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WORK TITLE: Ira Aldridge, vol. 4
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1938
WEBSITE:
CITY:
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http://liberalarts.utexas.edu/english/news/article.php?id=3804 * http://liberalarts.utexas.edu/english/faculty/lindfobo * http://liberalarts.utexas.edu/ffiles/lindfobo/mqStnKmX * http://liberalarts.utexas.edu/public-affairs/_files/pdf/life-letters/life_letters_042.pdf
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born March 19, 1938, in Sweden; immigrated to the United States, c. 1940; married Judith Wells (an elementary schoolteacher).
EDUCATION:Educated at Oberlin College, Harvard University, Northwestern University, and University of California, Los Angeles.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Teachers for East Africa, teacher at a boys’ boarding school in Kenya; University of Texas at Austin, professor of English and African literature, beginning 1969, became professor emeritus.
AWARDS:Grant from National Endowment for the Humanities, 1972; Conover-Porter Prize, excellence in Africana bibliography or reference work, 1996; African Studies Association, for Black African Literature in English, 1987-1991; honorary doctorates, University of Umeå, 1989, and University of Natal, 2002; Guggenheim fellow, 2000; Career Research Excellence Award and Distinguished Africanist Award, African Studies Association, both 2000; other awards include Fulbright fellowship and grants from American Library Association, American Philosophical Society, and Social Science Research Council.
WRITINGS
Editor of South African Voices (poems), African and Afro-American Studies and Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, 1975. Contributor to books, including Encounter Images in the Meetings between Africa and Europe, edited by Mai Palmberg, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet (Uppsala, Sweden), 2001, and Canon vs. Culture: Reflections on the Current Debate, edited by Jan Gorak, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 2001. Contributor to academic journals. Founding editor, Research in African Literatures; member of editorial board, Journal of Cultural Studies and World Literature Written in English.
SIDELIGHTS
Bernth Lindfors is widely regarded as a pioneer in the field of African literary research. For nearly fifty years he has drawn attention to the work of black African authors from every part of the continent. Lindfors was born in Sweden, not far from the Arctic Circle, and raised in New York and New England. It was not until the 1950s, under the auspices of Teachers for East Africa, that he was exposed to the rapidly growing body of postcolonial African literature in English. After two years in Kenya, Lindfors returned to the United States to pursue a doctorate in the field. He then devoted his career to popularizing the work of African authors by every means available.
Lindfors joined the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 1969 and remained there for the duration of his career. He welcomed a steady stream of African writers to the university, beginning with Chinua Achebe in 1969. He promoted the recruitment of African students to a new graduate program in ethnic and Third World literatures. Lindfors created the journal Research in African Literatures in 1970, editing it for nearly twenty years and shaping it into an internationally respected forum.
An Ambassador for African Literature
Most importantly to some critics, Lindfors made it his mission to track down and collect every obscure scrap of relevant documentation that he could find on African literature in English. By the time of his retirement, his collection included some 12,000 books, hundreds of journals, and uncounted numbers of unpublished manuscripts, audio and visual recordings, and interview transcripts. Lindfors later donated his personal library to the University of Natal.
Lindfors became known for his exhaustive bibliographies, such as Black African Literature in English: A Guide to Information Sources, first published in 1979 and revised regularly ever since. Of the 1992-1996 edition, Ode S. Ogede wrote in the International Fiction Review that this series “has over the past twenty-two years become the most comprehensive reference tool in the search for information on critical discussions of African literature in English.”
The professor also became a prolific author and editor in his own right, with more than fifty titles to his credit. Among Lindfors’s earliest publications are interviews of African authors, several of them conducted at the University of Texas, others carried out during his recurring trips to Africa. Later books covered collected material on specific authors, such as Chinua Achebe or Wole Soyinka, or regions like Nigeria or East Africa. In a review of The Blind Men and the Elephant and Other Essays in Biographical Criticism, Peter Nazareth wrote in World Literature Today: “Bernth Lindfors is an indefatigable sleuth, editor, and scholar of African literature and society. He tracks down material that nobody else notices and demonstrates its importance in accessible language.”
A New Direction
As he neared retirement, Lindfors turned his investigative skills in a different direction. In 2000 he published the essay collection Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show Business. The essays expose the nineteenth-century entrepreneurs who imported African “specimens” to Europe in the name of science, only to exploit them in freak shows, along with the spectators who ridiculed them as less than human and the newspaper cartoonists who turned their images into grotesque caricatures, which far too many readers took at face value. The popularity of the racist exhibitions peaked in midcentury, while abolitionists were campaigning for an end to slavery. By the turn of the century, the perception of Africans abroad was beginning to change, as evidenced by coverage of black African marathon runners in the 1904 Olympic Games. Lindfors identifies one African stage celebrity who played a substantial role in that transformation.
Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius introduces an American classical actor who had to leave home in order to achieve the success he deserved, critics say, and who remains largely unknown today. He arrived in England in 1825 at the age of seventeen, took Europe by storm after 1833, and became known as the “African Roscius,” a complimentary comparison to a celebrated thespian of ancient Rome. The “African” designation was reportedly self-imposed as part of his strategy to challenge audience expectations based on racial stereotypes. Reporting in African American Review, David Krasner called the study “a rewarding book, shedding light not only on the theater but also on race relations during a century fraught with issues of slavery and the attempt to eliminate human bondage.” On a more personal level, Research in African Literatures contributor Martin Banham called the volume “an illuminating study of the trials and triumphs of a remarkable, and courageous, actor.”
Lindfors secured his place as a leading scholar of African theater when he published his four-volume biography, titled simply Ira Aldridge. In his review of the fourth volume in Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, D.B. Wilmeth predicted that the 1,300-plus page work “is destined to become the standard life of Aldridge, without equal in the future.” Lindfors portrays Aldridge as a stellar actor and an admirable human being. He transformed Shakespearean roles with his naturalistic exposition (in contrast to the somewhat histrionic style of the day), his ability to render white roles with great credibility, and his mission to depict villains and the disenfranchised (such as Shylock the Jew of The Merchant of Venice) in a sympathetic light. In both his professional and personal life, Lindfors offers evidence of Albridge’s opposition to slavery and prejudice.
Lindfors “spent decades tracking this elusive actor,” wrote Wilmeth in his Choice review of Volume 1: The Early Years, 1807-1833, “and his research is impressive.” Aldridge had invented a background as the son of a Senegalese prince raised in America, and ambiguities in his memoirs raised other tantalizing questions. In The Early Years, Lindfors discusses Aldridge’s birth and education in New York and his realization that he could never make his mark as a black man on an overwhelmingly white stage. His success in London was modest, however, and a disappointing reception at Covent Garden in 1833 drove him to abandon the city for twenty years.
In Volume 2: The Vagabond Years, 1833-1852, Lindfors follows the actor through Ireland and the provinces, then back to London, where he staged Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus for the first time in more than 100 years, portraying the villain Aaron the Moor as a hero. Volume 3: Performing Shakespeare in Europe, 1852-1855 covers Aldridge’s brief but stunning success on tour across Europe, and Volume 4: The Last Years, 1855-1867 follows him into Eastern Europe and Russia. He performed before royalty and won prestigious foreign awards. Aldridge was negotiating a belated debut in the United States in the aftermath of the Civil War when he died unexpectedly in Poland at the age of sixty.
The critical response to Ira Aldridge was enthusiastic. In her review of the first three volumes, Kate Roark observed in the Theatre History Studies Annual: “Lindfors has crafted a gloriously deep history” of Aldridge’s life; he “excavate[s] the cultural context of the texts he performed, the spaces he performed in, the popular contemporary actors and acting styles, the prevailing politics of slavery/abolition, and racial stereotypes of the various places he performed.” She also pointed out that Lindfors was the first researcher to delve into the actor’s so-called vagabond years. In his Choice review of the third volume, Wilmeth emphasized that “Lindfors quotes virtually every source found.” Matthew Yde concluded in his review of the first two volumes in Research in African Literatures: “Lindfors’s book is a joy to read. Besides capturing Aldridge’s remarkable personality, many other cultural figures come alive as well.” He added, in his review of the final volume, that “Lindfors concludes what will surely remain the definitive biography … for many a decade.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Falola, Toyin, and Barbara Harlow, editors, Palavers of African Literature: Essays in Honor of Bernth Lindfors, Volume 1, Africa World Press (Trenton, NJ), 2002.
Falola, Toyin, and Barbara Harlow, editors, African Writers and Their Readers: Essays in Honor of Bernth Lindfors, Volume 1, Africa World Press (Trenton, NJ), 2002.
PERIODICALS
Africa, spring, 2005, Fiona Johnson Chalamanda, review of Africa Talks Back: Interviews with Anglophone African Authors, p. 256; summer, 2008, Natasha Himmelman, review of Ngugi wa Thiong’o Speaks: Interviews, p. 472.
African Affairs, April, 1997, Stewart Brown, review of Black African Literature in English, 1987-1991, p. 282.
African American Review, spring, 2003, David Krasner, review of Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius, p. 202.
Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, June, 2012, D.B. Wilmeth, review of Ira Aldridge, Volume 1: The Early Years, 1807-1833, and Volume 2: The Vagabond Years, 1833-1852, p. 1885; May, 2015, T.F. DeFrantz, review of Early African Entertainments Abroad: From the Hottentot Venus to Africa’s First Olympians, p. 1510; June, 2016, D.B. Wilmeth, review of Ira Aldridge, Volume 4: The Last Years, 1855-1867, p. 1485.
International Fiction Review, January, 2003, Ode S. Ogede, review of Black African Literature in English, 1992-1996, p. 122.
Modern Drama, winter, 2000, Nadine George-Graves, review of Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show Business, p. 646.
Research in African Literatures, winter, 1996, Ode S. Ogede, review of Comparative Approaches to African Literatures, p. 198; spring, 2000, Craig McLuckie, review of Conversations with Chinua Achebe, p. 181; spring, 2003, David M. Westley, review of Black African Literature in English, 1992-1996, p. 198; fall, 2008, Martin Banham, review of Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius, p. 222; spring, 2012, Simon Lewis, review of The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography, p. 174; fall, 2012, Matthew Yde, review of Ira Aldridge, Volume 1, p. 137; winter, 2014, Matthew Yde, review of Ira Aldridge, Volume 3, p. 153; fall, 2016, Matthew Yde, review of Ira Aldridge, Volume 4, p. 187.
Theatre History Studies Annual, 2016, Kate Roark, review of Ira Aldridge, Volumes 1-3, p. 362.
World Literature Today, autumn, 1995, John Joseph, review of Comparative Approaches to African Literatures, p. 849; winter, 2000, Peter Nazareth, review of The Blind Men and the Elephant and Other Essays in Biographical Criticism, p. 220; April-June, 2003, J. Roger Kurtz, review of Africa Talks Back, p. 83; September-October, 2011, James Currey, review of The Dennis Brutus Tapes, p. 63.
ONLINE
University of Texas College of Liberal Arts Web site, http://liberalarts.utexas.edu/ (June 1, 2017), author profile.
(Bernth Lindfors) data sheet (b. 03-19-38)
Professor Emeritus Bernth Lindfors publishes 'Early East African Writers and Publishers'
Tue, April 26, 2011
Professor Emeritus Bernth Lindfors publishes 'Early East African Writers and Publishers'
About Early East African Writers and Publishers
Focusing on the early careers of notable East African writers such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o, David Maillu and Okot p'Bitek, EARLY EAST AFRICAN WRITERS AND PUBLISHERS is a collection of essays exploring the emergence of East African multilingual literary production in the mid-20th century. Through interviews with the major writers of the region, Professor Lindfors provides rare accounts into the process by which East Africa, once considered the literary desert of the African continent, became central to the creation of a unique literary scene.
Praise about Early East African Writers and Publishers (From the Africa World Press Web site)
“Historical documentation becomes art when it is bold enough to transcend the linearity of time and place by an interacting subject. Bernth Lindfors is such a troubling and participating voice and narrator. His multithematic book Early East African Writers and Publishers combines the abundance of detailed information on the emergence of individual writers such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o, David Maillu, and Okot p'Bitek, the theoretical valuation of East African multilingual literary production coming out of the oral and the popular, and the transitive and interdependent relations of the writer, the translator, the publisher and the readership. Lindfors' writing of East Africa of 1950-1980 is a personal and critical account of great relevance, down to the charms of his style and the inquisitiveness of his engagement.”
—Raoul J. Granqvist
Professor Emeritus, Umeå University
“Bernth Lindfors has long been recognized as one of the pioneers of African literary history and criticism and as the essays in this collection exemplify, he is also the chief archivist of African literary culture. These essays provide readers with an important vista into East African literature at its moment of inception in the 1960s and its flowering in the 1970s. Through rare interviews with the major writers of the region and their publishers, Professor Lindfors provides rare accounts into the process by which East Africa, once considered to be the literary desert of the African continent, became central to the creation of the most unique multilingual literature of the modern period.”
—Simon Gikandi
Robert Schirmer Professor of English, Princeton University
About the Author
Bernth Lindfors, Professor Emeritus of English and African Literatures at The University of Texas at Austin, is the author and editor of numerous books on African literatures, the latest being Early Soyinka (AWP, 2008) Early Achebe (AWP, 2009) and Early West African Writers (AWP, 2010).
Bernth O Lindfors
Professor Emeritus —
Bernth O Lindfors
Contact
E-mail: b.lindfors@mail.utexas.edu
The One and Only Bernth LindforsA scholar once commented that there must be more than one Bernth O. Lindfors, given the range of roles he has played in African literature. He is literary scholar and critic, editor, bibliographer, literary trav-eler, and locator of obscure manuscripts and texts. But indeed, there is only one Bernth Lindfors. Lindfors was born in a small village near the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden. Two and a half years later, his family settled in Mamaroneck, New York, where his father owned and managed Lindy’s Diner. When he was in the sixth grade, his family moved to Fair-field, Connecticut and Lindfors and his brother were sent to Mount Hermon, a boys’ boarding school in Massachusetts. The school helped Lindfors prepare for Oberlin Col-lege. While there, he enjoyed playing varsity soccer and lacrosse. His soccer team earned the nickname the “scoreless wonders” because although the team scored hardly any goals, they went undefeated due to draws. His prowess as a center halfback in soccer earned him All-American honors and he still holds two Oberlin records in lacrosse. These achievements led to his in-duction into the Oberlin College Athletic Hall of Fame.Ten days after college graduation he married classmate Judith Wells. They immediately went off to Harvard University to study for a master’s degree in teaching, and the following year he worked toward his degree in English at Northwestern, while Judith taught second grade in Evanston, Illinois.At that point they made a decision that changed the direction of their lives. A program called Teachers for East Africa recruited them both to teach in Kenya where they would teach English, history and geogra-phy at a boys’ boarding school for the next two years. The school had a very rigid screening process allowing about 240 students from an area in Western Kenya of about a million people, attracting the brightest and most dedicated students. “Because Africa was being decolonized towards the end of the 1950s, there was a rather rapid withdrawal of British and French administrations, and African countries were becoming independent very quickly,” Lindfors said. “One consequence of that in East Africa was that as British expatriates were leaving, they were being replaced by educated Kenyans who were mainly school teachers. As a result, the schools were in some difficulty because they didn’t have enough staff mem-bers.”The Lindfors started a family, and during school holidays they traveled throughout East Africa, visit-ing game parks, attending independence celebrations in Tanganyika and Uganda, and even climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Lindfors also started reading literary works written by African authors. Excited by what he read, he started looking for a doc-toral program in English flexible enough to allow him to write a dissertation on African literature. Thanks to government and Ford Foundation fellowships, he was able to do this at UCLA, which was building a large African Studies Center. In 1969, he accepted a faculty position at The Univer-sity of Texas at Austin, enticed by the opportunity to create a journal, Research in African Literatures, that would serve as a network of communication for people involved in African literature. The publication has become one of the premier journals in its field and is in its 35th year—Lindfors has served as editor for 20 of those years. He has made regular trips to Africa to conduct his own research and to meet African writers and scholars. His work is held in high-esteem and has been support-ed by grants from the University Research Institute, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Social Science Research Council, the Fulbright Pro-gram, the American Philosophical Society, the Ameri-can Library Association and the Guggenheim Founda-tion. He also received several NEH grants to conduct summer seminars on African literature for American college teachers; three of these were in Austin and one in South Africa, co-directed with Dr. David Attwell, professor and chair of English at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and a former doctoral student of Lindfors. “It may be surprising, but from the perspective of prospective graduate students from Africa, and of established literary scholars, Austin, Texas was a kind of Mecca of African literary scholarship throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s,” Attwell said. “It was only on arrival in Austin that one realized the extent to which the enormous institution of African literary studies at Texas depended largely on the achievements of one man.“At the time, with South Africa isolated from the rest of the African continent, it was indeed a rare privilege to be able to share the graduate experience with young scholars from elsewhere in Africa who had made a similar journey,” he added. “In this respect, Texas and the particular chemistry of Bernth’s presence made possible a collegiality that was denied to us on our own continent.”Lindfors has continued to make overwhelming contri-butions to his field. It was greatly at his urging that the English Department created the graduate specializa-tion in Ethnic and Third World Literatures, a program ranked third in the country by U.S. News and World Report. He is also the author of 10 books, the latest of which will be published this spring. Perhaps one of his greatest contributions was the recent donation of his personal library to the University of Natal in South Africa. It has taken Lindfors 40 years to compile a collection of 12,000 books, more than 300 journals, manuscripts, audio and videotapes and transcripts—representing the literature of almost the entire continent. In 2000, Lindfors received the university’s Career Research Excellence Award and the African Studies As-sociations’ Distinguished Africanist Award. He has also been awarded two honorary doctorates, one from the university of Umea in Sweden in 1989, and the other from the University of Natal in 2002.Michelle BryantPhoto by Marsha Miller
In 2000, Lindfors received the university’s Career Research Excellence Award and the African Studies Association’s Distinguished Africanist Award.Lindfors, continued on page 20 [Not downloaded; also a 3-page CV, also not downloaded]
Ira Aldridge: The Last Years, 18551867
Matthew Yde
Research in African Literatures.
