AFRICA NOVEL CHALLENGE MAY 2023 - NOBEL WINNERS

"AFRICAN" NOBEL WINNERS 1/2



Claude Simon (born in Madagascar)
Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
Albert Camus (born in Algeria)
Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt)

"AFRICAN" NOBEL WINNERS 2/2



Nadine Gordimer (South Africa)
JMG Le Clezio (Mauritius)
JM Coetzee (South Africa)
Abdulrazak Gurnah (Tanzania)

Some will feel that Camus, Le Clezio and Simon are in reality French authors - I don't dispute that but the fact of Camus' and Simon's births are also irrefutable. Camus' major work is set in Algeria not France.
Le Clezio is a citizen of Mauritius.

I want to read something by Soyinka this month as a minimum.

Just reread l’Etranger as a prequel to Meursault, contre-enquête so I am ahead of the game, for once. Apropos of whether Camus qualifies as a French or an Algerian writer, the thesis of the latter novel could be taken to be that coloniser and colonised live in two different countries, but I think that would be a reductive reading. One could say the same about rich and poor, or men and women. But I plan to hedge my bets by reading a second novel in The Cairo Trilogy as well.

>4 booksaplenty1949: I am adverse to setting rules and believe that if you consider them an African novelist then who am I to question you. Undoubtedly Camus and Simon could claim citizenship based on their birth and their perspective is unique if not typically African (whatever that may be).

We are on dangerous ground in calling out writers like Camus or even Gordimer and Coetzee as not being truly African authors based on skin colour and antecedents as that would disqualify 98% of American authors being considered American.

That said I do feel it was quite a shameful oversight that Chinua Achebe who was by far and a way the most influential novelist from the continent in the Post War period, was not awarded the Prize.

>5 PaulCranswick: I don’t have much use for prizes in general and the Nobel Prize in particular (Pearl Buck?—-and she’s the B-list writer we’ve actually heard of) but it’s certainly the one that gets the press every year, so it’s disappointing that Achebe was passed over, although he is in good company (Chekhov, Conrad, Ibsen, Joyce).
Apropos of “nationality” I would hold that personal experience is key, not some abstract idea of indigeneity, which is basically a myth. I gather we all came from Africa, originally.

The Stranger by Albert Camus, translated by Matthew Ward

*shrugs* It's okay, but I think it would have been better at half the length.

This past must address its present: The 1986 Nobel lecture by Wole Soyinka

Change a few of the names and it could have been written yesterday. Still depressingly relevant.

>6 booksaplenty1949: You could add Tolstoy, James, Twain, Zola, Auden, Woolf, Strindberg and Frost to that list too.

I intend to read Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, the latest novel by Wole Soyinka, for this month's challenge, although I probably won't get to it until June or July.

ETA: I'll almost certainly read at least one novel by Abdulrazak Gurnah that I haven't gotten to yet, namely Dottie, Gravel Heart, or Pilgrims Way, but that will also not happen this month.

I have unread books by Gurnah, Mahfouz, Le Clezio, and Coetzee on my shelves. Where to begin?

My choices are between Coetzee, Lessing, and Mahfouz.

I have Palace Walk on my shelves (somewhere!) so, I'll start with that.

>2 PaulCranswick: I loved Gurnah's by the sea that i read last year. Would like to read another of his; suggestions?

also curious about Camus thought The Myth of Sisyphus might be interesting to read

>13 cindydavid4: I liked his book Paradise when I read it a while ago, Cindy.

I won't get to Camus this month but I do want to read that one soon as well as The Rebel.

>13 cindydavid4: I read all of Camus when I was in high school and Existentialism seemed cool. Not sure what I made of it all. La peste got a lot of renewed attention during the recent pandemic, for obvious reasons. And I certainly enjoyed, if that’s the word, revisiting l’Etranger for this Challenge, as a prequel to Kamel Daoud novel I mentioned earlier. A brilliant meditation on the Algerian colonial experience which is predictably completely opaque to the narrator of l’Etranger. I gather Camus’ own views were not what we would call progressive on this subject https://jacobin.com/2020/10/colonialism-albert-camus-france-algeria-sartre

I just checked Ake: The Years of Childhood out of the library to read this month.

I have Boyhood by J. M. Coetzee and The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer on my shelves. Does anyone have an opinion on which one I should choose?

Paul, what about Doris Lessing?
I was a huge Lessing fan in college, and was thinking of using this as an opportunity to reread A Proper Marriage, and see how it lands now. But I think I also have an unread Coetzee on the shelves.

