Eileen Julien in his work, AFRICAN NOVELS AND THE QUESTION OF ORALITY(1992), frowns at critics who use oral traditions in African novels as a yardstick for measuring African authenticity. He opines that this kind of assumption is problematic and goes further to elegantly compare this ideology to racism. I argue otherwise and firmly support the notion that one can relate, among other yardsticks, African oral tradition in African novels to African African authenticity. One must therefore ask what other characteristics one can use to identify authenticity of an African novel? Should we, generally, abandon labels of identifying novels within borders as Taiye Selasi argues in her controversial essay titled AFRICAN LITERATURE DOESNT EXIST? Ikhide R. Ikheloa Pius Adesanmi Ofure Aito Adamolekun Ronald Oladayo Niyi Thames-City Adeosun Chuma Nwokolo Okey Ndibe Moyo Okediji Bernardine Evaristo Chika Unigwe Tendai Huchu EC Osondu
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 15:29:01 +0000