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Writer and
academic, Kole Omotoso, eventually made it worthwhile for the small
group of people who waited patiently for the start of his reading at
Jazzhole, Ikoyi, Lagos on Thursday, March 24.

The event where the
South Africa-based scholar read from his book, ‘Achebe or Soyinka: A
Study in Contrasts’ was supposed to have started by 4.30pm but it
didn’t until 6pm. In spite of this, no one was in a hurry to leave when
the man with the greying beard started because he offered illuminating
insights into the writings of the subjects of his book.

Executive editor of
The News magazine, Kunle Ajibade, moderated the session; and asked very
meaningful questions about the book, first published in 1996 but now
re-issued by Bookcraft.

Worthy role models

The author of
popular factional work, ‘Just Before Dawn’ apologised for his lateness,
disclosing that he was held up at a voters’ sensitisation meeting in
FESTAC Town, before revealing why he wrote the book. The academic said
‘Achebe or Soyinka: A Study in Contrasts’ is a, “Compliment to two
figures that have been part of my development as a literary person.”
Omotoso who highlighted the similarities in the development of both
writers added that though they started writing in English, they are
well grounded in their respective languages. The book, he said, also
arose out of the need to appraise African literature by an individual
who shares the same linguistic antecedents with the two writers unlike
foreign critics.

“You cannot be a
critic of Russian literature if you do not understand and read Russian.
I cannot make a statement on Arabic contemporary writing if I didn’t
read Arabic and speak Arabic neither can I say anything about French
writing in West Africa if I do not read French. But it seems as if it
is possible for anybody in Europe and America to start writing about
African literature without knowing about the linguistic antecedent of
Africa.” He disclosed that the offer to write the book came in 1994 and
that it is “the only book as a writer in which I have earned a lot of
money because as a hard back edition, it was sold for 45 pounds and it
sold out.”

Nigerian sensibility

The main argument
in ‘Achebe or Soyinka’, the author disclosed, “is that it is possible
for a writer, an artist to write, to produce, to draw towards a
community of sensibility. That is, there is something we can call a
Nigerian community of sensibility. You can put it down even in our
local langauge, ‘tiwa n tiwa’ and ‘temi n temi’.But ‘temi n temi’
doesn’t disturb ‘tiwa n tiwa’ and both work together. What I have done
is to look at the background of the giants, look at their writings,
look at their politics, look at the critics and come to the conclusion
that Soyinka and Achebe represent for Nigeria what Dostoyevsky and
Tolstoy represent for Russian writing. You have two people coming from
the same community but representing two sets of ideas. And I think
Chinua and Wole represent that for us. Achebe or Soyinka, each is a
contribution towards that possibility of writing towards a community of
Nigerian sensibility. That’s what I have tried to do. I don’t know
whether it has succeeded.” The author of ‘The Combat’ also touched on
the politics of both writers, noting that contrary to the belief of
some artists, writers, musicians, dramatists and artists cannot remain
apolitical. “The issue is not that politics is not part of our art but
part and parcel of our Nigerian experience and I think we need to
accept that. My issue is with the younger generation of writers who
simply want to be known as writer and they think that is sufficient. It
is not enough for me and I think it is not enough for some people that
writing is not an innocent activity.”

No alternative

Omotoso, who read
excerpts from the first chapter of the work, stated his position on
criticisms of ‘unrelieved incompetence’ and ‘relieved competence’
Soyinka and Achebe said about each other. “Basically, it’s a question
of language. There’s an incredible playfulness in Yoruba which anybody
who understands Hausa or Igbo knows it’s not the same thing. Soyinka
endlessly centres language as an issue, he doesn’t take it for granted;
whereas Achebe came to the conclusion that English competently written
and with an Igbo bit of input is enough to carry this message. This is
alright because one of the greatest issues; and I raised this, is that
the success of most modern writers is to write one culture in the
language of another. Marquez in Columbia, Salman Rushdie living in
London and Achebe succeeds fantastically in that.

