Whenever I see someone working on their Classics Spin projects, I wonder whether I would be more dedicated to this kind of reading if I approached it with a plan: of course I would be.
But this isn’t much different than knowing it would be better to walk around the block in the evening than to read another chapter. What we know and what we choose: sometimes these diverge.
So, as it is, my classic reading is erratic. This year, I determined (said in a stern voice heheh) I would read 20 books published before 2000, whether western canonical classics (Catch-22 and The Tin Drum are on my list—but the Günter Grass novel will get pushed into next year) or modern classics.
Nkem Nwankwo’s Danda (1964, published in 1970 in the Heinemann African Classics series, #67) is an accessible and richly scenic read. There’s a glossary in the back for Ibo terms and a brief summary of social structure, but it’s easy to intuit what’s happening from the narrative itself.
Danda is an “akalogholi” (which the glossary defines as a “ne’er-do-well, which is such an old-fashioned term itself that it nearly requires yet another definition). In short, Araba sees this man—his son, Danda—as a disappointment.
Life on Araba’s compound is extravagant:
“In Araba’s house there was noise and bustle, much going to and fro. The obi and all the eleven huts of the women swamed with strangers. There were relatives from the ten towns. Then there were friends form other lands. These last made a great impression where ever they went. They spoke the Ibo tongue with a refreshing breadth of accent and Aniocha wags forund a new pleasure in mimicking them. Their women wore strange hair styles and flashy ornaments: copper bells and bangles that sang and tinkled all over the compound.”
He yearns to see his son straighten up and fly right. But Danda’s got other plans.
And by plans, I mean he’s planning to not make plans. He seems to go along with those who are increasingly influenced by western ways and expectations in the moment, but he has no interest in satisfying their requirements.
He knows people are frustrated, but he has other ideas. “They smile in my face but as soon as my back is turned they say: “Do not take notice of Danda. He is no good.” But I will not tell you a lie, son of our fathers. I cannot run away from the smile of a woman. Let us go for palm wine.”
Nwankwo (b. 1936) was educated in Nigeria, worked in the government of Biafra, moved to the United States to work in academia.
John Munonye (b. 1929) was born in Nigeria and had a year of post-grad studies in London before he returned to Nigeria to work in education; two of his other novels The Only Son and Obi are also in the Heinemann series.
Oil Man of Obange (1971, #94 in the Heinemann African Classics series) immediately invites readers into Jeri’s daily life. He’s climbing on his bicycle to deliver six cans of palm oil, for which he’ll be paid a few coins, no reflection of the grand physical effort required to balance and pedal, let alone the risk of travelling so far from home, through regions where risks and robberies proliferate.
His wife, Marcellina, once assisted him; now she is preoccupied by responsibilities at home, not least of which are their four children (including twin boys). The kids are regularly and insistently reporting the unpleasant news that more fees are required at school, which heightens the pressure on both parents, particularly when it comes to continuing their daughter’s education.
‘Mamma, why is it that girls don’t pay school fees?’ Lu asked.
‘Well, it’s because…’ she hesitated. Nobody had really thought about it. Don’t you know your father would have had a lot more to pay if it wasn’t like that?’
Munonye does ask tough questions and he’s content to leave them unanswered, content to allow readers to ruminate on the possibilities. As the story unfolds, it seems clear that girls and women in this culture are uniquely vulnerable, but they are not the only ones to suffer and there are a few moments of good fortune too.
This is a quiet story, with a lot of bicycle rides and a lot of school fees, and not a whole lot of characterisation so that readers are gently invested in the outcome but, nonetheless, I felt engaged from the start, pedalling up all those hills, struggling to balance on the way down.
I was inspired by Bill’s year-long reading of African books to pull these off the shelf; I started to read a couple of others, but the library loans took hold, and I lost track of my plans (even without any palm wine).
Oh my, I hadn’t heard of that African classics series. It sounds excellent. The only pre-2000 African books I’ve read – I think – have been be white authors, like Nadine Gordimer and Alan Paton. (In my teens, because unlike my peers I didn’t go in for the bodice ripping historical fiction novels of Plaidy et al) I also read a commercial writer from Africa, Joy Packer.
I am going to check out this series … probably on kindle because my downsized policy is non-Aus books must be e-Books.
I loved your comment “ What we know and what we choose: sometimes these diverge.” Made me laugh and grimace at the same time.