47.3 (Fall 2016): p187.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2979/reseafrilite.47.3.14
COPYRIGHT 2016 Indiana University Press
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu
Full Text:
Ira Aldridge: The Last Years, 18551867
BY BERNTH LINDFORS
U of Rochester P, 2015.
x + 351 pp. ISBN 9781580465380 cloth.
With Ira Aldridge: The Last Years, 18551867, Berth<< Lindfors concludes what will surely remain the definitive
biography>> of the great nineteenthcentury African American actor, Ira Aldridge,<< for many a decade>>. The third volume
focused on the great thespian's success performing Shakespeare in Europe in the years 185255, and this fourth volume
follows Aldridge as he makes his way not only into Eastern EuropePoland and Hungarybut also deep into Ukraine,
Russia, and Turkey as well.
The book begins with the chapter "Readjusting to Britain," and then proceeds through chapters on each of Aldridge's
nine continental tours, with chapters interspersed of him resting, and sometimes performing, back home. Although born
in New York, Aldridge was never able to perform in his native country, and he was only begrudgingly tolerated in the
UK, although London remained his home base when he was not touring and in his last years he became a British citizen
(so as to be able to purchase a house). It was only outside England that his immense talent was fully appreciated, and as
on his first tour Aldridge continued to be feted abroad.
As with the previous volumes, the interest of the book lies mainly in a detailed account of the actor's art as well as in its
representation of Aldridge using his talent on behalf of the oppressed everywhere. For instance, his "sympathetic
portrayal" of Shylock "reinforced the position of those who favored Jewish emancipation" (63). Aldridge also produced
in these years an adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's abolitionist novel Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, but
after only four performances never reprised the role of Dred again, more than likely due to less than spectacular
reviews.
Lindfors has done a superb job tracking down the itinerary that Aldridge followed, although he occasionally loses track
of the artist. Nonetheless, through an exhaustive search of local reviews and commentary he is able not only to follow
Aldridge on his travels, but also to provide a wide range of observations on the actor's technique and artistic success. It
is clear, for example, that Aldridge was extremely meticulous regarding every detail of his performance and that he was
able to go from one emotion to another in a flash, for instance from tender affection to rage. He was a transformational
actor, and his Othello in no way resembled his Shylock. He was one of the great realistic actors at a time when bombast
was too often the norm. One of the highlights in these years was the addition of King Lear to his repertory, which
opened in Pest in 1858; we learn that in the role of the aging monarch Aldridge was unanimously lauded by critics for
achieving "the highest perfection of artistic excellence" (86).
Aldridge died suddenly in Lodz, Poland, on August 7th 1867. Although he was reluctant to return to the US to perform
because of his opposition to the way his people were treated there, after the Civil War he was negotiating to perform in
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New York and Boston. Lindfors concludes his book, and this outstanding multivolume biography, conjecturing how that
might have turned out in a country still plagued by race riots. Aldridge looked on himself as an ambassador for Africans
everywhere, demonstrating the grace, intelligence, and refinement that his people were capable of, and that is why he
finally resolved to return to his native country and perform. Unfortunately it was not to be.
doi: 10.2979/reseafrilite.47.3.14
MATTHEW YDE
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO
MYDE@UNM.EDU
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Yde, Matthew. "Ira Aldridge: The Last Years, 18551867." Research in African Literatures, vol. 47, no. 3, 2016, p.
187+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA464982054&it=r&asid=f1fb5dd111dc286fad139ea28d203bb4.
Accessed 6 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A464982054
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Lindfors, Bernth: Ira Aldridge: v.4: The last
years, 18551867
D.B. Wilmeth
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.
53.10 (June 2016): p1485.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Full Text:
Lindfors, Bernth. Ira Aldridge: v.4: The last years, 18551867. Rochester, 2015. 350p bibl index afp (Rochester studies
in African history and the diaspora, 67) ISBN 9781580465380 cloth, $55.00; ISBN 9781782046455 ebook, contact
publisher for price
534321
PN2287
MARC
This final volume of Lindfors's ambitious biography of the African American actor Ira Aldridge (180767) is as
thorough as one might hope for the life of an itinerant performer who spent most of his career (43 years) acting abroad,
frequently with actors performing in languages other than English (in this volume, Lindfors notes Aldridge's
dependency on translators in numerous countries). Covering a scant dozen years, volume 4 follows the pattern of earlier
volumes (CH, Jun'12, 495587), tracing Aldridge's numerous tours and travels, offering glimpses of his private life
(including his two marriages), and providing criticism of his acting and his impact on audiences and colleagues,
especially in a handful of Shakespearean roles (Othello, Macbeth, Richard III, King Lear, Shylock, and a few others).
Aldridge planned a return to US stages (where he had little history or reputation), but he died unexpectedly in Lodz,
Poland. Like earlier volumes in the set, this one is extensively researched and documented, with fulsome notes and
effective illustrations. Lindfors's fourvolume biography <
Wilmeth, Brown University
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Wilmeth, D.B. "Lindfors, Bernth: Ira Aldridge: v.4: The last years, 18551867." CHOICE: Current Reviews for
Academic Libraries, June 2016, p. 1485. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA454942732&it=r&asid=6a05d6dad00a2473dab2600c149db655.
Accessed 6 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A454942732
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Ira Aldridge: The Early Years, 18071833
Kate Roark
Theatre History Studies.
35 (Annual 2016): p362.
COPYRIGHT 2016 The University of Alabama Press
http://www.uapress.ua.edu/NewSearch2.cfm?id=136126
Full Text:
Ira Aldridge: The Early Years, 18071833. By Bernth Lindfors. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2011.
387 pp. $49.50 cloth.
Ira Aldridge: The Vagabond Years, 18331852. By Bernth Lindfors. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press,
2011. 244 pp. $55.00 cloth.
Ira Aldridge: Performing Shakespeare in Europe, 18521855. By Bernth Lindfors. Rochester, NY: University of
Rochester Press, 2013. 350 pp. $55.00 cloth.
Being dead for almost 150 years hasn't stopped Ira Aldridge from making yet another comeback. This nineteenthcentury
black actor is the subject of a threevolume biography by Bernth Lindfors with a possible fourth volume on the
way. Aldridge is also the subject of the 2012 play Red Velvet, by Lolita Chakabariti; a production of Red Velvet starring
Adrian Lester transferred from London to New York for a brief run in 2014 and reopened in London in 2016. Perhaps
the fortuitous timing of these works will finally lift this fascinating actor out of semiobscurity, giving him the respect
and fame he has so long deserved.
Bernth Lindfors, professor emeritus of English and African literatures at the University of Texas, Austin, has been a
leading Aldridge scholar for many years and is perhaps best known for editing and contributing to the 2007 book Ira
Aldridge: The African Roscius as well as other articles offering new insights into Aldridge's career and personal
biography. In this new multivolume biography, Lindfors expertly merges his new research with the body of Aldridge
scholarship over the decades, including the first biography of Aldridge, Ira Aldridge: The Negro Tragedian, published
by Marshall and Stock in 1958. There is plenty of fresh information and new perspectives on Aldridge to be found in
Lindfors's new volumes, even for those familiar with Lindfors's previous publications. The first two volumes, published
in 2011, The Early Years and The Vagabond Years, cover the first fifty years of Aldridge's life and career, most of which
were spent in England and Ireland. Volume 3, published in 2013, covers 18521855, focusing on Aldridge's
international success as a Shakespearean actor in Europe, mostly outside of the United Kingdom. The final ten years of
Aldridge's life are tantalizingly left to future volume(s); however, the three volumes currently available are already a
colossal achievement, following Aldridge through scores of theatres in over a dozen nations.
<
backgrounds of the places and people Aldridge touched. Lindfors goes beyond a chronological tracing of Aldridge's
major life and career events to <
moral effect of his performances, his business ingenuity, his perpetual experimentation with repertoire, and his courage
to continue acting and innovating in the face of disappointments, setbacks, and racism. The itinerancy of Aldridge's
career is often given as the reason why his story has slipped through the cracks, yet Lindfors demonstrates the profound
rewards of analyzing peripatetic subjects for the larger perspective they offer on the theatre culture, theatre economy,
and political landscape.
The Early Years covers the first twentysix years of Aldridge's life, starting in New York City, where he was born,
educated at the African Free School, and had his first theatre experiences. Aldridge may have been involved with the
African Theatre in New York, and Lindfors details Aldridge's connections with the African Theatre's leading actor,
James Hewlett, as well as the burlesquing of Hewlett and the African Theatre by English comedian Charles Matthews.
Whether or not Aldridge ever acted at the African Theatre in New York (there is no conclusive extant record), Aldridge
capitalized on Matthews's popular burlesque of an African Shakespearian actor throughout his career in the United
Kingdom, inviting audiences to compare his skill with Matthews's mockery. The bulk of this volume, however, follows
the beginning of Aldridge's career in England, particularly his London engagements in 1825, 1829, and 1833. It has
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generally been accepted that Aldridge's London debut was at the Coburg Theatre (now the Old Vic) in October 1825,
but Lindfors has uncovered evidence that his debut was actually at London's Royalty Theatre in May 1825. Lindfors
charts Aldridge's subsequent provincial tours through England, Ireland, and Scotland, his return to London at the
Sadler's Wells' Theatre in 1829, and finally his crucial, brief engagement at London's prestigious Theatre Royal Covent
Garden in 1833, the critical failure of which led Aldridge to abandon hopes of London engagements for the next fifteen
years. Lindfors comprehensively explores Aldridge's everexpanding repertoire, including his experiments with white
tragic and melodramatic roles, as well as a shortlived stint as actormanager of a smalltown theatre in Coventry. Of
course Aldridge's racial identity and the politics of slavery were major factors in Aldridge's career and reception from
the start, and the question of whether novelty or true talent was driving his box office appeal always followed him.
Lindfors argues that Aldridge's "Africanness was an engaging riddle" for reviewers and audiences, who time after time
debated whether his acting style was "African or Western ... natural or learned ... original or derivative" (1:127). Yet
Lindfors convincingly argues that Aldridge was not simply a racial novelty but a formidable theatrical talent and that
"through his art he was deliberately challenging conventional ideas about black people generally, not just Africans ...
forcing [audiences] to reconsider their ingrained racial assumptions" (1:1). Rounding out this volume are early
comparisons of Aldridge's acting style with Kean and Macready, the two most famous English actors of the period.
The Vagabond Years, 18331852 takes us through the aftermath of Aldridge's unsuccessful 1833 London engagement at
the Theatre Royal Covent Garden, through nineteen years as an itinerant actor/manager, success in Ireland, his return to
London in 1848, another return to provincial touring, his adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and its London
reception in 1852, and finally his decision to seek out new engagements in continental Europe. After his failed brief run
at Covent Garden, Aldridge did not return to London for over a decade. Lindfors explains the forces keeping Aldridge
out of London, including the backlash to the abolition of slavery in British colonies in 1833 and the popularity of T. D.
Rice's blackface performances starting in 1836. So Aldridge stayed out of London, and he toured, spending the first six
consecutive years after Covent Garden performing in Ireland. It was there that Aldridge developed a oneman show that
showcased his diverse talents and that was also economical for touring. Lindfors is the first to recount this period in
Aldridge's life, a time between Aldridge's big city accomplishments but nevertheless fascinating. Aldridge's oneman
show was titled a "Grand, Fashionable, and Dramatic Entertainment" (2:45), which included an argument for the moral
value of theatre, a narrative of his fictional royal African origin story, and scenes and songs to highlight the full range of
Aldridge's talentsfrom tragedy to musical comedy. Aldridge was very successful with this oneman show. He also did
well touring with a minicompany of four or five other actors to perform abbreviated versions of fulllength plays.
Lindfors notes how anomalous this success was during a period of acrosstheboard theatrical decline. Even though
Aldridge wasn't performing in London during these years, Lindfors argues that Aldridge's impact on the surrounding
theatre culture is evident in the multiple comedies burlesquing Aldridge that were written and produced during this
period, including: Stage Struck, by William Dimond (later titled Stage Mad, or the African Roscius), Othello: The Moor
of Venice, Travesty, by Maurice G. Dowling (later titled Othello, by Act of Parliament), and the skits and songs
popularized by the American T. D. Rice, who debuted in London in 1836 and immediately became a popular success.
Lindfors considers the influence of Rice's London career on Aldridge, particularly Aldridge's incorporation of Rice's
blackface skits and songs into his own act, which Lindfors argues had a significantly different effect on audiences.
Aldridge's performances of Rice's skits and songs were always presented in contrast to a serious role, highlighting
Aldridge's broad range of skills and focusing audience admiration on the performer instead of the role. Lindfors argues
this presented a stark contrast with Rice's performances, which were interpreted as an accurate portrait of African
Americans. This volume also details Aldridge's steps toward a comeback starting in 1845, when he disbanded his minicompany
and returned to the legitimate stage to perform with resident companies. Lindfors takes us through Aldridge's
return to London in 1848 at the Surrey Theatre, followed by his new adaptation of Titus Andronicus in 1849. Lindfors
argues this new Titus may have been born out of Aldridge's need for new material to secure another London
engagement, which Aldridge secured in 1852 at the Britannia Saloon. When this engagement didn't attract the attention
Aldridge had long hoped for, he set his sights across the English Channel.
The third volume in this series, Performing Shakespeare in Europe, 18521855, follows the most critically successful
period in Aldridge's career, when he left touring the British Isles after twentyseven years and found greater success in
continental Europe as a Shakespearian actor. In these new contexts, where generally neither his audience nor his fellow
actors spoke English, both criticism and praise of Aldridge was gauged on three axes: Aldridge's racial identity,
Aldridge's perceived English style of acting, and local Shakespearian performance traditions. Although Aldridge
demonstrated a larger repertoire in the United Kingdom, Aldridge's performances during this fouryear period on the
continent were limited to a handful of Shakespearian tragic roles: Othello, Shylock, Macbeth, and Richard III, plus the
comic role of Mungo from the old English comedy, The Padlock, as the comic afterpiece. Lindfors provides a detailed
breakdown of the versions of Shakespeare's plays Aldridge performed and the history of Shakespearean performance in
each nation or state (now the areas encompassed by Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Denmark,
Belgium, Czech Republic, and Switzerland). Lindfors also analyzes Aldridge's performances of each role, teasing out
what was innovative in Aldridge's interpretations. To help illustrate Aldridge's acting style, Lindfors analyzes published
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comparisons made between Aldridge and famous contemporary actors including the French actress Mademoiselle
Rachel (Elisa Rachel Felix) and the French actor FrancoisJoseph Talma, the English actor William Charles Macready,
the German actors Ludwig Devrient, Karl Seydelmann, Ludwig Dessior, and Emil Devrient, and the Polish German
actor Bogumil Dawison. Lindfors also recounts how Hungarian officials monitored Aldridge as a potential spy during
these travels.