>17 RidgewayGirl:. I think either would be good, but voting for the Gordimer, so as to include a woman's perspBut

ETA-- I did read Boyhood and just looked at my review and it was middling, I think memoirs about childhood are not my favorite.

>16 cbl_tn: that one looks very interesting to me, might just do this one, might be easier than Camus!

>15 booksaplenty1949: thanks; I started it and yeah I think I read this in HS but forgot about. might look for something else

Now reading ake'

I ended up reading The Childhood of Jesus by Coetzee, as it was on my TBR shelf. So yay for getting the TBR inventory down by one. This wasn't a favorite read for me, just too much allegory and not sure I understood it. Some things to think about, regarding immigration and what it means to make a new life. I did really like Disgrace so not put off on Coetzee.

I am ever so glad to be quit of Palace Walk. Before it got political it was bad enough with the entirely selfish bullies al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad and his otherwise wimpy oldest son Yasin, whose interests are entirely within the reach of their body parts and the women of the household who seem to have no interests at all. And the politics didn't show anyone in a good light. As much as the older men are absorbed in physical passions, the younger son Fahmy is absorbed in idealistic ones, first romantic and then political, while the youngest boy is already embarked on heedless ego gratification.

>23 quondame: So glad someone else hated that book! Well, mostly I hated the patriarch, and that was years ago so I don’t remember anything else. But I never picked up another book by Mahfouz, and I never intend to.

>24 FlorenceArt: Oh my. I cannot disagree with your assessment of the men in the novel, but if we restrict ourselves to novels with protagonists we can admire we will certainly free up many yards of shelf space, especially if we apply 21st C Western standards. Don’t get me started on David Copperfield and Dora. I think the more important question is what the author thinks of them, and whether we are invited to accept these men uncritically or see them as products of a place and time that is under the author’s examination. The evolution of Kamal, the youngest boy, from “heedless ego gratification” to a man in search of meaning beyond traditional Egyptian society is presumably the focus of the trilogy. We have to see where he comes from to appreciate his journey.

>7 amanda4242: I think Camus' The Plague is much better. I re-read it just after the lockdown started for COVID, and was surprised at how relevant it was.

>25 booksaplenty1949: I agree that Mahfouz is deliberately showing us unlikable characters, and if Kamal does show real development then that's important. However, in this volume none of the characters were interesting which is very different from being agreeable to read about. Nor was there much in the way of what is "show don't tell". We are told that al-Sayyid Ahmad is witty, the life of the party, but I think there is 1 humorous remark by him in the entire text. I find the reverent affection for him by his wife and children not at all convincing - Stockholm syndrome maybe, but while I quite know that a loudly angry, sometimes violent parent can also inspire admiring affection, it's a considerably more fraught affection than Mahfouz has presented.

>27 quondame: For Kamal, at least, love for his father “remained a hidden jewel, locked up inside him by fear and terror,” (chapter 8). I see lots of similar ambivalence towards the father in the whole family. I think we are meant to see al-Sayid Ahmad as an outsize, all-powerful patriarch of almost Freudian dimensions, a theme which ties into the political as well as the personal plot. I agree that we have to take his “life of the party” side as a given, although I’m not sure his jokes would have survived translation, culturally or linguistically.

Very interesting discussion about Palace Walk! I'm reminded that many people do need a character they can sympathize with. Personally, I was taken by the vivid depictions of a culture I know far too little about and I saw indications from the author that he was not a cheerleader for the complex and arguably unpleasant patriarch, or for the oldest son. I'm eager to read the next book, Palace of Desire.

>28 booksaplenty1949: It seems you were convinced. I was not, nor was I left with anything but dismay to have the negative stereotypes of Islamic men I grew up with confirmed (unfortunately again) by a Islamic author. Not just that the characters are shallow or disagreeable, but which characters the author gives words on the page - Maryam's mother's name is given once in the entire text and Khadija and Aisha's life after they marry is only seen from Kamal's viewpoint, which at the time is intentionally and carefully blinkered.
And as to the clearing of my bookshelves with regard to the 20th (not as much 21st) century's unpleasant characters, I consider it a real benefit. All those unpleasant men having affairs and whining about 1st world problems that were the darlings of literary circles for decades are so not my thing.
I'm off to enjoy a mystery set in the SW with men who can come to amiable accommodation with the very capable women in their lives and to enjoy reading about an author whose wit has delighted me for decades who created scores of difficult and interesting characters and creatures.

>23 quondame:. I bailed on Palace Walk earlier this year, for similar reasons. I may give it another try, but found the characters stereotypical and stilted, and the story pretty boring. Honestly, I was more bothered by the wife's cheerful subservience than by the husband's unpleasantness.