Somewhere Jean Plaidy is rolling over in her grave at the thought of ANYone calling her books bodice-rippers. lol But I do know what you mean.
For the autodidacts in the crowd, this series is just great. I wish that the authors’ biographies were a little more extensive, but that inspired me to get back to work with my Wikipedia volunteering.
Hah, right?! We know better, but…
I don’t think these would be easy for me to get here, but maybe we’ll go to a couple of book stores in Montreal this weekend – I will make a point if looking for this series!
On the other hand, it’s probably just as well I can’t easily access them… It could easily become another project!
I nearly always find ONE when I’m out and about in a city, even a small city. I’ll be curious to hear about your findings!
You have no danger of running out of reading projects!
No luck finding one this time. But we only went to two book stores.
Well, that IS one each day, so well done! heheh
These look really interesting, and what a breath of fresh air to see that classics don’t always have to be ‘old white men classics’ which so many typically are, or what we typically think of, when we use the word classics. Nicely done.
For those who are already auto-scanning the second-hand shelves for orange-spined Penguins, it’s a short jump to scanning for these as well!
I’ve read a couple out of that Heineman’s series, but not the ones you just read. There was some really great picking going on there.
As it turns out, the AWS is much more extensive than my small collection would suggest (the article that Larissa shared with Bill, which Bill reshares here, speaks of one numbered 262). Surprisingly, they’re not always available via TPL (but, of course, they can’t have EVERYthing).
I only have two with the distinctive orange covers–both by Ngugi wa’Thiongo, then still James Ngugi–that I’ve read. But there’s others on that list reprinted all over the place, most notably Things Fall Apart, which is great.
Wikipedia has an article on the series, brief, but with a complete list. But the article Bill posted is fascinating.
Thank Larissa for the article in The Republic. I’d be hanging on to those ‘James’ Ngugi’s, they might be collectors items.
My retirement plan… 😉 Except I can never bear to let go of books.
I had no idea about the Heinemann African Classics series, it seems like a great resource for African literature. Do you know if those editions are easily available in Canada? Danda seems really interesting, I’ll add it to my TBR. It’s also great to know that more bloggers are focusing on Africa as a challenge – I’ll check Bill’s blog – thanks for the resources! =)
They’re all out of print by now. In Toronto, you can sometimes find them in indie second-hand shops like the ones on Roncey (Roncesvalles), or She Said Boom on College (near Bathurst). Sometimes the volunteer-run Bookends store in the downtown Reference Library too. Also the annual sales, like those on the U of T campus (one nearly every weekend from the end of September through October, with the Trinity College one being the best for literary fiction overall).
Given that 21st century readers are never going to read all the classics, I think it makes sense to read outside our safety zones (I spent 50 years reading white Anglo Lit and that was more than enough).
My understanding is that Heinemann African Classics got underway to make African writers affordable to Africans. I know early (C19th) Australians were writing predominantly for the English market. Do you think this is true also of early/post colonial Nigerians?
That’s true: the B-side Walter Scotts alone would keep a modern-day reader busy for a lifetime. /chuckles
I think I’ve read something along those lines as well (but the nice thing is their bindings are really great…they did not cheap out when making affordable editions, unlike those terrible Signets in the ’60s and ’70s with tight bindings on the edge of splitting from the start). I’ve got to track down where I first read about Margaret Laurence’s work when she was living in Nigeria in the ’50s/’60s and trying to highlight the efforts of Nigerian writers working to get Nigerian literature into English translation; I wonder how various motivations might have been expressed in that time/place.
Marcie, when Larissa came to The Australian Legend (thank you for pointing the way) she left a link to a marvellous essay in Nigeria’s The Republic on all the early East African writers radiating out from Kampala’s Makerere University English Dept. in the 1960s (brought to an end by Amin, of course) https://republic.com.ng/april-may-2024/remembering-kampala-literary-history/. The author even gets assistance at one stage, in Iowa, from Khadija Abdalla Bajaber (House of Rust)
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What a superb article: just the kind of source we were craving. (And I love the idea of how Wizard and the Crow came out of just one person chiding the author about not being “funny”!) Did you notice that the magazine also has a /cough podcast? Their Aug/Sept issue on Wole Soyinka also looks very interesting. And their subscription model quite accessible…especially if one can read digitally. Even their print fees are not too steep, given the shipping requirement for international readers (compared to what we’ve recently noticed about the cost of a single book being shipped). Dang it, Larissa, what have you DONE?!