The Literary History of the Igbo Novel

African Literature in African Languages

Ernest N. Emenyonu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000040708
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia africana

This book looks at the trends in the development of the Igbo novel from its antecedents in oral performance, through the emergence of the first published novel, Omenuko, in 1933 by Pita Nwana, to the contemporary Igbo novel.

Defining "Igbo literature" as literature in Igbo language, and "Igbo novel" as a novel written in Igbo language, the author argues that oral and written literature in African indigenous languages hold an important foundational position in the history of African literature. Focusing on the contributions of Igbo writers to the development of African literature in African languages, the book examines the evolution, themes, and distinctive features of the Igbo novel, the historical circumstances of the rise of the African novel in the pre-colonial, era and their impact on the contemporary Igbo novel.

This book will be of interest to scholars of African literature, literary history, and Igbo studies.

1 The need for a literary history

This study aims at investigating the trends in the evolution and development of literature written in African indigenous languages, from its antecedents (oral performances—folklore, epics, legends, myths, etc.) to the emergence of the novel. The book’s focus is placed on the historic emergence of one of the first of the continent’s novels, Omenuko, which was written in the Igbo language, in Nigeria, and published in London, England, in 1933. This study investigates the circumstances that led to the rise of Omenuko in the pre-colonial era and traces its trends, development, and impact on the contemporary Igbo novel.

• How did the novel in African languages evolve?
• How was it different from novels elsewhere?
• What historical factors led to its emergence?
• What were the trends of its development?
• What factors helped or impeded its development?
• What were the thematic concerns addressed by the authors?
• How were the characters portrayed?
• Did it possess any unique linguistic or stylistic features?

These are some of the major questions addressed in this book. The African novel written in European languages, mainly English and French, emerged in the middle of the twentieth century, forced into existence by the commitment of emerging African writers to repudiate the distortions of African realities in fiction and memoirs by European colonizers. It was a literature of political protest. However, the novel in African languages, which was older and closer to its socio-cultural environment, customs, and traditions, yielded a literature of cultural identity and affirmation. The values portrayed and narrative techniques employed were different from the portraits in novels about Africa by European authors.

In African Language Literatures (1981), Albert S. Gérard points out that creative writing in African languages predated European presence in Africa (and, therefore, the introduction of the Western art of the novel set in Africa). Ethiopian writers were producing works in African languages long before “the earliest literatures in western Europe in Celtic and Germanic languages” (xi). Yet the learning and teaching of literature in African languages take a distant back seat to African Literature in European languages because of a dearth of sourcebooks, student guides, and authentic teacher’s handbooks. There are more than 50 different African languages in which creative works are produced. In general, however, they possess common forms of origin and development, differing only in historic and linguistic particularities. Therefore, a successful production of a literary history of the novel in one language would open the door for studies into those in other languages.

Creative writings in African languages were largely inspired by the early European missionary educators at the turn of the twentieth century, who took an interest in the development of African languages for the purposes of evangelism and proselytization. They encouraged the first products of Mission schools to write down folktales, songs, epics, myths, legends, etc., which, up until this point, had been disseminated by word-of-mouth from generation to generation. Building on these, they began to write prose fiction—full novels and memoirs. The number of these volumes grew because the missionaries motivated the budding writers by organizing national, regional, and continent-wide contests, and publishing winning entries. Omenuko won the continent-wide contest and was published in 1933, making it possibly the first African-language novel in West Africa. These creative pieces and historical records have been preserved in London at the British Museum, CMS (Church Missionary Society) Archives, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Oxford Archives, and Birmingham University Archives. All of these libraries, archives, and museums were visited a number of times over the course of the research and data collection carried out for this study. Samples of the rare artifacts and validating documents collected have been indicated in the textual analysis and attached in the Appendix.

From 1933, when Omenuko was published, to 2015, more than 100 novels have been published in the Igbo language. These are grouped together based on the decade of their publication in order to establish the stages of growth and factors that have enhanced or impeded the development of the Igbo novel since its inception. From the early twentieth century onwards, the development of the Igbo novel has faced enormous challenges, which will be discussed in the following chapters. These challenges are not peculiar to the Igbo novel. They are factors that have also hindered the development of literature in indigenous languages elsewhere in Africa.

