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MARINA MAXWELL goes exploring south of the Sahara in search of that elusive
Any novelist of either sex with ambitions of writing an African equivalent of Gone with
the Wind would be well advised to read first the satirical yet brutally honest article by
the Kenyan writer, Binyavanga Wainana - How (not) to write about Africai - in which
he draws attention to the many sins that authors commit when it comes to Africa. He
religions and cultures, there are “900 million people who are too busy starving and
If this doesn’t make you see sense, then it is most likely that you intend targeting a
Western readership that stubbornly refuses to see Africa in anything but stereotypes
and clichés, and this can provide numerous challenges for the female author in
particular.
The best-known African historical novels tend to dominate in two opposing camps:
The first camp is pure non-pc escapism featuring hunting, shooting, and bodice-
ripping. Lead characters are male; typically a white soldier of fortune and his loyal
black companion. Together, they tackle rogue elephants and evil witchdoctors with
equal gusto. Their women are fantasy figures who need rescuing on a regular basis.
This has been long been the exclusive domain of male writers from H. Rider Haggard
through to Wilbur Smith. Critics despise them as much as millions of readers love them.
A small but determined band of female authors has been brave enough to enter this
derring-do and steaming-sex arena and throw down the gauntlet. One is Karen Mercury
with her over-the-top romps about little-known events and eras in places like Abyssinia and
Quarters of the World and The Strangely Wonderful Tale of Count Balashazy.
A more restrained trailblazer is Suzanne Arruda with her series of historical mystery novels
set in the 20th century colonial period and featuring a female sleuth, Jade del Cameron, a
sort of Annie Oakley meets Beryl Markham and Miss Marple, and who ventures into
situations that even Indiana Jones would think twice about. Her titles include The
Leopard’s Prey, Stalking Ivory, The Serpent’s Daughter and Mark of the Lion.
But this is still dangerous and uncharted country for female writers. Publishers and agents
– maybe even readers themselves – seem to find something unsettling about women
writing in explicit or gung-ho fashion about this most macho of continents. It’s still possible
that in order to attract a male audience, the poor female author can suffer a sex change
The second camp is populated by an intellectual elite that gathers gushing reviews and
impressive awards. This work contains often dense or thought-provoking prose concerned
with the socio-political, moral and racial issues of the pre- or post-colonial turmoils of the
20th century. Writers include much-lauded stalwarts such as the Nobel Prize winners,
J.M.Coetzee and Wole Soyinka. These novels make critics salivate and book groups
sweat.
Women authors abound in this second camp perhaps because the public finds it more
acceptable for them to be beacons of conscience and apologia for Africa’s torment, and
especially all the bad things whites (mostly men) did to the blacks. When apartheid was
tightening its grip in South Africa, a number of male author-activists purposely hid behind
Doris Lessing and Nadine Gordimer are also Nobel Prize laureates with African
continent is its contemporary literature quite as much defined or inspired by what has
happened in its past. As Wainana slyly suggests: “Establish early on that your liberalism is
impeccable ... whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that
It is in the middle ground between these two highly visible camps that a wide variety of
books with intriguing African historical settings, and written by women, are to be found.
First, it is impossible to avoid the ever-expanding list of titles that are classified as non-
fiction but often contain swathes of spoken dialogue or subjective facts and which, it might
be argued, are really forms of historical fiction. These include auto-biographies by black or
mixed race women who endured apartheid or were refugees or victims of cruel cultural
practices, as well as “tell-all” or “misery” memoirs by white expatriates who are either
suffering from late onset guilt about having been raised in a racist society or just have axes
to grind over their dysfunctional upbringings. With rare exceptions – the charming Twenty
Chickens for a Saddle by Robyn Scott being one – it seems there is no current market for
stories about happy African childhoods. Famous classics of this type still in print include
Elspeth Huxley’s Flame Trees of Thika and Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen.vi
Despite some recent controversy as whether or not readers can tell, or even care, if writers
have actually experienced the places they are writing about vii, credibility in novels about
Africa can best be achieved if an author has the relevant background or personal
experience. In the past, people like Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan) may have been able
to get away with never having visited Africa, but most modern readers are more discerning
and do recognise the connection that only comes from an individual’s unique experience of
place. For all of Wilbur Smith’s bravado style, much of his success also lies in the fact that
his deep insight into Africa’s condition and history adds a certain gravitas to his novels.