Taken together, these three biographies by Lindfors are a perfect introduction to the existing scholarship on Aldridge as
well as a welcoming platform for the next wave of scholars. There is no question these are the new definitive
biographies of Aldridge, and they should be required reading in the fields of nineteenthcentury theatre history,
performance of race, Shakespeare, melodrama, and political activist theatre. Although the third volume offers a rough
sketch of the final twelve years of Aldridge's career, when Aldridge bounced back and forth between the United
Kingdom and Europe, the brevity of this sketch leaves this reader longing for more. These final adventures were among
Aldridge's most glamorousperforming for queens and dukes and receiving the Verdienst Medal, which elevated
Aldridge to the ranks of nobility in the Royal House of Saxony (3:250). Meanwhile, Lindfors just released a fourth
volume to flesh out Aldridge's final twelve years, and the first three volumes indicate that the whole collection will be a
treasure trove for nineteenthcentury theatre historians.
KATE ROARK
Blackburn College
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Roark, Kate. "Ira Aldridge: The Early Years, 18071833." Theatre History Studies, vol. 35, 2016, p. 362+. General
OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA473150122&it=r&asid=d4717e87c0f5264801587a4fd882f822.
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Lindfors, Bernth. Early African entertainments
abroad: from the Hottentot Venus to Africa's first
Olympians
T.F. DeFrantz
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.
52.9 (May 2015): p1510.
COPYRIGHT 2015 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Full Text:
Lindfors, Bernth. Early African entertainments abroad: from the Hottentot Venus to Africa's first Olympians.
Wisconsin, 2014. 248p bibl index afp ISBN 9780299301644 pbk, $29.95; ISBN 9780299301637 ebook, $24.95
524676
DT16
20147282 CIP
Lindfors (English and African literatures, Univ. of Texas, Austin) writes that in the 19th century and into the 20th,
"African specimens were needed as objective proof in support of subjective notions of European racial superiority." He
offers newly excavated popular press materials about the Hottentot Venus and the 1810 British court case brought forth
by abolitionists who acknowledged her right to exhibit herself but debated the right of other to exhibit her, Georgian
England's heinous African caricature, nasty satirical press attacks surrounding Ira Aldridge's 1833 appearances at
Covent Garden, and traveling exhibitions of Bushmen (San people) and public ridiculing of their clickingsound
languages. Also considered are Charles Dickens's racist depictions of Zulu performers; the NiamNiams displayed in
Kahn's Anatomical Museum; the conjoined United African Twins, born in 1851 and exhibited in the UK beginning in
1855; and 20thcentury Ringling Brothers casts of Zulus and Ubangis. These are offset by accounts of 1904 black South
African Olympic marathon runners and the full text of an 1858 conversation in the Natal Journal between Zulus
exhibited in England with elders at home on their return to South Africa. Throughout, Lindfors emphasizes that "blacks
were thus made to appear less than fully human precisely at the time their basic human rights were being secured
through legislation." Summing Up: *** Highly recommended. Lowerdivision undergraduates through faculty; general
readers.T. F. DeFrantz, Duke University
DeFrantz, T.F.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
DeFrantz, T.F. "Lindfors, Bernth. Early African entertainments abroad: from the Hottentot Venus to Africa's first
Olympians." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, May 2015, p. 1510. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA416402465&it=r&asid=4e5f0c6dcbd4306e4f47863dd516138d.
Accessed 6 May 2017.
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Ira Aldridge: Performing Shakespeare in Europe,
18521855
Matthew Yde
Research in African Literatures.
45.4 (Winter 2014): p153.
COPYRIGHT 2014 Indiana University Press
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu
Full Text:
Ira Aldridge: Performing Shakespeare in Europe, 18521855
BY BERNTH LINDFORS
Rochester: U of Rochester P, 2013.
x + 311 pp. ISBN 9781580464727 cloth.
Berth Lindfors has followed his marvelous twovolume biography of the great nineteenthcentury African American
actor Ira Aldridge with a further volume, Ira Aldridge: Performing Shakespeare in Europe, 18521855. As the title
suggests, this time Lindfors has narrowed his focus to a three year Continental tour. Whereas Aldridge was compelled
to play a great many popular farces and melodramas in his years touring the British Isles, in Europe he concentrated
almost exclusively on Shakespeare, specifically Othello, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, and Richard III.
Lindfors structures his book chronologically, but concludes by analyzing Aldridge's remarkable artistic success in each
of these four plays. Even so, our understanding of this actor's enormous talent and remarkable success is confirmed long
before we arrive to this chapter. By reproducing copious local reviews of Aldridge's performances throughout Brussels,
Germany, Austria, Hungary, Holland, and elsewhere we quickly come to realize that Ira Aldridge was, without doubt,
one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of the nineteenth century.
Aldridge's performance of Othello was thought to be "indelibly African" (229) and this was reinforced by Aldridge's
fabricated biography as the son of a Christian Fulani prince from Senegal who was raised in America. This was actually
part of a strategy whereby Aldridge "could draw more spectators to his performances and then surprise them with his
intelligence, sophistication, and skills, thereby proving that blacks were not inferior to whites but were part of the same
family of mankind" (85). Aldridge also continually drew attention to the ignominious plight of his people back home in
America and we learn that he was generous materially as well, buying one family out of slavery to prevent their forced
separation (17374).
It is hard for us today to imagine the extent of Aldridge's achievement, not just as a black actor in whitedominated
nineteenthcentury Europe, but more specifically as a black actor playing "white" characters from the Shakespearean
canon. Lindfors ably illustrates howthrough talent, training, and makeupAldridge was able to win over even those
predisposed against accepting a black actor playing "white characters." Not surprisingly, stereotypes about race were
often found in those who appreciated his talents, just as in those who did not. For instance, some enthusiasts believed
that the actor's "vigor, sensuality, and ardent passion [were] authentic markers of his race" and that such innate qualities
raised him above the "anemic inadequacies of German actors," while more conservative critics thought his passionate
rendition of Othello's murder of Desdemona an offense against aesthetic decorum and standards of artistic beauty (71).
Ira Aldridge was not only a great artist, but clearly a great man as well. The master thespian cultivated a career that not
only delivered outstanding artistic performances to the public, he also intended to shape his audiences' perceptions
about race. Lindfors shows how the great actor meticulously fashioned his creation of the Jewish villain Shylock in The
Merchant of Venice to disclose his degraded humanity. Aldridge just might have been the first actor to show how this
demonized character was warped not by some innate perversity of the Jewish character, but by the inhuman treatment of
European Christians endured over many years.
MATTHEW YDE
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THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
MYDE@UNM.EDU
Yde, Matthew
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Yde, Matthew. "Ira Aldridge: Performing Shakespeare in Europe, 18521855." Research in African Literatures, vol. 45,
no. 4, 2014, p. 153+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA391721326&it=r&asid=b293598fbd889b05178d331ed475d404.
Accessed 6 May 2017.
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Lindfors, Bernth. Ira Aldridge
D.B. Wilmeth
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.
52.2 (Oct. 2014): p269.
COPYRIGHT 2014 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Full Text:
Lindfors, Bernth. Ira Aldridge. Rochester, 2013. 350p bibl index afp ISBN 9781580464727, $55.00
520758
PN2287
201046489 CIP
Given the extraordinary cost of scholarly books today, it is amazing that the Univ. of Rochester Press has devoted three
volumes to the life of Ira Aldrichwho, as noted in earlier reviews, was the first African American actor to carve out a
long and varied stage career, though not in the US. Volumes 1 and 2 (both, CH, Jun'12, 495587) cover "the early years"
(180733) and "the vagabond years" (183352), as interpreted by Lindfors (emer., Univ. of Texas, Austin). This final
volume, comparable in length to volume 2, covers the brief period (185255) prior to Aldrich's death and focuses on his
tours on the Continent and in Russia and Eastern Europe (where he died). As he did in the first volumes,<< Lindfors
quotes virtually every source found>> on Aldrich and provides a detailed review of his performances (documenting with
primary sources that are often unsatisfying but clearly the best discovered). Two relatively brief chapters in this volume
may prove to be the most informative and enlightening: one compares and contrasts the actor with other performers of
his time; the other analyzes Aldridge in his best Shakespearean rolesOthello, Shylock, Macbeth, Richard III. Includes
in addition to standard apparatusillustrations, four appendixes, and notes. Summing Up: Recommended. ** Upperdivision
undergraduates through faculty.D. B. Wilmeth, emeritus, Brown University
Wilmeth, D.B.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Wilmeth, D.B. "Lindfors, Bernth. Ira Aldridge." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Oct. 2014, p. 269.
General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA384341461&it=r&asid=f37573f001649f1f4fca4a9f1baa021c.
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Aldridge, Ira: Ira Aldridge: The Early Years
(18071833)
Matthew Yde
Biography.
35.4 (Fall 2012): p835.
COPYRIGHT 2012 University of Hawaii Press
http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/tbiography.aspx
Full Text:
Aldridge, Ira
Ira Aldridge: The Early Years (18071833). Bernth Lindfors. Rochester: U of Rochester P, 2011. 401 pp. $55.00.
Ira Aldridge
The Vagabond Years (18331852). Bernth Lindfors. Rochester: U of Rochester P, 2011. 262 pp. $55.00.
"Ira Aldridge is surely one of the most fascinating cultural figures of the nineteenth century, and deserves to be much
more widely known than he is.... In a remarkable new twovolume biography, Bernth Lindfors captures the life of the
only nineteenthcentury actor of color in Europe, and as such has done much to remedy a most unwarranted lacuna....
The book is liberally peppered with reviews from local papers, as well as accounts from managers and other players.
We learn as much about nineteenthcentury provincial theater in Great Britain as we do about Aldridge.... <
William Charles Macready, Ellen Tree, Charles Matthews, and many eccentric theater managers. ... This is a wonderful
twovolume book, and it is my hope that it is successful in bringing Aldridge's remarkable story to more people."
Matthew Yde. Research in African Literatures 43.3 (2012): 13738.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Yde, Matthew. "Aldridge, Ira: Ira Aldridge: The Early Years (18071833)." Biography, vol. 35, no. 4, 2012, p. 835.
General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA323658031&it=r&asid=d87a910539dc8952f58a32138781839f.
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Ira Aldridge: The Early Years (18071833)
Matthew Yde
Research in African Literatures.
43.3 (Fall 2012): p137.
COPYRIGHT 2012 Indiana University Press
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu
Full Text:
Ira Aldridge: The Early Years (18071833)
BY BERNTH LINDFURS
Rochester: u of Rochester P, 2011.
401 pp. IsBN 9781580463812 cloth.
Ira Aldridge: The Vagabond Years (18331852)
BY BERNTH LINDFURS
Rochester: u of Rochester P, 2011.
262 pp. ISBN 9781580463942 cloth.
Ira Aldridge is surely one of the most fascinating cultural figures of the nineteenth century, and deserves to be much
more widely known than he is. Educated in New York City in one of the two Free Schools for African Americans,
Aldridge defied his father's wish that he become a preacher and instead, against all odds, pursued his dream of
becoming an actor. While that was not possible in the United States, he went across the sea and had a long and
productive stage career, first in the British Isles and later throughout all of Europe. In a remarkable new twovolume
biography, Bernth Lindfors captures the life of the only nineteenthcentury actor of color in Europe, and as such has
done much to remedy a most unwarranted lacuna.
Lindfors cogently argues that Aldridge sought to change the perception that most whites had of black people, and that
he did this consciously, not only by the roles he choose to play and the manner in which he played them, but also
through the order in which he presented an evening's entertainment. For instance, his masterful representation of
Othello was usually followed by one of his farcical black caricatures. Aldridge had to contend against comic performers
like Thomas Dartmouth Rice and Charles Mathews, whose exaggerated comic stereotypes of black people were
enormously popular and taken as true representations of essential character. To nineteenthcentury playgoers,
"accustomed as they were to stage caricatures of black people, Aldridge's grace, dignity, versatilityin short, his
theatrical competencecame as a complete surprise, forcing them to reconsider notions they had previously held of
Africans, West Indians, African Americans, and indigenous British blacks" (92; vol. 1). But that's not all, for by
following Othello or Oronooko with a farce, the audience, "having already witnessed his polished performance in a
serious role ... knew that he was playing the foolin short, that he was acting a part, not manifesting his own innate
racial peculiarities" (117; vol. 1). By painstakingly tracking down Aldridge's itinerary on the road over many years,
Lindfors shows that Aldridge seemed to take into account audience perception as he choose his roles and crafted his
performance. While he occasionally performed in a popular play with no redeeming social value, such plays were
usually dropped and did not remain a part of his repertoire. Lindfors argues that most of the villains Aldridge played
were malformed by unjust social institutions or racial prejudice: "It was the torment of slavery that produced such
resolute 'monsters.' They were victims of a barbaric European economic system built on hierarchical assumptions of
racial difference. Aldridge would have had a stake in challenging such assumptions by humanizing such villains and
making their animosity toward white oppressors comprehensible" (178; vol. 1). Indeed,
Aldridge's early career in Britain was contemporaneous with the fight to abolish slavery, and as Lidfors demonstrates,
Aldridge's inability to succeed at the patent theaters in London was mostly due to the vicious racism of the antiabolitionists
in the newspapers. Aldridge appeared for two nights in 1833 at Covent Garden, London's most prestigious
theater, the very year that the Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Empire was finally passed. As
Lindfors shows, one of the greatest actors of the nineteenth century was barred from the nation's capital and forced to
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spend his life on the road as a provincial actor. But at least on the British Isles he could have a career, and he was lauded
wherever he went, especially in Ireland.
While not much is known of Aldridge's personal life, Lindfors conveys the life of a provincial actor moving from town
to town and dealing with incompetent supporting players and venal managers. The book is liberally peppered with
reviews from local papers, as well as accounts from managers and other players. We learn as much about nineteenthcentury
provincial theater in Great Britain as we do about Aldridge and what he had to contend with as the only black
actor in a difficult profession. It is heartening to read that he had so much support and inspired so much admiration, not
only as an actor but as a man. For all the racism that existed there was a strong movement for human rights for all races,
and by his example as a highly educated gentleman, scholar, and accomplished artist Aldridge was instrumental in that
movement.
The first volume concludes with Aldridge's disappointing West End debut, and the second volume follows him through
the British Isles, developing a lecture on the drama to sustain him through tough times, but rising to greater fame after
1845 when he returned to the legitimate stage. It was in these years that Aldridge revived Shakespeare's Titus
Andronicus, which had not been seen on the British Isles since 1724. But the adaptation was hardly recognizable as
Shakespeare's play, and Aaron the moor is no longer a sanguinary villain, but has been transformed by Aldridge and his
collaborator Charles A. Somerset into the hero of the piece. Despite his fame, box office appeal, rave reviews, and the
approbation of highly regarded actors, Aldridge was never invited back to the West End London theaters. In 1853
Aldridge left for Europe, and became an international star, winning many honors, including the Prussian Gold Medal of
the First Class for Art and Science, awarded by the King of Prussia himself. None of this was enough to earn him
another shot at the West End, and Aldridge spent most of the rest of his life performing all over Europe.
Lindfors's book is a joy to read. Besides capturing Aldridge's remarkable personality, many other cultural figures come
alive as well, such as Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Edmund Kean and his equally famous son
Charles, Williams Charles Macready, Ellen Tree, Charles Matthews, and many eccentric theater managers, including
T.D Davenport, presumably the model for Vincent Crummles, the provincial theater manager in Dickens's novel
Nicholas Nickleby. This is a wonderful twovolume book, and it is my hope that it is successful in bringing Aldridge's
remarkable story to more people.