In the middle of the twentieth century, there was an upsurge of countries seeking and obtaining political independence from their European colonizers. In 1957, Ghana, formerly known as the Gold Coast, obtained her independence from Britain and thereby opened the doors for other African nations to do so. Guinea followed suit and won her independence from France in 1958. In 1960 (referred to as “Africa’s Freedom year”), 17 other nations won their freedom from their imperial overlords, including Cameroon, Senegal, Togo, Mali, Madagascar, Congo (Kinshasa), Somalia, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Gabon, Nigeria, and Mauritania. By the end of the 1960s, 16 other nations had obtained their independence, making this decade a politically remarkable one in Africa. There were jubilations and celebrations. Sadly, however, half a century later, most of these nations are, in more than metaphorical connotations, still “colonized.” Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the educational systems and language policies in these countries.

A strong, progressive national policy on language unequivocally articulated and incorporated into each African country’s national policy on education was needed at independence to draw attention not only to the importance of indigenous languages but also to their central place in the curriculum at all levels of the educational system. Sadly, this policy was missing, and the impact of its absence is evident today in the way it has undermined the development of literature in indigenous African languages. In many cases, there were no national policies of education to begin with, and where they did exist, foreign languages were disproportionately preferred to local, indigenous languages. Nigeria is a case in point.

For almost two decades after achieving independence in 1960, Nigeria remained without an unequivocal and explicit language policy. It was not until 1977 that the then-Federal Military Government made the first bold bid to formulate a language for the country, through the publication of a document titled Federal Republic of Nigeria National Policy on Education. This policy was to be further enshrined in The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1979, which stipulates under Sections 51 and 91 that¹:

The business of the National Assembly shall be conducted in English, and in Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba when adequate arrangements have been made therefrom. [Section 51]

And

The business of a House of Assembly shall be conducted in English, but the House may in addition to English conduct the business of the House in one or more other languages spoken in the State as the House may by resolution approve. [Section 91].

This was followed by the language policy.

Nigeria’s national language policy

The national language policy is stated in five sections (1, 2, 3, 7, and 10) of the National Policy on Education, as follows:

1. Section 1. Philosophy of Nigerian education

Paragraph 8: The importance of language

In addition to appreciating the importance of language in the educational process, and as a means of preserving the people’s culture, the Government considers it to be in the interest of national unity that each child should be encouraged to learn one of the three major languages other than his own mother tongue. In this connection, the Government considers the three major languages in Nigeria to be Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba. [p. 5]

2. Section 2. Pre-primary education

Paragraph 11: To achieve the above objectives, Government will:

(3) Ensure that the medium of instruction will be principally the mother-tongue or the language of the immediate community; and to this end will (a) develop the orthography for many more Nigerian languages, and (b) produce textbooks in Nigerian languages. Some of these developments are already being pursued in the university departments of linguistics and under the auspices of some state Ministries of Education. The Federal Government has also set up a language center as part of the educational services complex under the Federal Ministry of Education. This language center will be expanded so as to have a wider scope. [p. 6]

3. Section 3. Primary education

Paragraph 15(4):

Government will see to it that the medium of instruction in the primary school is initially the mother-tongue or the language of the immediate community and, at a later stage, English [p. 8].

4. Section 7. Adult and non-formal education

Paragraph 52:

The objectives of adult and continuing education should be:

1. To provide functional literary education for adults who have never had the advantage of any formal education;
2. To provide functional and remedial education for those young people who prematurely dropped out of the formal school systems; (p. 21)
   • (5) …The recognition of approved training courses outside the formal system of education will be a continuous process, implemented by the National Commission, together with the Federal and State Ministries of Education.
   • (6) A new, nationwide emphasis will be placed on the study of Nigerian arts and culture.
   The National Commission will work out the overall strategy for inclusion of Nigerian arts, culture and languages in adult education programs (p. 22)

3. Section 10. Educational services

Paragraph 84(6):

Language Centers are being set up at Federal and State levels for enhancing the study of Languages especially Nigerian Languages [p. 29].

In summary, the Nigerian national language policy advocates the use of the local language as the medium of instruction for the first three years of primary schooling and English as the medium of instruction in the last three years. During the period when the local language is in use, English is taught as a school subject. This means that the Nigerian child begins formally learning two languages from the age of six. The policy further requires “each child to learn one of the three major languages other than his own mother tongue.” In practice, therefore, the Nigerian child is expected to learn three languages over the course of his or her school career, and, of these, two (including English) are foreign. By implication, therefore, the policy encourages, and seeks to enhance, enlightened multi-lingualism in Nigerian society.

Implementation of the Language Policy

More than five years after its promulgation, the impact of the language policy had yet to be felt in Nigeria’s educational system and in social and cultural environments. The greatest impediment to the implementation of the policy was the government’s failure to formulate a language policy and the lack of any program intended to enfo...