African Quilt : 24 Modern African Stories (9781101617441)

Barbara H. Solomon
is a professor of English and Women's Studies at Iona College. Her major academic interests are twentieth-century American and world literature. The anthologies she has edited include:
The Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin; Other Voices, Other Vistas
;
Herland and Selected Stories of Charlotte Perkins Gilman
; and
The Haves and Have-Nots
. With Eileen Panetta, she has coedited
Once Upon a Childhood
;
Passages: 24 Modern Indian Stories
; and
Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves, and Ghosts: 25 Classic Stories of the Supernatural.

 

Prof. W. Reginald Rampone Jr.
, is an associate professor of English who has taught at numerous colleges and universities. His research focuses on early modern English literature, especially Shakespeare's plays, and he has published
Sexuality in the Age of Shakespeare
. He is currently working on a book concerning Shakespeare's
Much Ado About Nothing
and a critical edition of Nicholas Goodman's
Hollands Leaguer
.

AN
AFRICAN
QUILT

24 Modern African Stories

Edited and with an Introduction by Barbara H. Solomon and W. Reginald Rampone Jr.

SIGNET CLASSICS

SIGNET CLASSICS

Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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Published by Signet Classics, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Signet Classics Printing, January 2013

 

Copyright © Barbara H. Solomon and William R. Rampone Jr., 2012

Authors' copyrights and permissions can be found
here.

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REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

ISBN
978-1-101-61744-1

In memory of Murray Paul Gruber, loving husband, father, and grandfather, caring uncle, philanthropist, and inspiration to all who pursue the American Dream.

—BHS

 

In memory of William Dave Wilkins, a concerned, generous and unfailingly kind man to all who knew him.

—WRR Jr.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We wish to express our gratitude to Tracy Bernstein at New American Library for her enthusiastic support and endless patience. A great deal of expert assistance was provided by Edward L. Helmich of Ryan Library's Interlibrary Loan Program at Iona College.

Four people from the four corners of the world generously helped us to locate writers and copyright holders: Mary Jay, Kelly Norwood-Young, Irene Staunton, and Annari van der Merwe.

INTRODUCTION

A
s this collection of stories vividly dramatizes, there are many Africas. There is the Africa of the brutal desert, of the snowcapped mountains, of dried-out wells and bubbling streams, of the bush and the jungle, of the veldt and the cities, and of the towns and tiny villages. Africa is a world filled with thousands of species of plants, birds, animals, and insects found on no other continent, including creatures of sizes, shapes, colors, numbers, and survival strategies that make the imagined species of science fiction seem feeble in comparison. There is tribal and village Africa as well as urban Africa; it is a continent of traditional ancestor worship, Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, and Jews. It is a world that has been divided into nations by outsiders for their own convenience. These outsiders, the European colonists, struggled for hundreds of years to mold those they viewed as diverse, intractable, and unruly inhabitants into a cheap workforce that would be docile and obedient, that would support their quest for riches from the diamond and gold mines, the farms and ranches, and the fecund jungle filled with wood and other precious resources. It is also a world where for many the land offers no source of wealth, where drought or delayed rainfall makes even subsistence farming and cattle raising a nightmare of powerlessness.

Africa is a land of the affluent few and the impoverished multitude, of conflicting allegiances that reach back through communal generations, a world splintered by an array of languages that reinforces a sense of separateness and defensiveness. Many Africans have two languages. If they were born in territory ruled by the British, they speak and study English. In the lands ruled by French or Belgian colonists, such as Ivory Coast or Senegal, they use French. If they live in Mozambique or Angola, they speak Portuguese. Long after the departure of the colonial rulers, many Africans find themselves needing to speak, write, or educate their children in the oppressors' language, because there are so many local languages within a single country that easy communication between different areas is impossible. Those who are not fluent in the European language are at an enormous economic and social disadvantage. They often feel scorned by politicians and by the successful, urban business class. Complicating the problems of the poor and impeding their upward mobility is the lack of free and available education, the education that is all-important and necessary for a good job. Sending a child to school involves tuition fees, room and board if there are no schools close by, the cost of uniforms and books. Often several family members must contribute to make one child's education possible.

It is not in the least surprising that the fiction of Africa often reflects the strife and suffering of a continent that was claimed by force. First, European colonists conquered the inhabitants by virtue of their more sophisticated weapons. Outnumbered by the natives, colonial administrators were pitiless in quelling any sign of rebellion in their territories. Murdering or jailing dissidents with impunity, they employed torture and public executions to demonstrate the power of the rulers and create a climate of fear. The message they sent to those they ruled was: “You have no rights.” Then they sometimes went to war with other Europeans in order to gain additional land or to maintain the territory they had acquired, especially when the land was fertile or the natural resources were valuable. Unfortunately, the departure of the colonists and the arrival of national independence often did not bring an end to the rule of tyrants or improve the political and economic circumstances of millions of “citizens.”