I think there are plenty of Islamic authors who have a more nuanced view. Earlier this year I read Gurnah's By The Sea and really liked it, as an example.

>31 banjo123: I had a similar reaction to Amina's adjustment to her husband, and might have been OK with that as the author's choice had he provided her with any way to express some personality, although since none of the women characters have yet shown more that a single facet that may have been beyond Mahfouz's capabilities when he wrote this.

>Yeah I never finished it either. Kept trying because so many said it was great, just couldnt do it. I also love Gurnah; his by the sea and paradise were excellent

>26 ocgreg34: I have The Plague on my shelves and do hope to get to it before the end of the year.

Map Reading: The Nobel Lecture and Other Writings by Abdulrazak Gurnah

I enjoyed it while reading, but it didn't leave much of an impression.

The African by J. M. G. Le Clézio, translated by C. Dickson

Interesting reminiscences of Le Clézio's father and a childhood spent largely away from other white colonists. Not brilliant, but a decent read.

The Late Bourgeois World by Nadine Gordimer

Not nearly as radical as she thinks it is.

The Mummy Awakens by Naguib Mahfouz, translated by Raymond Stock

An ancient mummy is awakened and castigates modern Egyptians. Pretty good story that makes me want to track down the collection from which it is taken.

Prisons We Choose to Live Inside by Doris Lessing

Not nearly as insightful or intelligent as she thinks it is.

The Trolley by Claude Simon, translated by Richard Howard



Currently reading Waiting for the Barbarians, which is shaping up to be the highlight of this month's ANC reading for me.

>32 quondame: I am a few chapters into Palace of Desire, the second vol in The Cairo Trilogy, and the focus has switched to the next generation of the Jahwad family. Subtle shifts are evident in the patriarchal power structure that seemed unquestioned in Palace Walk. I assume these will mirror the end of British dominance in Egypt.

Finally after years of putting it off, I finished things fall apart Not sure why I was avoiding it, because it really was stunning . The author focuses on the life of the tribe before the white man, and shows violence and war between clans but also focuses on the traditions that keep it togetheer..Its not till the end that the white man comes and causes major upheveal in the lives and traditions. This book describes the inhumanity of the colonial system in general and the damage it has done to the cultures it touched, the ripple effects still evident today.

I didn't realize this was a trilogy; is it recommended that I read the other two books?

>37 cindydavid4:. Yes, I would recommend reading all 3, especially since you liked this one so much.

thx

I read The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. British author, born in Iran, lived with family in Rhodesia. Considered British-Zimbabwean. In the Golden Notebook, there are 4 notebooks; Red (Communism), Black (Africa), Yellow, (Love Affairs) and Blue (memories, dreams, emotions)

june thread pls

>42 cindydavid4: and etc

https://www.librarything.com/topic/351192

Here it is. Let's go safari!

My copy of A Grain of Wheat, by Kenyan author Ngūgi wa Thiong’o, has only been in my library unread since 2012, while many of its shelfmates have been waiting since last century to get off the “To read” list, but still I am happy to have a compelling reason to pick it up.

Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee

Life in a remote outpost of an unnamed empire goes to hell when an officer comes to put down an uprising that probably didn't exist before he showed up. Truly excellent writing.

Oh, and skip the movie.

>45 amanda4242: Amanda, I liked this one too when I read it.

Finished Palace of Desire. Not as broad in scope as Palace Walk, the first novel in The Cairo Trilogy but interesting for me because of its considerable use of inner dialogue on the part of the male characters. I guess I am not used to men in novels being so in touch with their feelings and articulating them so precisely, especially when they involve relationships almost exclusively. I assume that Egypt is on the brink of political change at this point, but in the world of this novel all of that is distant and irrelevant—-like the Napoleonic Wars in Jane Austen. The son’s loss of religious faith came quite abruptly and I assume foreshadows further development in the last novel of the trilogy.

>31 banjo123: As I have mentioned in my comment on Palace of Desire, the next novel in the trilogy, I think that the expression of conservative Islamic belief which we see in Palace Walk is meant to prepare us for what happens to the next generation and relationships between men and women as those customs start to erode.

>48 booksaplenty1949:. Maybe I will try something else by Mahfouz. I am not sure that I can get through the whole of Palace Walk, under the promise that the next book in the trilogy will be more to my taste.

>49 banjo123: If you were stranded on a desert island and The Cairo Trilogy washed ashore, that would be one thing. But you have plenty of alternatives. Always interested to see how serious readers can have very different responses to the same book.