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Abstract
In Chinua Achebe's book of essays Hopes and Impediments, he asserts that Nigeria's failure to ‘develop’ and ‘modernise’ like Japan is because of a ‘failure of imagination’. Yet for many Africans, modernity is a tainted ‘gift’ because it was introduced into the African continent along with European colonial capitalism which simultaneously caused an ontological crisis of self. Although many Africans want to ‘catch up’ with the West, how is it possible when Western technological superiority was equated with white racial superiority? Achebe declares that, as Africans ‘begin their journey into the strange, revolutionary world of modernization’, literature should function as guide. Hence, I examine Ousmane Sembene's novel God's Bits of Wood which depicts Africans laying claim to ‘race-less’, ‘language-less’ ‘machines’. But does (Western) technology change culture? Can African culture appropriate technology to form a dialectical African modernity? If so, what role does ‘tradition’ play? In Zakes Mda's The Heart of Redness, we witness the emergence of a traditional modernity made possible by a dialectical epistemology.
Funding
This research was made possible by Mellon Postdoctoral ‘Cultures in Transnationalism’ Fellowship.
Note on contributor
Melissa Tandiwe Myambo is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and visiting assistant professor at the International Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled The American Dream Abroad: Privileged Migrants in the Global South Africa. She can be contacted at: [email protected].
Notes
1. There is an ongoing controversy over whether Achebe is truly the father of modern African literature. See for example Dennis Abrams (Citation2013): http://publishingperspectives.com/2013/05/was-chinua-achebe-the-father-of-african-literature/. Accessed May 25, 2014. Achebe himself ‘very, very strongly’ rejected the claim: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/nov/12/achebe-rejects-father-modern-african-literature. Accessed May 28, 2014.
2. I am indebted to the anonymous reviewer who suggested I include a discussion of dialectical epistemology. I am also grateful for the Mellon ‘Cultures in Transnational Perspective’ postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA which enabled me to prepare this article.
3. See http://www.cafonline.com/caf/organisation/structure. Accessed December 7, 2013.
4. See Ngũgĩ (Citation2012, 54) for his most recent take on this but the whole concept of African literature is constantly being debated and has been since Achebe and Ngũgĩ disagreed on the definition in the 1960s. Ngũgĩ claimed African literature should be written in indigenous African languages, whereas Achebe thought literatures by Africans in European languages should also be included. When Tope Folarin, a writer of Nigerian parentage born in the USA, won the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing, some people complained that he was not a ‘real African’.
5. Because of space limitations, I will not be able to address the modern identity of white Africanness which partakes of its own intriguing ontologism.
6. For an excellent discussion of ontology, African identity and modernity in relationship to the African state, please see Kwaku Korang's (Citation2009) Writing Ghana, Imagining Africa: Nation and African Modernity.
7. Ousmane's novel concentrates heavily on the changing role of women in the creation of African modernity but again because of spatial constraints, I am restricted to only speaking about the masculinist discourse of modernity as confrontation between black and white man.