Modern African Stories [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Inevitably, it appears, the short story writer becomes over-looked in favour of the novelist—a regrettable condition which has prevailed throughout most of the Western literary world and now, more recently, with the Afričan literary scene, too. The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe sees his novels set as required readings for the West Afričan School Certificate examinations, and his novels are translated into many other languages. There is even a movie based on two of his books. Another Nigerian writer, the dramatist Wole Soyinka, becomes famous among his own people (including those who cannot read) because a playwright need only depend upon the sounds of his words and his listener's ears, while the writer of fiction must depend upon the printed page. And Wole Soyinka, whose plays have been produced in the major European and American capitals, as well as throughout the Afričan continent itself, becomes a playwright with an international reputation. The novelists Camara Laye aind Yambo Ouologuem, from Francophone Africa (Senegal and Mali respectively), piek up laurels in the form of distinguished French literary awards. But the Afričan short story writer remains—for the most part— almost unknown. All this, of course, is to our own great loss, because the modern short story in Africa belongs to an oral literary tradition centuries old and still very much alive in Africa today. As with the West, the literary market place for the short story has always remained, at best, imminent. Magazines come and go quickly, and just when it appears that a new Afričan literary publication is about to become firmly established, it falls by the wayside. On the one hand we have the more commercial magazines much like their Western counterparts. Drum (South Afričan and West Afričan editions at One time or another) and Spear (Nigeria) are typical of this kind of publication, but they tend to cater to the rather transitional reader, more interested in