The popular “missionary” novel appears every decade or so. Its characters always have
both literal and metaphorical crosses to bear, and the women are often subservient to a
crusading dominant male. Gloria Keverne used this theme in her Quaker epic A Man
Cannot Cry, which took place in Northern Rhodesia in 1950s-1960s. In the same
timeframe, Barbara Kingsolver’s hugely successful Poisonwood Bible placed her long-
suffering womenfolk across the border in a mission in the Belgian Congo. More recently,
Shelly Leanne, an African-American writer, has taken a fresh approach with black
missionary endeavours among the Xhosa of South Africa in her award-winning Joshua’s
Bible.viii
Sagas in general seem to have gone out of fashion. No female author has attempted the
epic scale of James Mitchener’s The Covenant or a major series featuring specific
families, such as Smith’s Courtneys and Ballantynes. In the 1980s-1990s, sweeping British
Imperial romances with Boer War settings came from authors such as Caroline Harvey
(Joanna Trollope)ix and Emma Drummond (Elizabeth Darrell)x but are now rare. It is also
close to twenty years since Luanshya Greer produced her windy duo of novels that
included forbidden love across the racial boundaries and were described as a
“breathtaking panorama of the richness, tragedy, and vital heart of 19 th century South
Africa”. They were Reap the Whirlwind and Shadows in the Wind and, sure enough, were
Yet even if there are 900 million Africans who are disinterested in sagas of this type, surely
there is scope for fresh voices and ways of telling generational stories that might appeal to
a Western readership? Aside from the complexities inherent in international rights, it could
be that publishers see such works as difficult to sell and not appealing to a readership that
Female saga authors may also see hurdles in making their writing authentic as well as
acceptable to contemporary readers who might have little tolerance for the racism,
injustice and cruelty that permeates so much of Africa’s history. While that previously
controversial topic of cross-racial sex or romance may not have the impact it once did,
some writers may feel they have new cultural sensitivities to consider as to race. Even
Smith himself is on record as saying that as a white male writer he has become an
anachronism, that he would no longer feel confident writing the same plots as he did early
in his career.xii
Hope lies in writers emerging from the more progressive countries, such as Praba
Moodley, a South African of Indian descent. Her The Heart Knows No Colour is a multi-
generational family saga with acute observations about the economic and cultural
struggles of Indians in South Africa a century ago. While it has the inevitable forbidden
love affair, it also delves into lesser-known class differences in a rapidly changing social
landscape. Her second novel A Scent So Sweet takes place in 1920s Durban and is
Then there is the “slavery” novel to consider, although this is not always about Africa itself,
rather about events subsequent to the slaves’ removal across the sea to America or
elsewhere. A spread of international writers have explored this genre, including the grande
dame of Caribbean literature, Marysé Conde from Guadeloupe, who always has the
African continent lingering in the background of her fantastical tales. Karen King-Aribisala,
born in Guyana and now resident in Nigeria, won the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
Best Book Award, Africa Region, for The Hangman’s Game, based on the 1823 Demerara
Slave Rebellion and the fate of an English missionary who is condemned to hang for his
South African writers are increasingly using the theme of slavery during the 17 th century
reign of the Dutch East India Company in the Cape. Notable novels include Trudie Bloem’s
Krotoa-Eva, The Woman from Robben Island and Unconfessed by Yvette Christiansë
which was a 2006 PEN/Hemingway Award finalist and has been described as “a work that
deserves a place beside such classics as Toni Morrison’s Beloved.”xiii Therese Benadé’s
The Kites of Good Fortune likewise tells a story about the daughter of a slave in the
household of Cape Town’s founder, Jan van Riebeeck, and who achieves social and
material success in spite of her background. A trilogy by Rayda Jacobs extends across
three centuries of life in the Cape. Eyes of the Sky and The Slave Book recount the
interaction of a family of Dutch settlers with the indigenous people, and Sachs Street is set
in the historic Bo-Kaap (formerly the Malay Quarter) of contemporary Cape Town with
flashbacks to the 1950s. Another of that country’s most popular writers, the late Dalene
Matthee, also tackled similar themes. Two of her books were made into films and her last,
Driftwood , explores ideas of displacement and identity in the early 20 th century. She wrote
mainly in Afrikaans, but may have inherited some of her talent from her famous British
Other different perspectives on that country’s history can be found in Frankie and Stankie
by Barbara Trapido, about two girls growing up in the 1950s when racial laws are
tightening, and in novels by Pamela Jooste, such as Star of the Morning, and who writes
about “ordinary people living small lives against the background of political change.” xiv In
Manly Pursuits, Ann Harries delves into the bizarre with her story about the misogynistic
empire-builder Cecil Rhodes’ last days and his desire to die listening to English birdsong.
Her aptly-titled No Place for a Lady brings to light the campaign of Emily Hobhouse
against the brutal British concentration camps of the Boer War established by that other
But this now leads to the obvious question: where – or what – is the quintessential African
historical novel written by a black woman? In recent years, there has been a popular surge
in ethnic novels from Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, yet international bestsellers
written by sub-Saharan black Africans of either gender are still comparatively rare.