Matthew Yde
The Ohio State University
yde.1@osu.edu
Yde, Matthew
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Yde, Matthew. "Ira Aldridge: The Early Years (18071833)." Research in African Literatures, vol. 43, no. 3, 2012, p.
137+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA300442932&it=r&asid=04f784f93b71f6b16acb0e3d73f71884.
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Lindfors, Bernth. Ira Aldridge: v.1 : The early
years, 18071833; v.2: The vagabond years, 1833
1852
D.B. Wilmeth
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.
49.10 (June 2012): p1885.
COPYRIGHT 2012 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Full Text:
495587
PN2287
201046489 CIP
Lindfors, Bernth. Ira Aldridge: v.1 : The early years, 18071833; v.2: The vagabond years, 18331852. Rochester, 2011.
2v bibl index afp ISBN 9781580464017 v.1, $99.00; ISBN 9781580463942 v.2, $55.00
Although never a star, Aldridge (180767) was the first African American to carve out a long and varied acting career.
Much of the personal history he promoted was fiction. He was born in New York, not Senegal as he claimed; spent 43
years abroad (driven out of the US by prejudice); and died while on tour in Poland. Lindfors (emer., English, Univ. of
Texas, Austin) <
about Aldridge's impact on racial relations and about the perceptions a white audience had of a black man on the stage.
Lindfors devotes more space to Aldridge's first years in the profession and less to his later, most successful years (when
he was essentially an itinerant actor appearing for brief periods in provincial and small venues). Though he appeared in
some 40 roles (black and white) and was an accomplished singer of popular songs (including some from minstrelsy),
Aldridge depended on a handful of roles, among them Othello. Though perhaps double the length it needs to be, this
fulsome biography replaces Herbert Marshall and Mildred Stock's eponymous work (1958) and will be welcomed by
students of theater, race, and African American studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. *** Upperdivision
undergraduates and above.D. B. Wilmeth, emeritus, Brown University
Wilmeth, D.B.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Wilmeth, D.B. "Lindfors, Bernth. Ira Aldridge: v.1 : The early years, 18071833; v.2: The vagabond years, 18331852."
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, June 2012, p. 1885. General OneFile,
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p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA291615587&it=r&asid=45edea7203f94ad22675732841d167aa.
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The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at
Autobiography
Simon Lewis
Research in African Literatures.
43.1 (Spring 2012): p174.
COPYRIGHT 2012 Indiana University Press
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu
Full Text:
The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography
ED. BERNTH LINDFORS
Rochester, NY: James Currey, 2011.
vii + 216 pp. ISBN 9781847010346 cloth.
Dennis Brutus had at least one characteristic in common with Bill Clinton: he was a tremendous talker. Whether in
informal conversation or in more formal situations such as conferences, Brutus had the rare gift to speak not only in
complete, grammatical sentences, but also in coherent paragraphs. Bernth Lindfors's very light editing of these
transcripts of tapes recorded in 1974 and 1975 while Brutus was a visiting professor at the University of Texas indicates
just how fluently and clearly Brutus articulated and organized his thoughts (2). Although the transcripts are fragments,
the structure of each fragment is so clear and the sequencing of the topics is so well conceived that the first section of
the book, entitled "Life" and spanning more than 140 pages, presents a remarkably coherent "essay at autobiography."
In one of the later tapes in this first section of Lindfors's collection, Brutus claims to "shrink from the notion of
autobiography" (123), because he cannot discern a pattern or unifying thread in his life. Despite that claim, Brutus was a
compulsive autobiographer, who used his own experience for political purposes, not only to produce some of the most
powerful political poetry of the twentieth century (the Robben Island sequence in Letters to Martha stands out), but also
to organize resistance first to the apartheid regime and subsequently to the global apartheid of neoliberal economic
injustice. Brutus the organizerplaying key roles in the South African NonRacial Olympic Committee (SANROC), the
Stop the Seventy Tour (STST), the International Defence and Aid Fund, the African Literature Association (ALA)
constantly put himself on the line as more than spokesperson, as a kind of fleshandblood synecdoche. Brutus's "I"
frequently morphs in these tapes into the representative "one," "you," or "we."
His tendency to assume this kind of synecdochic persona while drawing from intensely recalled personal experience
fairly consistently put him at odds with less quixotic campaigners. (Brutus in these tapes variously describes himself as
"absentminded," "dreamy" and "naive.") One of the highlights of the book comes in Brutus's indignant but thoughtful
response to a critical review, presumed to have been written by Alex La Guma, of the collection A Simple Lust. Brutus
attempts to grapple with three chief criticisms of him and his work: that the work is selfcentered; that Brutus is not
representative of South African society; and that the high level and Eurocentrism of his Europeanized education lead to
a style and diction that cannot speak to the South African masses. Brutus refutes all three charges, presenting evidence
from his own work. Picking a very straightforward poem ("I am the tree / creaking in the wind ..."), he partly concedes
the charge of egotism, but argues that "by a kind of extension the 'I' in the poem is the 'I' of all South Africans protesting
against the injustice of this apartheid system" (174).
While much of the content of the tapes is already well known, and indeed some of the material has already been
published elsewhere, this collection valuably fills out our picture of Dennis Brutus. Nowhere else, for instance, can one
learn quite so much detail about his early life, the straitened circumstances of his parents' marriage, and the pain of
Brutus's relationship with his largely absent father. Nowhere, too, do we get quite such an unequivocal confirmation of
the impact of Catholicism in Brutus's life and poetry. We learn, for instance, how he dared the security police to arrest
him for breaking his ban under the Suppression of Communism Act by attending church, and we learn, too, that while
in solitary confinement on Robben Island, one of his chief mental supports was Thomas a Kempis.
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Along the way, the tapes throw out one or two fascinating potential research topics when Brutus refers to texts that
presumably exist but that he has no record ofincluding his statement from the dock at his trial in 1965, and of material
he had contributed to various magazines while a student at Fort Hare. Above all, however, Brutus's commitment to
teaching as a tool of political empowerment for the underdog and his deep sympathy for prisoners emerge as two central
themes in his life. Bernth Lindfors is to be commended for producing this posthumous tribute to one of South Africa's
most significant writeractivists.
SIMON LEWIS
COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON
LEWIS@COFC.EDU
Lewis, Simon
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Lewis, Simon. "The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography." Research in African Literatures, vol. 43, no. 1,
2012, p. 174+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA279462903&it=r&asid=24580d08bdec9b20272b4ee181124c74.
Accessed 6 May 2017.
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The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at
Autobiography
World Literature Today.
85.5 (SeptemberOctober 2011): p63.
COPYRIGHT 2011 University of Oklahoma
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.com
Full Text:
The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography
Bernth Lindfors, ed.
James Currey
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Well known for his poetry and efforts campaigning against apartheid, Brutus recorded a series of tapes about his life and
work while teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Edited by Bernth Lindfors, the
transcripts of these tapes provide an intimate, autobiographical look at a man whose contributions to literature and
human rights will not be forgotten.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography." World Literature Today, vol. 85, no. 5, 2011, p. 63. General
OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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Bernth Lindfors, ed. Ira Aldridge: The African
Roscius
David Krasner
African American Review.
43.1 (Spring 2009): p202.
COPYRIGHT 2009 African American Review
http://aar.slu.edu/
Full Text:
Bernth Lindfors, ed. Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius . Rochester, NY: Rochester UP, 2007. 288 pp., 19 illustrations.
$55.00.
Ira Aldridge (18071867) was one of the greatest actors of the nineteenth century. In today's parlance, his superstar
status would be unimpeachable. Yet he has received less recognition for his achievements than his contemporary white
luminaries. The objective of Bernth Lindfors's collection of primary sources and critical essays is to set the record
straight by giving Aldridge his overdue credit. Acknowledging the book Ira Aldridge: The Negro Tragedian (1958) by
Herbert Marshall and Mildred Stock as groundbreaking, Lindfors, the editor of this collection, sets out nonetheless "to
fill some of the lacunae" left out of previous studies of Aldridge "by bringing together a number of essays that shed
light on aspects of his existence that were not treated in sufficient depth" (2). In doing so, the book succeeds at
portraying Aldridge admirably.
The text is divided into two sections. The first reproduces nineteenthcentury documents regarding Aldridge, most
significantly "Memoir and Theatrical Career of Ira Aldridge, the African Roscius" (ca. 1848), an exaggerated but still
informative account of the actor's life. The section offers newly translated news reports and letters that verify or reveal
important data about Aldridge's professional and personal life. After a brief stay in New York, Aldridge realized that
racism in the United States provided limited opportunities. He ventured to Europe, achieving recognition as one of the
great leading actors of his generation. Aldridge's early career succeeded primarily in the provinces outside London
rather than in the theatrical capital. In his middletolate career he gained success throughout Europe, including London.
Known as the "African Roscius" (after the Roman actor Quintus Roscius Gallus), Aldridge played Othello, Lear,
Macbeth, Shylock, and Aaron in Titus Andronicus, Mungo in The Padlock , and other roles with humanity, pathos, and
eloquence heretofore unseen on the European stage.
The second section consists of critical essays. Researchers Ruth Cowhig, Nichola Betusic, Joost Groenebour, Ann
Marie Kotler, and Krzysztof Sawala examine Aldridge's performances in England, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia,
and Poland. Hazel Waters attempts to show how Aldridge fought racism by pushing "the boundaries of the roles
available to him" (101). Joyce Green MacDonald argues that Aldridge challenged "the relevance of previous centuries'
efforts by white actors to 'act black' " (137) by undermining the perceptions of blackness in new and innovative ways.
Unsettling the fixed identity of Africans, Aldridge disrupted a theatrical trend by inserting interpretations that cut
against the grain of stereotypes. Nicholas M. Evans asserts that Aldridge went to England and performed in roles
antithetical to traditional popular minstrelsy, applying instead a "Du Boisian double consciousness" to his
characterizations (163). Along similar lines, editor Lindfors adds that Aldridge established himself as a serious tragic
actor by experimenting with "white roles," which resulted in challenging racist assumptions through a demonstration of
his range and capacity. Aldridge's performances as Macbeth and Lear, writes Herbert Marshall, were intensely human,
dispelling stereotypical caricatures. Keith Byerman observes that the actor's performance in comic roles, such as in The
Black Doctor , also undermined prevailing perceptions.
Aldridge was a superb actor, both comic and tragic, as this book evinces. In Shakespeare in Sable , the late theatre
scholar Errol Hill noted that Aldridge was instrumental in bringing a naturalistic acting style to the European stage. His
renditions of Othello and Shylock jettisoned the bombastic villainy that had been the bailiwick of other actors. Instead,
he brought multidimension and nuance to his characterizations, fleshing out a threedimensional portrayal. One of the
most interesting essays in this collection is by Ann Marie Koller, who (following Hill's argument) suggests that the
great stage director the Duke of SaxeMeiningen attended Aldridge's performance and was so impressed by the actor's
authenticity that he was inspired to initiate his famed quest for stage naturalism. That Aldridge helped shape the future
of the Western stage practice of realism and naturalism is a highly original and profoundly important idea. A further
testament to Aldridge's acting skills is the fact that when he performed the leading roles of Shakespeare in Eastern
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Europe or Russia, his fellow actors often spoke in their native language while he spoke in English. If audiences did not
understand English, they would have had to recognize Aldridge's talent even if they could not always follow the words.
As Nikola Betusic points out, "In European cities, and especially in Russia, he was so popular that theater agents were
fighting each other to book his performances by offering him huge sums of money, because they knew that the
reputation of Aldridge would fill cash registers and theaters" (217). The novelty of a black actor would have played
some part in the performer's popularity, but in the end Aldridge would still have had to produce the talent and charisma
required for consistent success. This he did significantly.
A certain amount of repetition is inevitable when a book collects various essays on a similar subject. (The song
"Opossum up a Gum Tree" could have been printed in an appendix and referred to there when raised by each author,
instead of being repeated in full several times.) Many essays will be familiar to researchers in African American theater
studies. There are a few contradictions that might have been examined in greater detail. For instance, some scholars
praise Aldridge for his histrionics, while others note his subtleties and suggest he was less histrionic than his
contemporaries. It would have been interesting to read a debate over acting theory germane to the actor's performance.
The collection, nonetheless, is essential to scholars and researchers of theater and cultural history. It is <>
Reviewed by
David Krasner
Emerson College
Krasner, David
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Krasner, David. "Bernth Lindfors, ed. Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius." African American Review, vol. 43, no. 1,
2009, p. 202+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA230950222&it=r&asid=98c619451a96416c83235a8e1532f502.
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Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius
Martin Banham
Research in African Literatures.
39.3 (Fall 2008): p222.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Indiana University Press
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu
Full Text:
Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius
ED. BERNTH LINDFORS
Rochester: U of Rochester P, 2007
xii + 288 pp. ISBN 9781580462587 cloth.
My own introduction to the extraordinary career of Ira Aldridge was through the late Errol Hill's fascinating study
Shakespeare in Sable: A History of Black Shakespearean Actors (Amherst: U of Massachusetts P,1984). For an appetite
thus whetted, the present collection of essays edited by the indefatigable Bernth Lindfors is greatly to be welcomed. The
black American actor, born in New York in 1807, became one of the most remarkable Shakespearean actors of the
nineteenth century, having left his homeland at the age of seventeen to establish a career first of all in England and
subsequently throughout Europe. Aldridge's storyas theatrical in its own terms as many of the characters he playedis
told in this volume through eighteen essays, seven concentrating on "The Life" and eleven on "The Career." The editor
opens the volume by reproducing three enthralling commentaries written during Aldridge's lifetime, showing the
ambitions and frustrations of his upbringing in New York and tracing a career that saw him patronizingly regarded by
the London Times critic who first witnessed his appearance in metropolitan melodramas as one "not [...] worse than the
ordinary run of such actors are to be seen at the Coburg theatre" (99) to eventual acclamation as one of the most
exciting and innovative interpreters of Shakespeare's tragic heroes. The volume's essays include a detailed analysis of
"New Bibliographical Information" by Lindfors and a range of other commentaries that paint the extraordinary picture
of an actor who seems to have appeared in every provincial playhouse in Britain and Ireland, toured extensively, and
with great success, in mainland Europe, and inevitably confronted audiences not only with what they interpreted as the
exotic but also challenged and mainly triumphed over deeply held prejudices. Sample essay headings from a range of
international contributors give a taste of the range of commentary and enquiry: "The First American on the Zagreb
Stage," "A Heartwarming, Radiant Othello in the Netherlands, 1855," "Ira Aldridge s Fight for Equality," "Acting
Black: Othello, Othello Burlesques, and the Performance of Blackness." The value of this volume is not only in the
detailed and fascinating study of Aldridge's life and work, a theatrical career that allowed him, as the "African Roscius,"
to be compared with great innovative actors from the Roman theater of Plautus and Terence onward, but alsoas a very
important bonusas a detailed, informative, and often original history of European nineteenthcentury theater. Aldridge
played before kings and commoners, in ornate theaters and rough music halls. He performed in great classical tragedies
and in burlettas and farces. He performed songs (to his own guitar accompaniment) and presented Shakespeare's tragic
heroes "thought out," as one contemporary critic states, "to the tiniest detail [... an] unusually living and fullblooded
creation of Shakespeare's characters" (200).
Aldridge's personal life was as dramatic as his professional, and this volumehelpfully illustrated as a bonusis an
important work of theater history and<< an illuminating study of the trials and triumphs of a remarkable, and courageous,
actor.>>
MARTIN BANHAM
UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS
Banham, Martin
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Banham, Martin. "Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius." Research in African Literatures, vol. 39, no. 3, 2008, p. 222.
General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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Reinhard Sander and Bernth Lindfors (eds),
Ngugi wa Thiong'o Speaks: interviews with the
Kenyan writer
Natasha Himmelman
Africa.
