A former Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Calabar and a former Provost, Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, Owerri, Professor Ernest Emenyonu is Emeritus Professor of Africana Studies, University of Michigan-Flint. He has taught African Literature on both sides of the Atlantic and published extensively in the field, ranging from edited critical volumes, biography, collections of short stories, to children’s books. His edited critical works include Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe Vols. 1&2 (2004), Remembering a Legend: Chinua Achebe (2014), Emerging Perspectives on Nawal El Saadawi (2010, translated into Arabic, 2017), and A Companion to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2017). His collections of short stories include Tales of Our Motherland (1999), and Princess Mmaeyen and Other Stories (2015). His children’s books include Uzo and His Father (1999), Uzoechi: A Story of African Childhood (2012), and A Feast in the Sky (2014). His English translation of the first ever Igbo Novel, Omenuko (1933), was published in 2014 to open up this classic African novel to worldwide readership. His latest book, The Literary History of the Igbo Novel: African Literature in African Languages (2020) argues that ‘oral and written literature in African indigenous languages hold an important foundational position in the history of African literature.’ Prof. Emenyonu is the Editor of African Literature Today, the oldest international journal (now an annual volume) of African Literature still publishing today. Henry Akubuiro interviewed him in Lagos on the changing face of African literary landscape he has been involved in for decades.
You have made a case for literature in indigenous Nigerian languages as a compulsory subject from primary to university level. What’s the justification for this?
Thank you. Let me put the statement I made in a historical context dating back to the beginning of my academic career, with African Literature as my field of specialization, and its promotion as a field of study, a worthy life-long cause. I finished my undergraduate studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and obtained a BA (Education) First Class Honors in English and History on June 25, 1966. My program was Education/English as major with History as minor. The final degree examination consisted of seven papers in the major subjects. I had ‘A’ in all the Education papers; and ‘A’ in all the English (Literature) papers except one. The literature courses were all foreign notably, British & American, with only one course in African Literature and that was the one in which I had a ‘B’. In those days, you did not write your name on assignment or exam papers—only your Registration number given at the time of admission. Mine was …’1945’. Therefore, the teachers did not know whose papers they were grading. Whatever grade you made, you earned it. Initially, I felt nothing but exceeding joy and happiness about my result. Only five people in the graduating class made ‘FIRST CLASS’ and I was one of them. Not only was I one of the five, I was indeed next to the best graduating student, Mrs. Catherine Udokwu! Studying Literature was not only very inspiring it was also gratifying…and above all, I was in love with ‘19th Century (Victorian) Literature’ to say the least. I had been dreaming that if ever I was to do post-graduate studies, I had already made my choice and could even go non-stop to a PhD…and I almost did! Years later, Professor Donatus Nwoga, my mentor who taught most of the literature courses I studied at Nsukka including African Literature, revealed to me that when he finished grading our degree papers he noticed that one candidate had ‘A’ in all the literature papers, and had taken both the 19th Century and the African Literature papers. He went ahead and changed the grade in one of them to a ‘B’. That was how I got the ‘B’ in African Literature. Out of curiosity when it was all over, he had matched registration numbers with actual names. No harm, anyway, the candidate still made a FIRST CLASS. On my own part, when the euphoria was over, I felt uneasy that the only course I did not get an ‘A’ in my degree examinations was African Literature. Unconsciously, I felt a strong challenge to erase that ‘B’ in African Literature somehow, some day!
The First Class Honors degree made post-graduate studies abroad a certainty and almost on one’s own terms too. Nsukka recalled me three weeks after graduation to join the Faculty of Education as an ‘Assistant Lecturer’ with mouth-watering perquisites and highly elevating other benefits and privileges. A veteran British Senior lecturer, J.R.P.D.de Turville was about retiring, and I was to take over a required popular course he was then teaching especially for Education/English majors. The course, “English for Teachers”, was an Applied English Linguistics course designed to combine content with methodology. Most who took the course were lucky if they finished with a ‘C’ grade. I had made an “A’ in the course, and when Mr. de Turville (out of curiosity and disbelief) matched registration number with name, he sent for me not only to know who I was, but also to shake my hands with undisguised endearment. Until then, that gesture was absolutely rare with him!! That was how I left the shores of Nigeria for Teachers College, Columbia University in New York, to do a Masters in TOEFL (Teaching of English as a Foreign Language).
I had a fellowship that guaranteed my sponsorship up to the PhD. I did the Masters’ course in one year and in the summer immediately after; I got a scholarship from London University to do a postgraduate special summer course on ‘19th Century Literature’. I was overwhelmed with joy…what a coincidence or a divine intervention to have the greatest dream lurking deep inside me, come true! Therefore, I went to London hoping to come back to Columbia after three months, but somehow also, I was hoping to stay on in London for a doctorate degree specializing in ‘19th Century British Literature’.
Just then, I remembered why I went abroad in the first instance —to rescue my sense of dignity for a ‘B’ in African literature! When I returned to the United States and searched, I found out that the University of Wisconsin, Madison, was offering postgraduate degree programs in ‘African Languages and Literature’. I withdrew from Columbia and enrolled in Madison. I must have been the first Nigerian to do a PhD there specifically in African Literature. Wisconsin opened the doors to a new world of discoveries and adventures. I studied Swahili, and for the first time, took intensive courses on Oral literatures of Africa, read African Epics (Mali, Sundiata, etc.); met and took courses from dedicated professors who were versed in oral and written literatures in indigenous African languages, witnessed African griots skilled in dexterous African Oral performances. The scales fell off my eyes. The universally touted Western dictum, ‘’If it is not written, it is not literature’’, was a blatant fallacy! The European colonizers who introduced Western civilization on the continent of Africa did not introduce Storytelling in Africa. Above all, there existed novels in African languages before the European advent. Oral Literature was and is the foundation of African Literature. You would not know this unless you started your study of African Literature from its grassroots of Oral and Written literatures in African languages. I strongly believed that this was something that should form the roots of literary studies in African educational systems. It became for me, a cause to embrace and fight for with determination and tenacity of purpose– from the revamping of a literary curriculum to the founding of an ‘International Conference on African Literature and the English Language’ (ICALEL).
