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ABSTRACT
The number of science fiction (SF) publications written by African authors skyrocketed in the new millennium and, alongside it, a debate on the form and sociological functions of that genre. In this essay, it is argued that this pan-African phenomenon of contemporary African SF, as well as the debate about it, may be understood in part as an attempt to come to terms with Africa’s Marxist-cultural inheritance and, particularly, literary realisms. However, this does not lead to the dissociation of African SF from Marxist realisms due to the way African SF was theorized. In fact, the negotiation of literary realisms is also registered in African SF works through the formal and intra-diegetic engagement with the problem of realism and the use of realist methods. In support of this thesis, the article undertakes short readings of several contemporary African SF short stories, novellas, and novels.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Despite Thompson’s (Citation2018) claim that ‘African science fiction is not rising’, one which ignores the historical dynamic of the emergence of genres, I argue that such a boom has, and possibly is still taking place. Symptomatically, Davis still referred to SF in Africa as a ‘small market’ (Davis, Citation1981, p. i), Byrne still spoke of the ‘regrettable dearth […] of published science fiction and science fiction readers’ (Byrne, Citation2004, p. 522), and even Bould (Citation2015, p. 7) still carefully stated that if ‘African sf has not arrived, it is certainly approaching fast’. Others however, writing later, were confident enough to argue that the genre had been growing for ‘some time’ (Adejunmobi, Citation2016, p. 266), that ‘African science-fiction narratives exploded onto the international scene in the late 2000s’ (Eatough, Citation2017, p. 238), that there was a ‘growth in the [science fiction] genre in Africa’ (Chukwunnoso, Citation2018, p. 51), that ‘the number of African science fiction publications increased during the 2000s’ (Maurits, Citation2018, p. 1), and so on. Geoff Ryman, whose work on the topic is arguably unmatched, has mapped out this boom for predominantly the Anglo-African realm.
2. Despite the serious problems implied in the categories of SF and ‘African’, defining them strictly lies beyond the scope of this essay.
3. It has been argued that genre lines become less relevant in the ASF context, which may indeed be the case. But that argument has been used subsequently to retrospectively subsume multiple genres under one larger category (e.g. Amos Tutuola’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts as fantasy), reducing genre specificity, and having possible de-historicizing effects. Additionally, it is questionable if a category such as ‘fantasy’ is as universally applicable as is suggested. Due to a lack of space, in this essay, the issue of speculative/science/fantasy fiction will remain a problem to be addressed.
4. I would not, of course, want to suggest that ASF is apolitical, but rather that its politics is legible in different ways from classic African fictions.
5. For reasons that lie beyond the scope of this essay I am avoiding the term naturalism, although the overlap with ‘stylistic realism’ and ‘naturalism’ may be evident.
6. For example, realism in Mozambique was institutionalized as the result of government policy during the attempts to start a socialist state (cf. Couto, Citation2012).
7. ‘The principal narrative and plot devices of the D to U form are: A social break or change, often a departure from an (allegorical capitalist) dystopian society that is claimed to be eternal, to a society that is considered better, and which may be located outside of narrative time. Narratively, this manifest itself as changing narrators, locations, times, and so on’ (Maurits, Citation2018, p. 18).
8. It may be noted in passing that the term science fiction took a long time to become generally accepted, and that the term scientific fiction was in use even after WWII.
9. Translations from the Portuguese original of O Quase Fim do Mundo are my own.
10. Translations from the Portuguese original of A Quinta Dimensão are my own.
11. Ivor Hartmann recently chose the space ship as the theme for his AfroSFv3 precisely because the spaceship is rare in ASF. Fifth was published ten years before AfroSFv3. It is incidentally one of the rare Mozambican SF works in existence. As far as I am aware, the novel has never been discussed in the ASF context, in all likeliness because it has not been translated into English. The dearth in Mozambican ASF has hardly been addressed, if at all. Some have suggested seeing Mia Couto’s work as SF, but this suggestion strikes me as something of a stretch.
12. My understanding of this novel is informed by discussions with Thomas Waller, and I am grateful for his insights.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Peter J. Maurits
Peter J. Maurits is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature (LMU, Munich), an M.A. in literary studies, and a bachelor in Portuguese language and culture (Utrecht University). His research interests lie in the way cultural forms move, interact, adapt, and take shape in the triangle Africa-Europe-USA, with a special focus on genre and popular culture. In his main research project he examines the emergence of contemporary African science fiction.