78.3 (Summer 2008): p472.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Edinburgh University Press
http://www.eup.ed.ac.uk/
Full Text:
REINHARD SANDER AND BERNTH LINDFORS (eds), Ngugi wa Thiong'o Speaks: interviews with the Kenyan
writer. Oxford: James Currey; Nairobi: EAEP (pb, 19.95 [pounds sterling] 0 85255 580 6). 2006, 445 pp.
A substantial collection of interviews spanning the famous Kenyan author/activist's career, Ngugi wa Thiong'o Speaks
is, without a doubt, one of the most important resources to emerge for Ngugi scholarship. The cover, modelled after
Ngugi's previous James Currey publicationsWriters in Politics, Decolonising the Mind and Moving the Centre serves
as a familiar marker, signalling an addition to Ngugi's work. In fact, at a glance, one might mistake the book for one of
Ngugi's publications. And, as the title attests, Ngugi's voice is front and centre in this collection.
The editors, Reinhard Sander and Bernth Lindfors (with the assistance of Lynette Cintron), reinforce this focus,
strengthening Ngugi's voice with their impeccable research and readerfriendly style and presentation. The
chronological list of Ngugi's publications that prefaces the collection, and the 'Chronology' that follows it, make it easy
for readers to contextualise each interview in relation to Ngugi's life and publishing history. The 'Chronology', along
with detailed footnotes and the closing 'Bibliography' and 'Index', all reflect Lindfors's detailoriented work. Moreover,
traditionally marginalized or hardtoaccess information is placed at the reader's fingertips, bridging gaps in information
technology and institutional accessibility, a gesture that complements Ngugi's politics. All this makes the book an
invaluable research instrument for scholars.
The trajectory of Ngugi's politics, or 'his intellectual engagement with his times' (p. xii), is central to this book. Among
the most interesting development paths is Ngugi's journey towards his stance on the African language questionto write
or not to write in colonial languages (English, French, Portuguese, and so on). Ultimately deciding to write in one of
Kenya's national languages, Gikuyu, Ngugi discovers his niche and, with a strong dose of polemics, proclaims his
rationale again and again, in interview after interview. Ngugi explains how writing in Gikuyu is his gesture towards
redistributing power and subverting neocolonialism. However, while Ngugi's fight continues from 1977 onwards, in his
2003 interview with Harish Trivedi, he states, 'It is clear that it won't change the world ...' (p. 412). Yet if there is one
thing that this collection does demonstrate, it is how Ngugi's work has changed, and continues to change the world.
While some interviews seem to be bogged down in relative ignorance of Ngugi and his workan ignorance reflected in
repetitive, banal, and at rimes, insipid interview questions (Trayo A. Ali's 1995 interview, 'The strength of our people is
my inspiration', for example)other interviews clearly reflect the ways in which Ngugi's audiences, and specifically his
readers in the socalled 'Third World', have been changed by his work. For instance, during a 1991 interview with
Ngugi, Reed Dasenbrock states, 'The West Indian writer Roy Heath was saying that your work was a real inspiration to
him, in choosing to write more in Creole or nation language ...' (p. 307). Ngugi's 1988 interview with South African
writer, Wally Serote, reverberates with an overwhelming sense of mutual respect for each author's contributions to the
struggles against colonialism, neocolonialism and Apartheid. The 1996 interview in India with D. Venkat Rao reflects a
genuine and detailed interest in Ngugi's work in Gikuyu, especially as it relates to translation between marginalized
languages. Ngugi wa Thiong'o Speaks clearly depicts the breadth of Ngugi's work, but also the depth of the author's
humour, patience and generosity.
The editors choose a variety of interviews that provide striking insights into Ngugi's personality. Particularly memorable
is 'Ngugi by telephone', a 1993 interview with an earnest Stuyvesant High School student, Tami Alpert. After several
failed attempts to contact Ngugi in Kenya and England, Alpert discovers that the African writer is teaching at New York
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University. The humour this piece adds to the collection strongly complements the humour in many of Ngugi's novels
and plays, especially his most recent satire Murogi wa Kagogo (2004) (English translation: Wizard of the Crow, 2006).
Several pieces also quite obviously reflect Ngugi's patience with uninformed or underprepared interviewers. Time and
time again, Ngugi responds diplomatically: 'First of all, I do not agree with the assumption behind the question' (p. 359).
In these instances the reader feels Ngugi's frustration, for it seems that no matter how much or how often he speaks,
there is always someone who either fails to hear his words or whose inquiry is underwritten by his/her privilege.
Nonetheless, Ngugi never hesitates in correcting his interviewer: 'First of all, of course, we don't call them tribal
languages; they are national languages' (p. 110). Surely, Ngugi's experiences of colonialism, revolution, neocolonialism,
prison and exile have prepared him for such frustrations, but his willingness to engage continuously in such
steep uphill battles is a testament to his passion and fortitude.
Many, if not most, interviewers included in this collection manage to capture that passion and fortitude. Of particular
note are Charles Cantalupo's interviews with Ngugi, especially 'Ngugi wa Thiong'o: moving the centre'. Cantalupo's
questions exhibit his preparedness and ability to spar with Ngugi in multiple arenas, from Nelson Mandela's release to
Ngugi's newly released Moving the Centre, from Somalia to James Joyce to language. His interviewing style allows
Ngugi to speak his mind on a variety of subjects, capturing his passions for social and revolutionary change, but also for
literatures and languages.
Like Cantalupo, Sander and Lindfors present a wellrounded depiction of Ngugi. However, while they have done a
flawless job researching, documenting and presenting Ngugi's interviews, it is Ngugi's voice and words that captivate
the reader and that make this book an invaluable resource.
NATASHA HIMMELMAN
Centre for African Studies
University of Cape Town
Himmelman, Natasha
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Himmelman, Natasha. "Reinhard Sander and Bernth Lindfors (eds), Ngugi wa Thiong'o Speaks: interviews with the
Kenyan writer." Africa, vol. 78, no. 3, 2008, p. 472+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA185210915&it=r&asid=389e3fcc2d3a29b8d8968a537dd094ed.
Accessed 6 May 2017.
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Bernth Lindfors (ed.), Africa Talks Back:
Interviews with Anglophone African Authors
Fiona Johnson Chalamanda
Africa.
75.2 (Spring 2005): p256.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Edinburgh University Press
http://www.eup.ed.ac.uk/
Full Text:
BERNTH LINDFORS (ed.), Africa Talks Back: interviews with anglophone African authors. Trenton NJ and Asmara:
Africa World Press (pb US$29.95, 21.99 [pounds sterling]0 86543 966 4). 2002, 434 pp.
This volume of interviews with anglophone writers in Africa accompanies another AWP publication in 2002, African
Writers and their Readers: essays in honor of Bernth Lindfors, marking Lindfors's long and influential career in the field
of African literary studies. However, in this collection, the twentyeight interviews are part of Lindfors's own portfolio
of work, carried out with wellknown writers from Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan and Uganda,
including Chinua Achebe, Es'kia Mphalele, Njabulo Ndebele, David Maillu and Taban lo Liyong, as well as with
writers who have made less of an impact on the African literary scene since the time of the original interview, such as
Obi Egbuna and Ken Lipenga.
Conducted between 1969 and 1986 in Africa, Europe and North America, the interviews were first collected in four
volumes, Palaver (1972), DemSay (1974), Mazungumzo (1980) and Kulankhula (1989) and in two journals. They are
accompanied by grainy black and white passportsized portraits of some of the writers from the time of the original
publication, looking youthful, with their seventies hairstyles and spectacles. An invaluable feature of the volume is the
extensive twentypage index, a feature that was missing from at least some of the previous collections. In contrast,
Lindfors's introduction is short and functional, naming the sources of the interviews and justifying the volume with the
fact that most of the original publications are now out of print.
Many of the writers have since become wellknown, lending these interviews historical significance as they capture
them in their social and political contexts when they were writing in the recent independence, or in the face of the
Nigerian civil war, apartheid or censorship. As Lindfors notes, 'These frank conversations placed on permanent record
what writers in different corners of anglophone Africa were thinking about significant literary issues of their day' (p. v).
He conducts the interviews using both standard questions with regard to when and where the writer started to write and
why they write in English, as well as questions specific to the individual writer.
The volume largely reflects the gender imbalance of published writers, with only one woman writer, Grace Ogot,
interviewed. She, however, expresses great hopes for female writers in Kenya, citing some names that at the time were
emerging talents, including Rebekah Njau and Barbara Kimenye. However, according to Ogot, women's predominant
interest is in writing plays and children's books 'which are so badly needed to break through the Enid Blyton collections
so entrenched in the market' (p. 279).
At least two entrepreneurial popular writers, who selfpublished are interviewed, demonstrating how Lindfors is already
in the 1970s open to extending the definition of African literature to include writers such as Aubrey Kalitera from
Malawi and David Maillu from Kenya. Kalitera gives an interesting insight into why he resorts to selfpublishing. When
Lindfors asks whether his books, published by Heinemann in Kenya, are circulated in Malawi, he answers 'No ... You
see, the publisher handles me like a Kenyan. I don't know why. He doesn't handle me like a Malawian. Possibly it is a
sales technique or a foreign exchange problem' (p. 128). The Kenyan, Maillu, clearly gives a different motive, noting
that most publishers wanted short stories, whereas he was looking for an outlet for the novels he had written. The
energy involved in the process of writing bursts forth from the interview, for example when Maillu says: 'When I got
bored with [writing] one, I went to another. Even now I am unable to write one book at a time. Today I think I have five
going' (p. 157).
Such anecdotes and views, that give insight into the experience of writing and publishing in the contexts from which the
interviews emerge, make this collection of such value, for they are details that supplement our understanding of literary
analyses of the works of these writers.
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FIONA JOHNSON CHALAMANDA
University of Stirling
Chalamanda, Fiona Johnson
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Chalamanda, Fiona Johnson. "Bernth Lindfors (ed.), Africa Talks Back: Interviews with Anglophone African Authors."
Africa, vol. 75, no. 2, 2005, p. 256+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA138859559&it=r&asid=6da00d9187021d9750b880fa18c28bd5.
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Africa Talks Back: Interviews with Anglophone
African Authors
J. Roger Kurtz
World Literature Today.
77.1 (AprilJune 2003): p83.
COPYRIGHT 2003 University of Oklahoma
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.com
Full Text:
Bernth Lindfors, ed. Trenton, N.J. / Asmara, Eritrea. Africa World Press. 2002. vi + 428 pages. $29.95. ISBN 086543
9656
FOR AFRICA TALKS BACK, the distinguished Africanist Bernth Lindfors has reached back into his archive and
republished interviews he conducted with twentyseven writers from six African countries. Scholars and libraries who
do not already have copies of Palaver, DemSay, Mazungumzo, and Kulankulawhere most of the interviews were
originally published, and which are now out of printwill find it convenient to have these materials readily available,
within a single volume. On the other hand, anyone seeking fresh materials will be disappointed, as there is nothing new
in this collection. Lindfors recorded the interviews between 1969 and 1986, but only six of them occurred in the 1980s,
and a quick calculation shows that on average they date from 1976.
In his brief introduction, Lindfors suggests that the main value of the collection is historical, which is to say that it
reveals the concerns and perspectives of emerging African writers a quarter of a century ago. This is certainly true, and
in this respect Africa Talks Back is indeed useful. The field of African literature has grown considerably in the past
twentyfive years; the canon has shifted and perhaps hardened, so that while some names Lindfors included are widely
recognized (Chinua Achebe, Dennis Brutus, Meja Mwangi, Kole Omotoso, and Taban lo Liyong, among them), others
have for various reasons dropped from the scene. Whatever their merits, Hilary Ng'weno (Kenya), Anthony Nazombe
(Malawi), and Kalu Uka (Nigeria) are more footnotes than mainstays these days.
The overwhelming preponderance of male writers also dates the collection, since it is only since the late 1980s that
scholars have paid significant attention to women writers from Africa. In his 1976 conversation with Grace Ogot, the
only woman he interviewed, Lindfors remarks that she is "one of the few women writing in Africa today." She politely
corrects him, suggesting rather that she is one of the few women to garner publicity, but that many others are in fact
writing. She reels off a list of seven East African women who were already publishing at the time.
The interviews are organized alphabetically by subject, beginning with Chinua Achebe and concluding with Kalu Uka.
Lindfors asks consistently useful questions about the writers' backgrounds and influences, about their stand on the role
of art and culture in Africa, about their sense of an audience, and about the direction that they see literature going in
Africa. There are occasionally probing questions about specific works, and as a whole the conversations elicit
thoughtful commentary and illuminating anecdotes. Reading through them, one is struck by how these firstgeneration
writers, who grew up and were educated during the colonial era, were profoundly influenced by the European literary
tradition. While there are occasional references to contemporary African writers and to African literary tradition, the
conversations are liberally laced with fond references to Shakespeare, Dante, Wordsworth, Tolstoy, and other European
worthies. One suspects that more recent African writers would display less of this influence; in fact, their allusions
would likely invoke many of the writers interviewed here.
Given its scope, the volume's title is somewhat overstated and even misleading. The implication that an entire continent
is talking or even remotely represented seems indefensible. Similarly, the concept of "talking back," a popular and often
legitimate postcolonial trope, hardly applies in this case. The writers who Lindfors interviewed are more interested in
explaining themselves or offering commentary than in confronting. They see themselves as part of a global literary
endeavor rather than as external antagonists. The notions of a dialogue or conversationwhich marked the titles of the
volumes in which these interviews originally appearedseem more apt. Finally, the collection would be enhanced by
new material. One wishes at least for a longer, analytic introduction from Lindfors or, better yet, a pairing of these old
interviews with more recent conversations with the same writers.
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These limitations aside, Africa Talks Back contains an illuminating and historically important set of interviews. Like
most Africa World Press productions, this is a handsome volume, well produced with an attractive cover. These
interviews constitute a useful and lasting resource in African literary studies, and we can be grateful to Lindfors for
bringing them back into print in this new package.
J. Roger Kurtz
SUNY, Brockport
Kurtz, J. Roger
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Kurtz, J. Roger. "Africa Talks Back: Interviews with Anglophone African Authors." World Literature Today, vol. 77,
no. 1, 2003, p. 83. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA107397390&it=r&asid=3c8fc9b8862cc42324db817e80e4420c.
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Black African Literature in English, 19921996
David M. Westley
Research in African Literatures.
34.1 (Spring 2003): p198.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Indiana University Press
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu
Full Text:
by Bernth Lindfors. Oxford: James Currey, 2000. xliii + 654 pp. ISBN 0852555652 cloth.
It is a pleasure to review the most recent bibliographical contribution by Bernth Lindfors. The previous edition (1987
91) won the 1966 [note from sketchwriter; date is wrong, correct date unavailable] ConoverPorter prize, which is awarded every two years for excellence in Africana bibliography or
reference work. Lindfors shared that prize with Nancy J. Schmidt, who won for SubSaharan African Films and
Filmmakers (19871992). I am happy to report that this edition lives up to its expectations.
Lindfors numbers the entries in his bibliography consecutively beginning with the earliest edition. This, the present
edition, begins with item 20735 and ends with 34386. His previous work ends with 20734 and his next expected edition
will presumably begin with 34387. This approach makes reference to works in earlier editions much easier to state. The
entries are only briefly annotated, especially in cases that call for clarity.
The very first part of the book, "Periodicals Cited: List and Abbreviations," does more than give handy shorthand for
often quoted journals. Lindfors also lists the place of publication. This may not seem important. It is no surprise to find
that Presence Africaine is published in Paris; it is, however, a big surprise to find that Igbo Times originates in
Chatsworth, California. The listing of places of publication also helps to distinguish between journals bearing the same
name.
The bibliography is divided into two major parts, Part 1, "Genre and Topical Studies and Reference Sources," which is
further divided into 27 parts. Part 2 is a listing of works about individual authors. No creative works are included unless
they are accompanied by an introduction or other material that makes their inclusion desirable.
Part 1 includes bibliographies, biographies, interviews, general works, etc. Most of the sections are selfexplanatory.