Never mind what anyone else says, the University of Calabar was the first university in Nigeria, to change the direction of literary programs in English departments. The first thing we did in 1980 was to change the name of the ‘Department of English Language and Literature’ to the ‘Department of English and Literary Studies’. The argument was that ‘English Language and Literature’ meant ‘English Language and English (British) Literature’. However, ‘English and Literary Studies’ meant a different thing. In terms of structure and content, in the first two years, our students took the usual courses in World literatures (including English (British) and American Literatures), that formed the core courses in the traditional curriculum. In the third year, however, they selected an area of specialization for the next two years (and eventually a topic for their senior thesis), from three options: African literature, African American literature, and Caribbean literature. They could continue to take other world literature courses as electives. At Calabar, the centerpiece of the literary studies curriculum was African/African Diaspora Literatures. In addition, at the postgraduate level, we started MA and PhD programs in those three areas. However, to answer your question, I do not believe that the study of African Literature as a separate and autonomous subject in the Nigerian educational system should start at the university level. In fact, the first article I wrote in my literary career was in my first year as an undergraduate, published in Nigerian newspapers with the title, “African Literature: the one thing missing in the Nigerian School Curriculum”. Sadly, more than half a century later, it is still missing!
Does it mean that the African literature to be taught in our schools should be in each of the major indigenous languages only?
No! In primary schools and lower, we should have ‘Storytelling’ as a subject for the teaching of a variety of African Oral performances such as folktales, riddles, proverbs, prayers, legends, myths, drama etc. Nigeria’s national language policy stipulates that the medium of instruction at this level “will be the mother-tongue or the language of the immediate community’ in which the school is located.
The title of the latest edition of African literature Today (ALT 40) is “African Literature Comes of Age”, what informed the title?
I answered this question in my Editorial article in the book:
“This volume of African Literature Today is not only an affirmation but also a celebration of
African Literature coming of age in all its ramifications. The articles reflect its maturity, diversity, scope, spread, and above all, relevance in all genres and more. They also deal with diverse subject matters, set in all geographic regions (urban as well as rural environments) of the continent, and discuss works of authors from all parts of Africa— –West, East, North, and South. The themes of the works have no boundaries and touch topics as far apart from each other as the approaches to them. Put simply, in the 21st Century, the demands for African writings grow by the day and African writers, male and female, are responding with amazing innovative creativities in all genres”. The authors in ALT 40 fully demonstrated how and why.
There has been a recurring argument that canonization of African literature now comes from abroad rather than from home, what led to this? We see complaints by writers based on the continent that they are not being celebrated globally, no matter the quality of their writings.
First, the premise for this generalization is wrong. It is not location that earns one laurels but the quality of one’s product. Success in every endeavor demands rigor, hard work and steadfast determination. I am not saying that writers who are resident in Nigeria lack these qualities but it absolutely wrong to generalize that a Nigerian writer and his/her work are only recognized when he/she goes abroad. Chinua Achebe did not write Things Fall Apart outside Nigeria. What’s more, Wole Soyinka (our quintessential Nobel Laureate), Flora Nwapa, Gabriel Okara, Zulu Sofola, Mabel Segun, Cyprian Ekwensi, Buchi Emecheta, J.P.Clark-Bekederemo, Isidore Okpewho, T.M. Aluko, Chukwuemeka Ike, Festus Iyayi, Elechi Amadi, Ifeoma Okoye, Chris Abani, Amos Tutuola, Onuora Nzekwu, (to mention but a few of the renowned Nigerian creative writers of the 20th century), produced most of their works while domiciled in Nigeria. All that said, one must not lose sight of the pre-eminent recognition the NLNG has bestowed on the winners of the prestigious Nigerian Literature Prize in the past two decades.
On a lighter side, how did you meet your wife?
This is very interesting. I am glad you asked. Remember I told you that I went to the University of Wisconsin, Madison to do a PhD in African Literature in the Department of African Languages and Literature. Swahili was a required course in the first year, and the class was always fully packed. On my first day in class, I unconsciously put the extra books I had carried with me, on a seat next to the one I sat on. Less than ten minutes later, this beautiful young woman entered the room. She was looking up and down the room for a seat. Our eyes met when she looked at the seat where I kept my handful of books. I quickly removed the books, and she took the seat. When the class was over, she gently asked if she could borrow my notebook to copy what she missed from when the class began. I never asked for her name. She did not ask for mine either. I willingly gave her my notebook. At the next class, in order to return my notebook, she came and sat next to me. We sat next to each other at the next class, and the one after that, and the one after that…As the saying goes, ‘the rest is history’.
She came to Wisconsin soon after she returned from Kenya after serving there as a Peace Corps volunteer. She taught for two years in a secondary school there.. When I tell the story about how we met, I always say that there is a reason for everything in one’s life. I put the books on that seat unconsciously, but, in the sight of God, it was not as simple as that. Moreover, she did not came late to that first day of the Swahili class by accident. That act of putting the books on that seat was God’s gift of Patricia Emenyonu to me. We have four children and, so far, five grandchildren.
