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NO PLACE FOR NERVOUS LADIES

(first published in “Solander” Spring 2009)

MARINA MAXWELL goes exploring south of the Sahara in search of that elusive

creature, the female author of the popular African historical novel

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

also warns that in a continent with fifty-four countries, hundreds of languages,

religions and cultures, there are “900 million people who are too busy starving and

dying and warring and emigrating to read your book.” ii

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:

either the blockbuster airport variety or the literary prize-winning variety.

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

Madagascar. Her historically well-researched novels include The Hinterlands, Four

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

and/or forced anonymity before getting such a book published. iii

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

female nom-de-plumes in order to express themselves through their literature. iv

Doris Lessing and Nadine Gordimer are also Nobel Prize laureates with African

backgrounds and long careers as beacon-lighters, but neither is considered primarily a

historical novelist. Although it is an interesting observation that perhaps in no other

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

without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.” v

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

promoted as: “The Gone with the Wind of South Africa”.xi

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

finds the whole notion of Africa disturbing or unpalatable.

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

steeped in the rich imagery of Indian traditional dance and mythology.

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

alleged part in the uprising.

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

ancestor, Sir Walter Scott.

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

famous misogynist, Lord Kitchener.

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

wishes to get noticed and published internationally.

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

place and identity in the broader national life.” xv

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

it’s very troubling to me.” xvii

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

some, and preferably all, of these things being featured.

However, if you decide you are far too superior a writer and so belong in the intellectual

second camp, then you need proven credentials as an activist, conservationist or

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

something about renaissances or rainbows. Because you care”. xviii

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

have come to expect from African historical fiction.

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.

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