Threaded throughout this land of vast contrasts and seemingly intractable problems are the universal relationships between wives and husbands, parents and children, sisters and brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, often made more difficult and intense by the transitions occasioned by the modern world. The rules and customs that have been entrenched and honored for generations are questioned or disregarded by some young people, especially those who have left their families and traditional homes and moved to the cities. In the urban environment, the desire for clothes and cars engulfs people who never had an opportunity to acquire such material goods at home. Living among strangers who know nothing about them, they're faced with competition to achieve status based on apparent wealth or good looks, rather than traditional skills such as hunting, fishing, raising cattle or cooking. Without a familial home for entertaining or the usual communal opportunities for making friends or meeting possible dates, the uprooted young people are often attracted to bars and clubs, as reflected in several of the stories here.

The Lives of Women

Stories such as Doreen Baingana's “First Kiss,” Leila Aboulela's “The Museum,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's “A Private Experience,” Ama Ata Aidoo's “Two Sisters,” and Ngugi wa Thiong'o's “Minutes of Glory” explore the lives of women in very different circumstances. Baingana's “First Kiss” captures the poignant inner life of fourteen-year-old Ugandan Christine. The tyrant Idi Amin departed many years earlier, but the new rulers have merely presided over crumbling buildings and roads. Unexpectedly, Christine is to be allowed to accompany her two older sisters to a party. She will borrow a pair of high heels, have her hair hot-combed, struggle into a tight pantsuit, and wear makeup. An avid reader of romantic novels depicting spirited heroines, she will now drink whiskey for the first time and dance with Nicholas, an attractive eighteen-year-old. From an affluent family, she belongs to a community that carefully differentiates itself from the poor village women who toil around them. She is expected to “Study hard, speak English well, get into one of the few good high schools, go to college.” Adult life stretches out before her—different, challenging, and exciting.

In Aboulela's “The Museum,” Shadia, a twenty-five-year-old graduate student from Sudan, is studying in Scotland for a master's degree in mathematics. She is practiced in pleasing others, has learned to be agreeable, to tell people what they want to hear. With Bryan, her Scots classmate, she realizes that she could stop playing this role and be herself rather than marry her fiancé, Fareed, a wealthy, materialistic sexist who dominates her. Bryan, who clearly loves her and wants to please her, does not really understand Shadia or her African roots. It is not his fault that he has the stereotypical images and distorted perspective with which he was raised, but Shadia is horrified by the way imperialism and exploitation are seen as part of the glorious past in Scotland.

In Adichie's “A Private Experience,” two women take shelter in an abandoned shop after a bloody riot has broken out at the central marketplace. One woman, Chika, is an affluent medical student, sophisticated and well traveled. The other, unnamed, is a poor seller of onions, a mother of five children, a devout woman who prays during their time together. The divisions between the two are not only of wealth and education, but Chika is an Igbo Christian and her companion is a Hausa Muslim, members of the very groups engaged in a deadly battle in the streets around them. The bond that is formed as they help and comfort each other is powerful, but it can never be acknowledged or survive in the mad world outside the empty store.

The title characters of Aidoo's “Two Sisters” lead troubled lives for very different reasons. The problems of Mercy, the younger sister, stem from her materialistic and envious nature, while those of Connie, six years older, are rooted in the way her husband treats her. Mercy is a typist in a low-level job whose lover, a member of Parliament, has many wives and girlfriends. His wealth and power—certainly not the man himself—attract Mercy, who is eager to receive his gifts and to live in a government estate house. Connie, who is pregnant with her second child, must sleep with her face to the wall because her husband complains that seeing her stomach before falling asleep “always gave him nightmares.” She suspects him of having affairs but he is dismissive of her questions. Although Connie worries about her sister's crass relationships with inappropriate men and her husband's infidelity, she is powerless to influence the behavior of either of the people she loves.

In “Minutes of Glory,” by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Wanjiru works as a barmaid/prostitute who is not generally popular with the male clients, typically wealthy, politically powerful, and arrogant, who frequent the bar. Just as Wanjiru is an outsider among the more popular prostitutes, her one regular client is an outsider who drives a big truck instead of a European luxury car. But she sees a bond in their parallel experiences to which he is oblivious.