It comes down in part to the differences in approach, content and style between
indigenous writers and those who have had exposure to Western forms of culture and
literature. The Western view of Africa’s history has been shaped primarily by the written
text based on the personal and official records of explorers, missionaries, traders and
colonisers and, in more recent times, journalists or television reporters. On the other hand,
many Africans interpret their history quite differently in ancient oral traditions and through
their folklore, music and art, which results in an allegorical view of the past that manifests
in their novels in a style akin to magic realism or in an imaginative poetic form that does
not translate easily into the type of narrative page-turner that a popular readership
demands. African women also have further obstacles in male-dominated cultures that hold
suspect any female rising above her traditional role in society. It seems that a privileged
background and/or an education in the West is still imperative if an African female author
Kenya has one of the longer traditions of novel-writing by women. In the 1960s, Grace
Ogot was the first to claim international attention with The Promised Land, a story of
people migrating across great distances in search of fertile land and wealth. Three
decades on, Margaret Ogola wrote about the changes in the lives of several generations of
Kenyan women in The River and the Source. “Ogola’s text seeks to project Kenyan
women as capable of not only telling their own stories but also of claiming their rightful
It wasn’t until the late 1980s that the first novels by black Zimbabwean women were
published. One ground-breaking historical title was Nehanda by the late Yvonne Vera,
about the female oracle who inspired the first rebellion against the 19 th century colonisers
of Rhodesia. In exile, Vera also had much to say about the oppression of women in her
homeland. “I am against silence, the books I write try to undo the silent posture African
xvi
women have endured over so many decades.”
Short-listed for the First Novel Costa Award in 2007, Cloth Girl by Ghanaian-Swiss Marilyn
Heward Mills is about two women, one black, one white, in 1940s pre-independence
Ghana. Also in 2007, a major breakthrough was achieved by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
of Nigeria with Half of a Yellow Sun set in the Biafran war of the 1960s and which won the
Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. In spite of her success, Adichie too has to fight both
stubborn African male attitudes about what women are allowed to do at all – let alone write
– as well as Western misconceptions. “Africa is seen as the place where the Westerner
goes to sort out his morality issues. We see it in films and in lots of books about Africa, and
So, to return to a lighter note, if you are still determined to produce a camp one
blockbuster that stays close to historical truth, you must accept the fact that men will have
the juicy leading roles. While there is fantasy fodder in mythical warrior princesses or
legendary figures such as “The Rain Queen”, the archival record on real women is thin and
it could be a challenge to make your historical females believable. You will also be
hampered in the knowledge that your readers will expect to be taken on at least one safari
and to experience the beauties and the inherent terrors and dangers of Africa, as well as
numerous wild animals and even wilder humans. Publication can’t be guaranteed without
However, if you decide you are far too superior a writer and so belong in the intellectual
academic. Knowing what it is like to be imprisoned and tortured could be useful. Such
novels, as Wainana cuttingly concludes, should “Always end with Nelson Mandela saying
In such a general overview, it is impossible to include all published female authors of sub-
Saharan historical fiction, and particularly those whose works are not available in English,
but many deserve a much wider readership. What is most exciting, is the growing number
of these women who are defying their cultural traditions and leading the way in bringing to
light fascinating stories from the little-known histories of their fifty-four countries. Ultimately,
it is they who are likely to do the most to eliminate many of the stereotypes and clichés we
Marina Maxwell learned her letters in the same bush infant school as did Wilbur Smith.
She wrote Land of the Long Grass with all clichés intact before discovering she had
strayed into territory that is deadly for lady authors. She refuses to be defeated and is
currently working on a new project set in the no-go zone. Readers will be relieved to know
that she had a happy childhood so they are quite safe on the memoirs score.
i Granta, Issue No. 92, Winter, 2005. The View from Africa
ii Ibid.
iii The publishers of my own adventure novel, Land of the Long Grass (Covos Day, Johannesburg, 2000) were so paranoid
about this that they made sure that no biographical reference to the author appeared anywhere within the book and that
only M. Maxwell was shown on the cover.
iv http://siphiwomahala.book.co.za/blog/2008/08/05/black-south-african-women-novelists/
v Granta. Ibid.
vi Or Karen Blixen – another author with identity problems created by Africa.
vii See Solander November, 2008, also “Can you think of a great novel that takes place where the author has never been?”
Marcel Berlins, The Guardian, 14 February 2007
viii 2004 Fiction Honor Book Award, Black Caucus of the American Library Association.
ix The Steps of the Sun, Hutchison,1983
x The Knightshill Saga, St Martin's Press, 1992-1996
xi Cover, first paperback edition, Sheridan Books, 1995, London.
xii Solander, May 2005
xiii Library Journal, October 1, 2006, Barbara Hoffert & Ann Burns
xivA Special Profile on South Africa's Women Writers, Alex Smith, Dec-Jan 2008, www.african-writing.com
xv Tom Odhiambo, African Identities, Volume 4, October 2006 , p 235 - 250
xvi The IWH Inquirer. Http://iwh-about.blogspot.com
xvii Interview with Stephen Moss, The Guardian, June 8, 2007
xviiiGranta. Ibid.