“But my worry is
this: if you critic Conrad and Joyce Carey as misrepresenting Africa
and yet write a book like ‘Things Fall Apart’ where at the end of the
story the hero commits suicide; you write ‘No Longer at Ease’ at the
end of which the central character goes into prison. You write ‘Arrow
of God’ at the end of which the community abandons their priest. I then
ask you, where is that alternative to the British, American
representation of Africa culture?”

A cultural matter

The actor who plays
Chief Abayomi in South African drama series, ‘Jacob’s Cross’ also tried
to rationalise some people’s perception of Soyinka as Eurocentric and
Achebe as Afrocentric.

“The Yoruba culture
is a very accumulative culture; the Yorubas keep accumulating knowledge
no matter where it came from. I’m not sure we can talk about
Afrocentrism or Eurocentrism because the world has become smaller. It
has become a village but we don’t want to be the village idiot so we
have to participate, we have to make our voice heard and ensure that we
are also part of the society. So, the accusation that Soyinka is
Eurocentric, Achebe is Afrocentric is a non-starter. Yoruba culture is
acquisitive, continuously accumulating.” He added that while Soyinka
sides with his Yoruba kinsmen in projecting their culture after
colonialism, the opposite is the case with Achebe.

“It’s that fight
back that one sees a lot of in Soyinka’s writings but Achebe simply
stays at that period of negotiated communal humanistic existence.” He
added that Africa has spent too much time dwelling on the past. “You
find African countries everyday responding to the past as if the
totality of our experience is enslavement, colonisation, imperial
imposition and resource plundering. 50 years on, we are still
complaining; the white man forced us to adopt their language. Nobody
forced us to adopt their language. Anyway, if they forced you to learn
their language 50 years ago, why have you not changed it?

No regrets Omotoso,
author of other works of fiction including ‘Fella’s Choice’, ‘The
Scales’ and ‘To Borrow a Wandering Leaf’ also disclosed that he did not
regret embarking on a crusade for indigenous publishing. He said this
in response to a question from Ajibade, that the move probably accounts
for his lack of popularity outside Nigeria. “I had published two novels
in Britain when I was doing my PhD, I came back to Nigeria and nobody
knows I published books,” he began. “It became for me a need to begin
to cultivate a local audience so we started this thing about being
published locally. And it’s interesting that between 1972 when my last
novel was published in Britain and 1988 when I left Nigeria, I had
published nothing outside of the country. I don’t believe it’s a
mistake to do that.

“Within that
period, we started the Association of Nigerian Authors. I was the first
general secretary and I spent a lot of time travelling round setting up
local chapters. The failure of Nigerian publishing is part of the
failure of Nigeria. Publishers don’t publish anymore because there are
pirates but the issue is not to stop publishing because there are
pirates. What is important is that because of the technology we have in
our hand, we can stop pirates.”

Not political enough

Omotoso reads
young writers but he is worried that they have assumed problems older
writers highlight in their works have been resolved. “If you read
Adichie’s collection of stories, you‘ll begin to feel that sense that
we are not really that accepted by either the American or European
society. It filters through and it is to that extent that I think the
political is still a major issue in our writing and I don’t seem to see
enough of this in their writing. Of course, one Catholic priest guy,
his collection of short stories… In fact, I was a member of the
Commonwealth judges who decided that year on those prizes. It was a
straight contestation between him and a South African white woman
writer and I said the white woman doesn’t need it. I have to read (new
Nigerian writing) because I keep commenting on it. The only thing I
miss is: where are the new younger writers in Yoruba?” People assume
that it is only Nigerians that don’t read but Omotoso disclosed it’s
the same in South Africa. “Right now, only eight per cent of South
African secondary schools have libraries. The reading culture does not
exist. In fact, they say in South Africa, if you want to hide anything
from a Black man put it in a book because he will never touch it. There
was also the culture, and it is whites who say this, that black people
don’t like to read because they feel white people want to influence
them. But then, you will think they will continue their own oral
culture in their own language but they don’t. It’s a general problem in
Africa. I thought we had resolved it in Nigeria but it has come back to
haunt us. People are not reading, books are not being sold so what do
you do? I don’t know. We can use electronic gadgets, get an iPad, you
don’t have to carry books. I don’t know what we can do.”