Everyday Life

Several seemingly disparate stories are embedded in detailed descriptions of the characters' daily lives. While the crisis depicted in each is very different—sometimes a trivial event and sometimes a horrifying threat—in each case the problem is dramatized against a vivid pattern of days with characters who know very well (or soon learn) what to expect when they set out from home.

In “Another Day at the Office,” Steve Chimombo dramatizes the routine workday of a government copy typist. Dressed in the expected uniform of a low-level office worker, Chingaipe is very uncomfortable in his tight jacket, baggy pants, shirt and tie, and his badly fitting and well-worn shoes. He is well aware that he is twenty years older than the clerks who are his coworkers, that his typing skills have deteriorated somewhat with the passing of time, that he cannot compete successfully with the white female secretary who works for the highest official in the building. With his love for his wife and children, poverty, isolation at work, lack of status, and fear of the loss of his job, Chingaipe is a figure to inspire sympathy as he struggles to provide for his family and maintain his dignity.

In “Under New Pastoral Management,” Tanure Ojaide provides a glimpse of the religious influence of a highly popular Pentecostal church. The Church of the New Dawn, headed by a charismatic pastor called Evangelist Peter, is housed in an imposing building characterized by impressive architecture, beautiful landscaping, and very comfortable furnishings. Each week the members of the church look forward eagerly to attending Sunday services. Dressed in their finery, they know that they will be energized by the songs and dances in which they regularly participate. Attending church is like going to a weekly festival. The prayers of the congregation, however, are not about cultivating virtue or receiving moral guidance or attaining salvation. Evangelist Peter promises, “Whatever you want God to do for you will come true in the Church of the New Dawn.” Not surprisingly, among the devoted churchgoers are discontented workers who want to become rich, young women who want to find husbands, and wives whose husbands are womanizers or who are having difficulty in conceiving a child.

In “Who Will Stop the Dark?” by Charles Mungoshi, Zakeo is a thirteen-year-old who hates school. He does not do well in his studies but, more important, he is mercilessly bullied by the other boys. Zakeo would rather spend time with his grandfather, who is wise in the ways of hunting and fishing that were once at the center of village life. The old man spends two days with the boy, teaching him how to fish and trap mice, but deep down he knows that his daughter-in-law, whom he dislikes, is right about her son attending school; Zakeo's future depends upon his getting an education in subjects very different from the traditional skills the old man can teach him. If Zakeo continues to cut classes and escape to his loving grandfather, he will master the skills of the past but destroy his future.

In Chinua Achebe's “Civil Peace,” Jonathan Iwegbu, an ex–coal miner, has survived a devastating civil war. Rather than dwell on his losses and the destruction all around him, he is overjoyed to find that the bicycle he had hidden during the war is in working order. Resuming normal life, he and his family are energetic and optimistic in pursuing work to support themselves. He uses the bicycle as a taxi to transport travelers to a paved road. His children pick mangoes and sell them for a few pennies while his wife fries breakfast akara balls to sell to the neighbors. Unfortunately, he lives in a postwar world where thugs and criminals can thrive because law and order have broken down. Rather than becoming despondent, he resigns himself to his situation and accepts the hardships that he experiences on a daily basis.

Interactions

A number of stories depict characters who either meet briefly or live alongside one another because of circumstances, but who are very different in background, education, values, perspectives, ambitions, and economic or social status. They are often of different races, of different religions, from different European nations, grew up in urban or rural environments, and have been transplanted to unfamiliar or uncongenial locations. Some are attempting to adapt to their new circumstances, some to dominate others, and often poverty and hard labor are the challenges they face. In some interactions, characters try to exploit or take advantage of another whom they perceive as weaker or lacking in power or status.

In Nadine Gordimer's “Inkalamu's Place,” a first-person narrator who has not lived in Africa for many years revisits a grand house she had known as a child, when she accompanied her father to visit a pretentious Englishman who had sired children by his several native wives. He gloried in a privileged status he would never have achieved in England, and the narrator recalls him giving her candy while his own children stood watching, empty-handed, in the background. As she notes the ways in which the abandoned house is decaying and being destroyed by the elements, she is quite pleased to see the deterioration of this symbol of the old order.

Abdulrazak Gurnah's “Cages” depicts the life of an isolated, poor clerk in a grocery shop. Hamid's world has so contracted that he hardly ever leaves the shop and would have no destination if he did. The appearance one day of a new customer, an attractive young girl, fills him with longing. Hamid idealizes her as a girl who must be courted with songs and acts of courage, but with a few teasing remarks, she will dramatically disillusion this lonely and sad young man.