"Craft of Writing" has mainly to do with literary prizes. "Image Studies" deals with representations of various concepts,
from motherhood to nationalism to "railway culture." "Censorship" covers the topic in apartheid South Africa, Nigeria,
Malawi, Zimbabwe, and other countries. "Language and Style" deals mainly with the language question, language
policy, and language problems. A new subdivision with this edition is "Media (Film, Radio, Television, Video, Press)."
In all cases works about individual writers are deferred to Part 2.
Part 2 consists of books and articles about over 1,000 individual authors and refers the reader to other references in both
Parts 1 and 2. "Solomon Tshekiso [it should be Tshekisho] Plaatje" can serve as an example. The first section is on
bibliography. There is no book or article dealing specifically with Plaatje, but the author, using entry numbers, refers the
reader to three wider bibliographies that feature Plaatje. Next comes "Biography," a section of 19 entries that includes
many relatively short, anonymous articles but also a major work, They Fought for Freedom: Sol Plaatje by John
Pampallis. Under "Criticism" are 35 work, one of which is A Collection of Solomon T. Plaatje Lectures 19811992.
Lindfors notes in numbered entry form where the individual works in the collection can be found. At the end of the
criticism section he gives numbered references to works in which Plaatje is partly considered. Found mostly in Part 1,
these references are well worth checking. There are two references to Part 2. One of these is especially relevant, a work
on Peter Abrahams that "[d]iscusses Abrahams' debt to Plaatje." This is pretty much how the "Individual Authors" part
works.
There are four indexes: author, subject, and geographical. As far as mechanics are concerned I have to report that
Lindfors misnumbers one of my articles, but he is only one number off. I tried assiduously to find other examples but
could find none. I am satisfied, after examining all indexes, that there are no systematic mistakes, the bibliographer's
nightmare. His subdivisions are, for the most part, logical and easy to follow. My only quibble is that it would have
been worthwhile for him to give the numbering of pages for monographs. This way the user can tell at a glance whether
he is looking at a brief summary or a major work.
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In sum, this is another fine work. It is hoped that more sequels will follow.
‐‐David M. Westley
African Studies Library, Boston University
Westley, David M.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Westley, David M. "Black African Literature in English, 19921996." Research in African Literatures, vol. 34, no. 1,
2003, p. 198+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA98978371&it=r&asid=f7998e3d9afb94833cf56c2a4929a7cd.
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Bernth Lindfors. ed. Black African Literature in
English, 19921996
Ode S. Ogede
International Fiction Review.
30.12 (Jan. 2003): p122.
COPYRIGHT 2003 International Fiction Association
http://www.unb.ca/arts/Culture_Lang/IFRmain.htm
Full Text:
Oxford: Hans Zell Publishers, 2000. Pp. xi+654. $140.00
Bernth Lindfors' regularly updated bibliography Black African Literature in English, now in its fifth edition, <
predecessors: it covers criticism only, and does not include information on the creative works themselves, that is, the
novels, short stories, plays, and poems written in English by African authors.
As in the previous editions, one admires Lindfors' effort to achieve a comprehensive coverage, although a more
selective listing, one that weeds out some of the unimportant journalistic pieces that have appeared in African
newspapers and that comprise the bulk of the articles listed here, might have yielded a better outcome. It certainly
would have cut the size and the price of the massive volume in half, without diminishing the value of the book as a
reliable work of scholarly reference. Just as the inclusion of items that bear no literary qualities blurs the definition of
African literature upon which the compilation is drawn, so the derogatory remarks on the works of those critics who air
views that are opposed to opinions held by the bibliographer suggest a punitive act which raises serious questions of
academic integrity.
The value of this edition, however, lies in its sound organizational framework. The volume is divided into two main
parts. After the introduction, which offers a brief explanation of the work's scope, format, and goals, the first part relates
the information by genre including sections on "bibliographies," "biographies," and "interviews," as well as general and
more specialized topics which include "fiction," "drama," "media (film, radio, television, video, press)," "poetry,"
"criticism," "autobiography," "publishing," "children's literature," "popular literature," "language and style," "language
and commitment," "the role of the writer," "image studies," "audience," "censorship," "periodicals," "conferences," and
"festivals." The final part arranges the material alphabetically by author. The book concludes with a wellfurnished
threepart index organized by author, title, and subject. Black African Literature in English, 19921996 can be consulted
with ease, which is no small feat for a volume that puns together such a vast amount of data. Unfortunately, the title is
misleading as it implies that the whole of African literature in English is accommodated within its purview.
Ogede, Ode S.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Ogede, Ode S. "Bernth Lindfors. ed. Black African Literature in English, 19921996." International Fiction Review,
vol. 30, no. 12, 2003, p. 122+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA107250169&it=r&asid=8a6abaead6c7a488dce72e8d65ea8042.
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Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show
Business. (Reviews)
Nadine GeorgeGraves
Modern Drama.
43.4 (Winter 2000): p646.
COPYRIGHT 2000 University of Toronto Press
http://www.utpjournals.com/
Full Text:
BERNTH LINDFORS, ed. Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show Business. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1999. Pp. 302, illustrated. $16.95 (Pb).
Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show Business is a collection of essays focusing on the nineteenth and
earlytwentiethcentury practice of displaying Africans in world's fairs, museums, circuses, and pseudoscientific road
shows. Most of the articles focus on the exhibitors and spectators (i.e., the Europeans and Americans) from this
particularly shameful era in the histories of Western performance and science. The text puts names and faces to shrewd
businessmen who capitalized on curiosity regarding the freak/other and who exploited Africans in the name of a science
(ethnography) that was mostly about sensationalism. Descriptions of the Africans are given mainly from the viewpoint
of the exhibitors and spectators. Though primary documents illustrating the attitudes of the Africans are probably
scarce, more speculation as to how the Africans might have felt would have given a more balanced representation of the
significance of this practice. As it stands, the reader has a difficult time knowing what to take as accurate representation
and what to recognize as the product of a less enlightened time. Scholars cannot always take the primary written
documents at their word, as only Jeffrey P. Green frankly acknowledges when he writes, "The study of theatrical
entertainers must avoid uncritical acceptance of contemporary comments" (162). The truth of exhibitors' claims that
their Africans were on display voluntarily and were satisfied with their lives, as well as of the few accounts of
spectators translating the Africans' speeches as desirous of murdering the audience, is suspect. In general, the essays are
more concerned with historical exegesis than with philosophical and psychological theorizing on the systems that
created this performance genre: in other words, the text speaks to how this happened, but not much to why it happened.
Very few theories of colonialism or analyses from a postcolonial perspective are invoked. Also, from a theatre/ drama
perspective, not much is given by way of performance analysis.
The text is arranged chronologically, but the articles do not build on one another. The same points are often repeated,
and some later articles, such as Robert W. Rydell's "Darkest Africa," offer very few original insights, mostly because of
their place in the order of the text. Recurring motifs include perceptions of Africans as subhuman savages (only
occasionally as people), the process of "civilizing" the Africans, the rhetoric of justification, Charles Dickens's
devastating views, and the "science" of social Darwinism. One valuable result of reading the articles together is that
readers get a good sense of the evolution of performance expectations. It was enough simply to display the Venus
Hottentot (Sarah Baartman) as a curiosity and proof of some theories of human development. Later, Africans had to
give entertaining and, most importantly, convincing shows. Z.S. Strother's article "Display of the Body Hottentot" is the
strongest contribution. In it, she provides an indepth analysis of the history and context needed to understand the Venus
Hottentot, the systems that created the desire to gaze at the other as well as the manifestation of that desire. She delves
into the Hottentot mythos, focusing on the belief that language separates humans from beasts, the creation of wild and
savage imagery, cooking as a mark of civilization, the Hottentot physical type, the use of the pipe, and sexual violence.
Unfortunately, she does not tell us how much of the mythos to believe and how much to attribute to the colonial
imagination. Perhaps it was all a fabrication. Perhaps it does not matter. Perhaps we are simply still too caught up in a
desire for proof of authenticity. But a scholarly interest in colonial psychology as well as African identity would
validate this sort of critical inquiry. Granted, this is dangerous territory, as our voyeurism meets our scholarly desire to
know the truth. Though Strother fills in much of the story, we are still left with pressing questions. For example, did
Narina (an earlier example of a "noble savage" Hottentot) really look like the drawing in the travel journal? How might
Sarah Baartman have felt? Did everyone believe the hype? Strother's appendix of various court documents concerning
the condition of the Venus Hottentot give us conflicting stories. Perhaps we'll never know what to believe, even though
we truly need to understand.
The other articles in the text offer interesting accounts of the lives of people in this industry. Bernth Lindfors examines
the height of "savage" imagery as demonstrated by the display of Zulus and by Dickens's commentaries on these shows.
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Lindfors provides an excellent analysis of Dickens's willful misinterpretations, conscious miswritings, and flagrant
hyperbole, which served to actively create the myths that shaped nineteenthcentury public sentiment around the
rhetoric of cultural genocide. The difference between "natural" behaviors and good acting could have been more closely
analyzed, and Lindfors's seeming exoneration of the Victorians' actions and attitude with the excuse that they didn't
know any better because they didn't have the opportunity to meet a Zulu on equal terms is problematic.
Shane Peacock paints a picture of the exhibitor The Great Farini as a benevolent hero and adventurer. He is inexplicably
uncritical of his subject and often acts as an apologist. At one point, Peacock claims that Farini might be considered an
antiracist. He bases this claim on several facts. First, while Farini made numerous disparaging comments about
Africans in his book, he also disliked people from other ethnic groups. Second, Farini interceded at a hotel that did not
want to put up Gert (one of the Africans). Third, Farini made statements that Gert was lazy, but these were not (Peacock
claims) based on Gert's skin color but on his actions; besides, Farini thought most people lazy. Fourth, Farini described
Zulus as pitiable. In light of these facts, Peacock would do well to define and analyze what it means to be racist. Farini
may have disliked many different people, wanted to protect his investment by having Gert well rested in a hotel bed,
and looked down on Africans with pity, but this does not mean he was not racist. I'd be "lazy" too if forced into the
racist practice of freak show exhibition. The end of the article continues to glorify Farini as a passionate thrill seeker
who probably did not even notice the people he knocked down. These people those whom Farini knocked down are
precisely the people whose stories need to be told.
Jeffrey P. Green also gives us an anecdotal biography of a white male exhibitor, James Jonathan Harrison, who
displayed six Congo Pygmies. Green is less glorifying of his subject than Peacock, but he still focuses more on the
business and social dealings of Harrison and his colleagues than on the conditions of the Pygmies. Most interesting is a
short discussion of moments of resistance by the Pygmies. We are also given some anecdotal accounts of their lives. I
wish Green had expanded this examination.
Donald Bain, as described by Robert J. Gordon in "Bain's Bushmen," seems more of a humanitarian than either Farini
or Harrison, though his motives for and means of creating an exhibit to procure funds for a relief effort are suspect.
Gordon gives an interesting account of a later exhibition (1936) apparently mounted to provide assistance to suffering
Africans. To do this, Bain resorted to many of the practices of his predecessors, a fact that casts doubt on his motives.
Gordon's account hints at an interesting discussion about intention versus reception. The most interesting section of Veit
Erlmann's "Spectatorial Lust" is a discussion of the tensions between colonial expectations of savages and the
misguided belief in the power of civilization. Yet it is difficult to cut through the threads of Erlmann's tangential
theorizing to decipher his argument about the African Choir. His clearest claim is that a semiotic reading of the Choir's
dress shows that their clothes can be read as a metaphor for colonization/civilization, as they appear in pictures first in
African garments and later in Victorian guise. How this translates into spectatorial lust is difficult to see.
Harvey Blume makes an interesting argument that links P.T. Barnum to postmodernism through his genreblurring and
problems with classification. This may be giving Barnum too much credit, and the article leans towards academicizing
the obvious. But even though Blume overuses terms like "Barnumism" and "Barnumesque," he manages to offer fresh
insights into the significance of the work of this most famous exhibitor. I wish Blume had gone further with a discussion
about performance. He mentions that spectators of the Zulu exhibition thought the Africans performed as if unaware
that they were being watched. This statement is fascinating on many fronts, especially as it reflects on the desire for
"realism" in ethnological show business and the skills of the Africans as performers.
Toward the end of the book, we get two articles primarily about the exhibits (as opposed to the men who exhibited
them). Both Clicko and LoBagola (who was actually an American posing as an African) are described as being mentally
disturbed (Clicko with his wild fits and LoBagola as a pedophile drunk with a number of scandalous exploits and
arrests). From a performance perspective, far more interesting is the brief discussion of Clicko's ability to enter a trance
state for performances (which explains his wild fits) and LoBagola's ability to create an identity for himself by naming
himself and fabricating a life and persona.
Overall, the reader will appreciate the detailed research and descriptions of some of the most important players in this
industry. She will have to go elsewhere for discussions on the significance of ethnological displays and their
implications for our understanding of history, society, and civilization.
Nadine GeorgeGraves, Yale University
GeorgeGraves, Nadine
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
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GeorgeGraves, Nadine. "Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show Business. (Reviews)." Modern Drama, vol.
43, no. 4, 2000, p. 646+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA80008953&it=r&asid=22fcd7b1dd87298044ea532cec70c967.
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Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Peter Nazareth
World Literature Today.
74.4 (Autumn 2000): p793.
COPYRIGHT 2000 University of Oklahoma
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.com
Full Text:
Oliver Lovesey, Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Bernth Lindfors, ed. New York. Twayne. 2000. xiii + 164 pages. $32. ISBN 0
805716955.
THE LATEST BOOK on perhaps the single most critiqued African writer fulfills the mission statement of the Twayne
series edited by Bernth Lindfors: it offers a critical introduction to the life and work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, provides
new critical insights and an original point of view, and addresses readers in a way that can appeal to advanced highschool
students and to university professors. After a chronology, there are five chapters: "Introduction: Kenyan History,
Ngugi's Life and Career, Ngugi and Postcolonial Studies"; "(Re)Writing History: Early Fiction"; "Mau Mau Aesthetics:
Later Fiction"; "Performing Revolution: Plays and Film"; and "Armed Words for Mental Decolonization: Nonfiction
Prose." Oliver Lovesey provides the essence of his interpretation in the introduction:
Ngugi's conflicted intellectuals indicate a persistent questioning of the
role of the artist and a long‐standing uneasiness with Western narrative
forms such as the novel and of Westernized education in African society.
Since the early 1970s, Ngugi has been a vocal advocate of African languages
and African narrative forms. He has put his commitment into practice by
publishing novels in Gikuyu, his mother tongue; by exploring the
possibility of collective authorship in some of his plays; and by
incorporating diverse narrative techniques in his novels to make them
accessible to a largely illiterate peasantry that can experience his
writing only by hearing it read aloud. He has also been forthright in
presenting his political views [i.e., against colonialism and
neocolonialism] and in criticizing his nation's government, at a
considerable personal cost.
Guiding us through Ngugi's life and writing with ideological empathy, Lovesey is one of the few scholars to provide an
account and analysis of Ngugi's development as a nonfiction prose writer, proving he is a contributor to postcolonial
theory. But it was the plays that "indirectly caused Ngugi's imprisonment," he says, and thus playwriting "is associated
with some of the most dramatically uplifting and devastating moments of his career." The title "Performing Revolution"
also provides the vehicle for discussing Ngugi's brief work in film.
Ngugi is best known as a novelist, of course. Most scholars draw a distinction between the four novels in English and
the two in Gikuyu. Showing how the way was prepared by the early stories in Secret Lives, Lovesey categorizes the
first three novels as "early fiction" responding to history with some stylistic features of the European novel. Opening
with the later stories in Secret Lives and closing with the children's stores in Gikuyu, the third chapter discusses the next
three novels in terms of Ngugi's embrace of "a distinctive African aesthetics or poetics of fiction, a view of African art,
the African artist and the African artist outlined in his essays."
Despite some errors for example, on page 71 he says "Wariinga," the name of a character in the fifth novel, when
actually referring to Wanja in the fourth Lovesey balances being informational with providing his own literary
analysis, which I sometimes do not agree with. "Karega is one of Ngugi's first largely perfect heroes," he concludes at
one point, but this may be because he seems to be drawn more to Ngugi's ideas than to his fiction; he says, for instance,
that Ngugi has not published an "acknowledged masterpiece" in fiction but is "arguably better known and more widely
cited today as a theorist of African language, literature, culture, and politics than as a novelist or dramatist." The ideas
of Karega could be published as an essay by Ngugi, but he is found wanting because he is so caught up in abstract ideas
that he overlooks the human being.
