Many African countries are caught up in perennial or recurrent
political conflicts that often culminate in devastating wars. These
flaring conflicts and wars create harrowing economic hardships,
dire refugee problems, and sustain a sense of despair in such
countries. By their nature, these conflicts and wars affect writers
in profound and sometimes paradoxical ways. On the one hand,
literature-whether fiction, poetry, drama, or even memoirs-is
animated by conflict. On the other hand, the sense of dislocation
as well as the humanitarian crises unleashed by wars and other
kinds of conflicts also constitute grave impediments to artistic
exploration and literary expression. Writers and artists are
frequently in the frontline of resistance to the kinds of
injustices and abuses that precipitate wars and conflicts.
Consequently, they are often detained, exiled, and even killed
either by agents of state terror or by one faction or another in
the tussle for state control. Writers, Writing Conflicts and Wars
in Africa is a collection of testimonies by various writers and
scholars who have experienced, or explored, the continent's
conflicts and woes, including how the disruptions shape artistic
and literary production. The book is divided into two broad
categories: in one, several writers speak directly, and with rich
anecdotal details about the impact wars and conflicts have had in
the formation of their experience and work; in the second, a number
of scholars articulate how particular writers have assimilated the
horrors of wars and conflicts in their literary creations. The
result is an invaluable harvest of reflections and perspectives
that open the window into an essential, but until now sadly
unexplored, facet of the cultural and political experience of
African writers. The broad scope of this collection-covering
Darfur, the Congolese crisis, Biafra, Zimbabwe, South Africa, among
others-is complemented by a certain buoyancy of spirit that runs
through most of the essays and anecdotes. _______________________ *
Okey Ndibe teaches fiction and literature at Trinity College in
Hartford, Connecticut. He has also taught at Connecticut College in
New London, Connecticut as well as Simon's Rock College in Great
Barrington, Massachusetts. He was for one year on the editorial
board of the Hartford Courant and, from 2001-2002, was a Fulbright
professor at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. * Chenjerai Hove is
an award-winning Zimbabwean novelist, poet, essayist and journalist
whose work has been translated into numerous languages. Educated in
Zimbabwe and South Africa, Hove's publications include the novels
Bones (winner of the prestigious Noma Award, Baobab Books, Harare,
and Heinemann, England, 1988), Shadows (Baobab and Heinemann,
1988), and Ancestors (Macmillan/Picador, England, 1996); such
poetry collections as Up In Arms (Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1982),
Blind Moon (Weaver Press, Harare, 2003), and Red Hills of Home
(Mambo Press, Gweru, 1984). He is also the author of the collection
of essays Shebeen Tales (Baobab Books, Harare, and Serif, London,
1994). Hove, who has published several volumes in his indigenous
language of Shona, has worked as a columnist, translator, editor
and lecturer in Zimbabwe and numerous other countries. Currently on
exile in Norway, he has lived and taught in Kenya, the Netherlands,
Germany, England, Switzerland, France, and the United States. He
recently completed the translation of Shakespeare's King Lear into
Shona.
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