to that wonderfully stimulating environment. i am very grateful
to the Jhi; its director, Bob Gibbs; and my fellow fellows. Where this
project is concerned i want to acknowledge especially Pamela Klassen,
rosemary sullivan, Jonathan Burgess, mareike neuhaus, and maya
chacaby. i would also like to acknowledge the generous support of the
social sciences and humanities research council of canada.
i would like to thank my colleagues at the university of toronto who
read or listened to parts of this manuscript and gave me feedback: ato
Quayson, uzoma esonwanne, and sean hawkins, as well as susan
Gingell at the university of saskatchewan. i had editing help from aine
mcGlynn and stephanie halldorson. i had important advice from alan
Bewell and melba cuddy-Keane.
The second chapter, on achebe, was originally written as a presentation
for a conference on ‘Theories of the novel now’ at Brown university in
2007, to which olakunle George invited me. material in the chapter on
erna Brodber originally appeared in a much different format in ARIEL
30.4 (1999), 51–73.
viii