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"The focus of Petals of Blood forever spirals backward to the fatal night of the triple murder, but it also projects forward
into the future," Lovesey states. One scholar at one time can only provide one interpretation of such a spiraling novel.
As with a Makonde carving, fullness requires several angles of vision. Forthcoming in Twayne's series on world
literature edited by Robert Lecker is a book which includes six essays listed in Lovesey's bibliography: Critical Essays
on Ngugi wa Thiong'o, edited by this reviewer. The volumes are twin.
Peter Nazareth University of Iowa
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Nazareth, Peter. "Ngugi wa Thiong'o." World Literature Today, vol. 74, no. 4, 2000, p. 793. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA73236499&it=r&asid=3343c184cc123baa416b1b527e508106.
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Conversations with Chinua Achebe
Craig McLuckie
Research in African Literatures.
31.1 (Spring 2000): p181.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Indiana University Press
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu
Full Text:
Conversations with Chinua Achebe, ed. Bernth Lindfors. Literary Conversations Series. Jackson: UP of Mississippi,
1997. Paperback. xviii + 199 pp. ISBN 0878059997. US$17.
Chinua Achebe is the "father" of the modern African novel, and of African literature in English. His exemplary work as
General Editor of the Heinemann African Writers Series and as a critic, teacher, and singular creative voice in African
literature attests to this fact. From 1981 to 1998, over 340 new articles and books on Achebe's writings have been
published. Of the scholarly works under review here, a reader might inquire about the necessity of further books on
Achebe generally and on Things Fall Apart specifically.
In the 1990s, Michael Echeruo's Chinua Achebe Revisited (1998), Kole Omotoso's Achebe or Soyinka? A
Reinterpretation and a Study in Contrasts (1995), Romanus Muoneke's Art, Rebellion and Redemption: A Reading of
the Novels of Chinua Achebe (1994), Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Kwame Appiah's edited collection Chinua Achebe:
Critical Perspectives Past and Present (1994), Christophe Tshikala Kambaji's Chinua Achebe: A Novelist and Portraitist
of His Society (1993), David Carroll's Chinua Achebe (1990), and Gikandi's Reading Chinua Achebe (1991) cover the
writer and his novel admirably, from a variety of cultural and theoretical perspectives. Indeed, several more specialized
studies supplement these general works: Anderson and Arnoldi's Art in Achebe: Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God
(1978), Bernth Lindfors's Approaches to Teaching Things Fall Apart (1991), and Easthope's Students' Guide to Things
Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1999). The publication of EzenwaOhaeto's biography of Achebe in 1997 is cause for
celebration, but it also marks the time for reflection and assessment on this remarkable literary critical phenomena.
In his introduction to Conversations with Chinua Achebe, Bernth Lindfors notes the success of Things Fall Apart: over
8 million copies soldin various formats, editions, and marketsover the last 41 years (ix). In the chronology, Achebe's
impact and reputation is further reinforced by the 26 honorary doctoral degrees, from England, Scotland, Nigeria, and
the United States. Achebe, then, deserves the considerable attention he has received. So what does Conversations add?
The volume opens with an introduction, a chronology of Achebe's life, followed by 21 conversations, and is concluded
with an index (primarily surnames and organizations). The earliest interview, in this chronologically arranged work, is
Lewis Nkosi's piece from 1962. More "fresh" for those in institutions without research libraries are Tony Hall's 1967
piece from The Sunday Nation (Nairobi), Ernest and Pat Emenyonu's "Achebe: Accountable to Our Society" (reprinted
from Africa Report 1972), Onuora Ossie Enekwe's 1976 interview for Okike, and Biodun Jeyifo's Nigeria Magazine
Press volume of 1983. Lindfors's knowledge of the area is apparent in such "finds" as the interview in the appendix of
B.V. Harajagannadh's unpublished PhD dissertation, India 1985. Gordon Lewis's 1995 interview concludes this volume
of conversations spanning 33 years as a novelist and verbal theorist of his art.
The content of the Lindfors volume covers all aspects of Achebe's life, but rightly concentrates on those events that
illuminate his artistic practices. Lindfors breaks these into general statements, the autobiographical (an odd division
given the nature of Achebe's art and its connection to his people), "On Igbo Life and Culture," "On Language and
Style," "On Other Literatures, Other Literary Forms," "On Writing and Being a Writer," and "Works." All of the
interviews are competently executed; each reveals useful information about the literary aspects of Achebe's life. If the
volume has a deficiency, it is that most of the interviews are readily available.
Three other limitations are that the volume is "a representative sample" (xiii) rather than the best of the voluminous
interviews available; that the reader "may find some repetition in the nature of the questions asked and the responses
given" (xiii); and that "more general literary or cultural matters have been preferred over those concerned with the nittygritty
of Nigerian politics" (xiii). It is a compilation of previously published interviews rather than a judiciously edited
selection, where the focus is on a narrow area of the writer's interests and activities. The nature of the volume may be
dependent on the series of conversations of which it is a part.
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Solomon O. Iyasere's Understanding Things Fall Apart: Selected Essays and Criticisms is another "reprise" volume,
designed "to guide and enrich the experience of reading" the novel (7). Iyasere accomplishes his goal through the
selection of criticism written in the 1980s, including two pieces of his own. There is an even division between essays on
narrative technique (Angela Smith, B. Eugene McCarthy, and Solomon O. Iyasere), linguistic issues (Julian N.
Wasserman, Abdul Janmohamed, and Russell McDougal), and the moral implications of the story (Willene P. Taylor,
Damian Opato, and Solomon O. Iyasere). Most are easily accessed in a mediumsized university library. Thus, it has
limited value to a scholar, who will be aware of these articles; for students, the scope is perhaps too narrow, with no
substantive "debate" between articles on the same subject. However, if a library's resources are limited, and if a
collection is developed around major authors, then the text has some merit.
Iyasere's introduction argues for the impact of these essays, but in a mildly contradictory fashion: "More sensitive and
responsive to Things Fall Apart are those literary critics who have studied the Igbo literary tradition" (3). The
implication is that one type of criticism (i.e., sensitive to Igbo culture) is superior to the other. Yet the selection of
Angela Smith's essay confounds his attack on Eurocentrism because it judges the novel "as if it were attempting to align
itself with the Western tradition"; it is, in Iyasere's words, a discussion "within the deep tradition of Western literature
and Western notions of tragic heroes" (3).
What Iyasere appears to use as a governing device for the selection is representativeness of critical approach and
response. Limited to the 1980s, the essays are barely representative of international critical response. One of the best
essays, Abdul JanMohamed's "Sophisticated Primitivism: The Syncretism of Oral and Literate Modes in Achebe's
Things Fall Apart" (86105), discusses the tension between the European formthe noveland its African content.
However, the implications of the piece (narrower in scope than his argument in Manichean Aesthetics (1983) are not
overly illuminating now; Achebe has proven some incorrect in the interim. That a writer who takes an "alien" form and
inserts indigenous material into it will affect both form and indigenous culture, thus pointing "to future syncretic
possibilities" (104) is, like a GM pickup, "tried, tested, and true." This does not diminish the critical work for its
historical relevance, but it does raise the question of why the critics were not invited to add to their work, taking their
projections and the intervening critical, literary, political, and historical developments into account.
The book concludes with an "Index to Selected Proverbs" in the novel (14144), which informs readers where to locate
39 of the proverbs in the AstorHonor (New York, 1950) edition; the proverbs are not glossed. The selected
bibliography (14551) offers a smattering of criticism up to the early 1990s, mostly drawn from MLA sources. A fourpage
index of proper names and concepts concludes the volume.
Kalu Ogbaa's Understanding Things Fall Apart: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents, as
its title explicitly describes, is a more focused and specialized product, for the general "student" of African literature.
The volume is sensibly divided into eight sections, covering "Literary Analysis," "The Historical Context I: The
Scramble for and Partition of Africa," "The Historical Context II: The Creation and Colonization of Nigeria," "Cultural
Harmony I: Igbolandthe World of Man and the World of Spirits," "Cultural Harmony II: Igbo Language and Narrative
Customs," "Cultural Harmony III: Traditional Igbo Religion and Material Customs," "Things Fall Apart: The African
Novelists' Novel," and "Things Fall Apart and the Language Choice Debate." Each section ends with "Topics for
Written or Oral Exploration" and "Suggested Further Readings." In other words, this book is thoughtfully, if
traditionally, laid out. It offers any teacher a multitude of approaches for a class on the novel or on the construction of
culture.
From Theodore Canot's [Conneau's] Adventures of an African Slaver (1854) through Olaudah Equiano's "The
Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself" (1789) to
Ngugi wa Thiongo's Decolonizing the Mind (1986), Ogbaa has carefully read and excerpted the most germane passages
to his purpose. Ogbaa makes use of previously published material, but here there is real purpose and thought to the
"recycling." We may quibble here and there with a selection for reasons of personal interest and focus, but this book is
welledited, competently arranged, and useful. The glossary (22325) offers a nonexhaustive list of Igbo words and
concise translations. The index (22731) is more than adequate for its purpose. I highly recommend this text because it
achieves its goal "to elucidate unfamiliar literary and historical references, as well as Igbo cultural elements that Achebe
has succinctly appropriated as thematic material" (xviii).
Of the three texts, Ogbaa's is recommended, while the other two are recommended with the reservations outlined above.
In everdecreasing acquisitions budgets for libraries, these books will benefit very small libraries that cannot access the
Gale Research critical compendia.
Undoubtedly Chinua Achebe is the father of the modern African novel. But as a father, he would probably like his
"children's" accomplishments noticed as well. For that to occur, editors, publishers, teachers, and academics themselves
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will have to widen their scope. Notwithstanding those comments, in Achebe criticism we now await Ernest Emenyonu's
encyclopedic assessment of Achebe criticism from Africa World Press.
Craig McLuckie is a professor in the Department of English at Okanagan University College in Canada.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
McLuckie, Craig. "Conversations with Chinua Achebe." Research in African Literatures, vol. 31, no. 1, 2000, p. 181.
General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA59410549&it=r&asid=afff8cea39202d28b187faeeab5b88b5.
Accessed 6 May 2017.
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The Blind Men and the Elephant and Other
Essays in Biographical Criticism
World Literature Today.
74.1 (Winter 2000): p220.
COPYRIGHT 2000 University of Oklahoma
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.com
Full Text:
Bernth Lindfors. The Blind Men and the Elephant and Other Essays in Biographical Criticism. Trenton, N.J. / Asmara,
Eritrea. Africa World Press. 1999. xi + 200 pages, ill. $21.95. isbn 0865437289 (7297 paper).
<
Journalism." Sometimes his punny language offends those who think he is not serious, particularly when he brings to
the surface things people would rather suppress, as in his "Courting the Venus Hottentot." But he is not flippant. For
example, the facts he presents in "Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Detention" lead to an indictment of the Kenya government:
"What calls for such repressive measures? Why should the Government feel impelled to take such steps against writers
and artists? . . . Evidently, in Kenya today, 'truth hurts,' but it is most likely to hurt not those about whom it is spoken,
nor those to whom it is spoken, but rather those patriots who dare to speak such truth aloud in a local language."
What is not always noticed about Lindfors's criticism is the way he echoes the writers he is dealing with. Note how he
opens "Amos Tutuola's Search for a Publisher": "The story of Amos Tutuola's surprising rise to literary fame has been
told so often that it has almost gained the stature of a legend or modernday myth. We have Amos, the unpromising
hero, setting out on an impossible quest (namely, publication in postwar London of a tall tale set in an African fantasy
world and written in substandard English), yet after a series of accidents and unexpected happenings in lands remote
from his experience, he manages to achieve his goal and win a substantial reward for his efforts." Having made visible
the mythic underpinning of Tutuola's classic The PalmWine Drinkard, Lindfors punctures it with facts, for we can be
blind to our own mind if we are not conscious about how such structures shape our emotions. He is not putting down
Tutuola; the next chapter is a moving "Proper Farewell" to him.
The present volume's title essay begins with the famous story of the six blind men encountering an elephant for the first
time. "I have referred to this fable because I believe it epitomizes the problem of every critic who is confronted with a
new work of art, especially one that comes out of a culture different from his own," Lindfors says. "It is impossible for
him to see the thing whole. He may inspect it with the greatest curiosity and scholarly care, counting its parts, studying
its structure, analyzing its texture, probing its private recesses, measuring its real and symbolic dimensions, and trying
to weigh its ultimate significance, but he will never master all its complexity, never understand everything that makes it
live and move as an independent artistic creation. He simply cannot help but perceive it from his own limited point of
view which has been conditioned by his previous cultural experiences." Lindfors has said the same thing as Ayi Kwei
Armah's famous attack on Western critics of African literature, but in a way no one can disagree with. He concludes,
"Any literature needs all the criticism it can get," for "only by glimpsing truth from a variety of perspectives are we able
to comprehend its complexities and ambiguities." He accordingly accepts from metacriticism by Gareth Griffiths that
his seminal essay on Achebe's use of proverbs was limited. What he insists on is, "A writer must be judged by what he
writes, not by how he lives," for "What we learn from these comments [on Dennis Brutus] by Egudu, Tejani, Ndu,
Clark, Beier and others is that biographical criticism and sociological criticism are highly subjective and can carry us
only so far into interpretation of a poet's work." He then does a dialectical analysis of the poetry of Dennis Brutus,
whose "progress as a poet cannot be charted as a straight line moving up, down or forever forward on a monotonous
horizontal plane; rather, it must be visualized as a series of reversals or turnabouts, each fresh impulse moving in a
direction counter to its antecedent until an entirely new lyrical idiom is achieved." Analyzing speeches in Madmen and
Specialists, he concludes that there is a dangerous tendency in Soyinka's art "toward meaningless frivolity which robs
his work of any serious implication."
This sounds like "antibiographical criticism," but Lindfors believes the text cannot be understood without knowledge
of the creator and the circumstances of the creation. Thus the chapter on the controversial Janheinz Jahn persuades us
we will find the writing valuable after we know about his life and thus his perspective. Write on, I say. Lindfors's
elephant is inside out in my own "Elvis as Anthology" (in In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion, 1997);
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analyzing the work of Bessie Head, Wilson Harris, Alice Walker, and Ishmael Reed, I provided my biography so
readers could see where I was coming from. Lindfors has a light tread for such large footsteps.
Peter Nazareth
University of Iowa
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"The Blind Men and the Elephant and Other Essays in Biographical Criticism." World Literature Today, vol. 74, no. 1,
2000, p. 220. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA62656144&it=r&asid=92c242827dbf142e99db443d7509c2da.
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Black African Literature in English: 19871991
Stewart Brown
African Af airs.
96.383 (Apr. 1997): p282.
COPYRIGHT 1997 Oxford University Press
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/afrafj/about.html
Full Text:
by Bernth Lindfors. Hans Zell Publishers, 1995. xxxv + 682 pp. 75.00 [pounds sterling] hardback. ISBN 187383616
3.
Bernth Lindfors has been an amazingly prolific commentator on African literatures over the last two decades and more.
His work with students and scholars at the University of Texas, his editorial responsibilities with the journal Research in
African Literatures as well as his numerous books, essays and reviews are testament to his commitment to the field.
However, the rollercoaster of literary theories and academic fashions have a way of undermining even the most
established of reputations and it may be that Professor Lindfor's most lasting contribution to scholarship will be the
superb series of annotated bibliographies of critical resources he has produced, both as compiler/author and as General
Editor of the Hans Zell Bibliographical Research in African Literatures series. His Black African Literature in English
19871991 is the latest title in the series and is a continuation of the work of the same title which covered the period
19821986 and, indeed, of the earlier 197781 volume and the original Black African Literature in English: A guide to
information sources. Together these tomes (and it is the appropriate word to describe these densely packed, two inch
thick, almost 1,000 page volumes) provide the scholar with a comprehensive, reliable and accessible resource from
which to begin any serious research project in African literature in English.
The sheer scale of the bibliographic undertaking is daunting; Lindfors has combed books, journals and newspaper from
all corners of the worldfrom Bratislava to Bombay and from Shanghai to Stockholm. Black African Literature in
English 19871991 is particularly impressive for the number of references to Africa based publications, which
characteristically have fairly limited circulation and are notoriously difficult for the metropolitan scholar to access.
While their listing here does not necessarily make these references easier to lay eyes on, it does make the metropolitanbased
critic pause before assuming `the authoritative voice'. The latest volume is organized under various headings and
carefully crossreferenced, which makes it very easy to use. Entries are lightly annotated in terms of describing their
subjectsso that essays which deal with the work of several authors will be referenced against those individual authors
as well as by the essay title, the writer's name and the geographical area of concern. For fear of sounding too much like
a blurb writer I cast around for something to criticize but the only possible quibble might be the price. At 75 [pounds
sterling] this is not going to be accessible many individual scholars except through libraries, and if you translate that
sum into, say, Nigerian naira, that's approx. N. 15,000 at today's exchange rates. However I have to say that given its
extent, the quality of its production and the incredible amount of work it represents, the book is a snip, a bargain, at that
price. Overall, Black African Literature in English 19871991 is an immensely impressive work, an essential resource
for any student of contemporary African literature and a book which no library pretending to support such study can
afford to be without.
If Bernth Lindfor's bibliography provides the skeleton for a study of contemporary African literature in English then A
History of TwentiethCentury African Literatures, edited by Oyekan Owomoyela, puts some flesh around those bones.
Indeed as the title suggests the scope of this study is wider than just the literature in one European language, indeed
what distinguishes it from the several other recent accounts of African literature aimed at an undergraduate market is the
breadth of its coverage of the continent's writing. While the majority of the essays focus on writing in English from
different regions of Africa in different genres, there are also chapters devoted to literature in French and Portuguese and
an interesting essay on `African Language Literatures: Perspectives on culture and identity' by Robert Cancel. In
addition to these survey chapters, which are all well enough written and cover the ground adequately, there are essays
devoted to three of the major issues in the discussion of African literature todaythe evolution of the whole debate over
the languages in which African literatures are/can should be written; the discussion over the place, role and importance
of women in the history of African literatures; and finally a detailed and provocative account of `Publishing in Africa:
the crisis and the challenge' by Hans M. Zell. That is a lot of material to pack into one volume and inevitably the survey
chapters rather skim the surface of things but as a `way in' to the field and for an accessible historical overview, this is
certainly a book that students coming new to African literature would find accessible and worthwhile.
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Like Bernth Lindfors, Eldred Durosimi Jones' commitment to the study of African Literature has been life long.
Working out of Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone he has experienced first hand the dramatic changes of fortune that
have beset `cultural production'for want of a better termas the political dynamics of the continent have changed.
Among his most influential activities has been the sustained publication of the journal African Literature Today which
has appeared for more than two decades now. To describe it as a journal is misleading; it is more a series of critical
anthologies, each devoted to a particular theme. The series takes no particular `party line' on the subject each volume
addresses, rather it has provided an important forum for debate which allows a reader to see the issues from various
perspectives. What links these various collections of essays, and reflectsone suspectsProf. Jones editorial emphasis,
is a commitment to texts rather than theories and to readerly accessibility in the discussion of those texts and the issues
that emerge from them. This can mean, as in the present volume devoted to `New Trends and Generations in African
Literature', that the essays have a rather `descriptive' feel to them, but in terms of helping us to get to grips with works
about which there has been, by definition, little discussion as yet, that is surely a virtue. Another feature of African
Literature Today has been its commitment to a discussion of work from across the continent in various languages and
this volume is no exception. The essays include, for example, a fascinating discussion of the Francophone African novel
in the 1980s and '90s by Lilyan Kesteloot, a critic whose work has been so influential in making French African writing
accessible to the Anglophone audience, an essay on contemporary South African theatre by Femi OjoAde, and a
discussion of the use of irony in the work of the Kenyan poet Jared Angira by EzenwaOhaeto. There is something of a
West African bias, however, in terms of the focus of the volume on contemporary writers from Nigeria, Ghana and
Sierra Leone, and also in terms of the contributors of the essaysanother feature of Afncan Literature Today has been
its willingness to support new critical voices from across the continent. There are essays here on Niyi Osundare, Tanure
Ojaide, Syl CheyneyCoker, Ken SaroWiwa, Femi Osofisan, Festus Iyayi and Kojo Laing. Pietro Diandrea's discussion
of Kojo Laing's purposive use of what has been called `magical realism' as another example of an African writer's
exploration of the notion of social responsibility, I found particularly interesting. Overall this new volume of Afncan
Literature Today is a very useful addition to the relatively slim resources available to the student or scholar interested in
contemporary African writing.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Brown, Stewart. "Black African Literature in English: 19871991." African Af airs, vol. 96, no. 383, 1997, p. 282+.
General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA19463169&it=r&asid=d3798e731f221520de700fcd396fba54.
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Comparative Approaches to African Literatures
Ode S. Ogede
Research in African Literatures.
27.4 (Winter 1996): p198.
COPYRIGHT 1996 Indiana University Press
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu
Full Text:
Comparativism has been relatively poorly served by critics of African literatures. In his pioneering book A Dance of
Masks: Senghor, Achebe, Soyinka, Jonathan Peters lamented the fact that comparativism was from inception a taboo
area in African literary studies. Kandioura Drame's followup book, The Novel as Transformation Myth: A Study of the
Novels of Mongo Beti and Ngugi wa Thiong'o, was rather disappointingmediocre, predictable in analysis, and lacking
bite. That it took nearly 20 years for some progress to be made, with the 1996 publication of Kole Omotoso's robustly
conceived Achebe or Soyinka: A Study in Contrasts (London: Hans Zell), shows too well the dormant state of the field
of Comparative African Literature.
Bernth Lindfors puts forward the claim that his Comparative Approaches to African Literatures represents somewhat of
an expansion of the traditional concept of comparative literature; however, his book is not a focused treatment of
African literature within the context of any specific theoretical or thematic comparative aesthetics, but a collection of
disparate essays on a miscellany of topics that had all been published previously in a variety of outletsperiodicals as
well as edited critical volumes. Concentrating mainly on anglophone writing, its first section, "Nigeria," deals with the
issue of literarymostly Westerninfluences on the stories of Amos Tutuola and Daniel Fagunwa, as well as on the
plays of John Pepper Clark and Wole Soyinka. Section two, "South Africa," offers two essays, one on Thomas Mofolo's
Chaka and the other on Alex La Guma's A Walk in the Night, and two generalized piecesone of which discusses
Nadine Gordimer's July's People, Karel Schoemer's Promised Land, and J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians as
the books Lindfors views as representing the major novels of postSoweto apocalyptic vision written by white South
Africans, while the other, "Many Happy Returns? Repatriation in a New South Africa," surveys some of the works of
Dennis Brutus, Mazisi Kunene, Lewis Nkosi, and Keorapetse Kgositsile, whom Lindfors calls "the most prolific longterm
expatriates" (63). Section three, "East Africa," presents two essays that comment on the works of Ngugi wa
Thiong'o, Okot p'Bitek, Charles Mangua, Grace Ogot, Leonard Kibera, Meja Mwangi, and numerous other major
figures as well as some little known ones. While section four, "Image Studies," has three essays that deal with the
characterization of African Americans, politicians, and women in a number of African texts, the last section,
"Reputation Studies," is a compilation of views on what anglophone African readers would seem to consider their
canons of great works and writers. This book does not have a concluding chapter, evidently because it does not advance
any coherent body of arguments that would require synthesis.
Lindfors's criticism has been noted for its acerbity, even if too often it is unorthodox, cynical, and mischievous in tone.
Only a few of the essays in Comparative Approaches to African Literatures highlight the positive vintage Lindfors. The
most obvious problem with this text is organizational, and it arises primarily from the inconsistency that results from
unnecessary shifts in the framework of the classification employed. Most of the volume's essays would fit into a
regional framework, but the sections entitled "Image Studies" and "Reputation Studies" have resulted from a different
principle altogetherthat of thematization. The decision not to adhere strictly to the regional criteria instances poor
editorial judgment because the failure to produce categories from the same principle violates an elementary law of
classification, as a result of which order lapses into disorder.
More fundamentally, with the exception of those essays in the Nigerian section, all the others are so perfunctory it is
hard to believe Lindfors actually wrote and published such material that is so intellectually weak and obviously
journalistic in tone. The section on East African writing is the weakest of them all. The first of the essays in this section,
entitled "A Basic Anatomy of East African Literature in English," not only takes on too many writers and works
deserving detailed analysis and surveys them rapidly and summarily, it is further marred by unsubstantiated claims. It
dispatches the entire corpus of Ngugi's fiction in five short sentences; devotes only three brief paragraphs each to
p'Bitek and Taban Lo Liyong; and then uses the works of several othersincluding Godwin Wachiru, John Karoki,
Stephen Ngubiah, Charity Waciumu, Lydia Nguya, Grace Ogot, Khadambi Asalache, Kenneth Watene, Leonard Kibera,
Robert Serumaga, Peter Nazareth, Gabriel Ruhumbika, Okello Oculi, Cliff Lubwa p'Chong, and Ismael Mbiseto
demonstrate what Lindfors describes in such condescending epithets as "young literature" and "formula fiction" (81).
Although it would take extraordinary courage for any critic to begin to attempt to map out the main outlines of a
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national literature in a single essay, no matter how lengthy, in this fleeting piece, Lindfors has the daring to cover a
regional literature within only seven pages. He then concludes as follows:
In constructing a basic anatomy of this literature we have sought
only to place the major organic parts in relationship to one another. The
delineation of the rest of the corpusincluding limbs, warts, hair and
other noteworthy extrusionswill have to await a fuller postmortem
examination .... Living organisms have a tendency to develop selectively,
realizing their full potential in certain areas but failing to extend
themselves significantly in others. Finding an adequate explanation for
this idiosyncratic pattern of growth and development is the challenge of
future scholarship. (81)
The most unfortunate aspect of this essay is that it postpones the issue of fleshing out the texts, contexts, and
continuities of East African Literature in English; this material is posed as a "challenge of future scholarship," but we
really need it in this book if the volume is to be of any lasting value. While Lindfors's sketchy commentary and
simplistic conclusions might be excused in a journal essay, they are inexcusable in a book chapter, and by republishing
his journal essays without taking advantage of the opportunity to revise, Lindfors does the field and himself a great
disservice. The closing essay of this section, "Sherlock Holmes in Africa: Kenya, Zanzibar and Tanzania," demonstrates
clearly that Lindfors's motivation for publishing his volume might be the compulsion for selfpromotion, but in reality
he has produced the opposite effect.
"Sherlock Holmes in Africa" is an unusual piece to find in a book of literary criticism, for it is an account of a
successful classroom teaching experiment Lindfors had in Africa that is entirely devoid of any obvious literary content.
All the reader gets from the essay is the impression that Lindfors was engaged in an exercise whose ripples were felt
through Kenya, Zanzibar, and Tanzania. A reading of "Sherlock Holmes in Africa" suggests that Lindfors undoubtedly
saw himself during the years he taught High School in Kenya as someone playing a role very similar to that of Great
Britain's Dr. Rupert M. East, who is reported to have "induced" the first novel among the Hausa of Nigeria (see
Cosentino). It is very easy to see the extraordinary missionary zeal with which Lindfors set out to teach his students
who at first appeared to be "topnotchbright, responsive, eager to learn" and showed "no discipline problems in the
classroom," but upon closer examination revealed that, in fact, they harbored the same "ailments" that are every
teacher's most dreaded nightmare: their "[d]escriptions lacked imagination and sharp observation of detail"; in short,
their "[a]rguments were poorly structured and sometimes completely illogical" and they paid "too little attention . . . to
pertinent facts" (83). To discover "a panacea for them"a medicine that would "not only kill pain but would give them a
great deal of pleasure . . . improve their minds [and] [b]est of all . . . improve their compositions" (84), Lindfors quickly
distributed copies of The World's Classics edition of Selected Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle among his students,
who in turn soon began to show signs of improvement by being "very sensitive to criticisms of illogicality in their
writing. They grew bolder in their manipulations of the English language, often coining new words or inventing new
expressions to describe more precisely or more vividly something they had observed" (85).
The decision to divulge the names of some of the students he used for his classroom experiment might be Lindfors's
attempt to prove the authenticity of his claims, but it is a serious offense, a betrayal of the ethic of confidentiality that no
classroom teacher should ever contemplate doing. What is worse is that the reader of this essay learns far more about
the efforts that Lindfors made as a teacher to transform the minds of some young East Africans than about the literary
merits of those works he claims to be the printed legacies of his experimentMzimu Watu wa Kale (The Spirits of the
Ancestors), a novella written in Swahili by Mohammed Said Abdulla of Zanzibar, as well as Simu Ya Kifo (Trail of
Death), a Swahili novel written by Faraji H. H. Katalambula from Tanzania. Lindfors's essay only indirectly reconfirms
some of the old notions about Africa, for example, the notion that the African mind is a tabula rasa, a blank space ready
to be molded into any shape by a good tutor, the same precept that was used during colonization for justifying the
European "civilizing mission."
If this ideological bent of his mind is barely concealed in the section on East African writing, as we read through the
section on South African writing we can discern its main outlines in bold face. Both in conception and execution, the
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essays in this part of the book are the most political, but they also reveal a shocking ambivalence of method. In the first
place, it is difficult to see the rationale for placing any of the section's first two essays in this book. While the firsta
reading of the tension between traditional African religious beliefs and the Christian faith in Mofolo's Chakais fairly
informative, the seconda weak attempt to analyze La Guma's craftsmanship in A Walk in the Nightadds nothing to
the masterly literary analyses already published on this work, for example, by Adrian Roscoe in his Uhuru's Fire:
African Literature, East to South. And neither of the two essays would fit into the definition of Comparative Literature,
no matter how one stretches it. Although the last two essays in the section fare better in that they employ approaches
that fall within the purview of comparativism, because of the partial views they present about the literature of this
period, they are best read along with the critical work of other leading authorities in the field. Definitive work in this
context would be Mbulelo Vizikhungo Mzamane's numerous critical works, including his article "Cultivating a People's
Voice in the Criticism of South African Literature"; Kelwyn Sole's "The Days of Power: Depictions of Politics and
Community in Four Recent South African Novels"; as well as the essays of Brian Willian, Michael Vaughan, and
Michael Chapman, and the other contributors to Literature and Society in South Africa, edited by Landeg White and
Tim Couzens.
Admittedly, the section dealing with Nigeria is the most useful. Here the empirical core offers fascinating information.
But while Lindfors shows that he knows his chosen writers well, has close familiarity with their texts, and is conscious
of the oversimplification involved in the kind of namedropping that is the bane of his approach in the sections on East
African and South African writings, there is something disingenuous about the way he traces influences. The tendency
to see literary influence as ubiquitous raises very serious questions of academic integrity, as in the book's opening essay
"Amos Tutuola and D. O. Fagunwa," where Lindfors embarks on a twofold objectivefirst to dispel the charge that
Tutuola plagiarized Fagunwa, and then to show that both Fagunwa and Tutuola derive their inspirations for writing in
part from a Western writer, John Bunyan. This essay is filled with marvelous details bringing together a great many
passages from the writings of both authors, material that reveals only fair use of what is clearly the two writers'
common heritage of Yoruba oral tradition. Thus, Lindfors is clearly less successful in realizing his second objective as
he makes little sustained discussion to prove indebtedness to Bunyan on the part of either Tutuola or Fagunwa.
Nevertheless, he attempts to prove the theory of indebtedness by going to the most improbable extent of suggesting
Bunyan influences by indirection. His methodology smacks of a real desperation, for while he relies on the strength of
the evidence of merely one letter he had received from Tutuola in 1968 that attests to Tutuola's having been aware of
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress at the time he was writing, he has no such letter from Fagunwa.
"If we wanted to establish a hierarchy of literary influences on Tutuola's writing," Lindfors declares, "Yoruba oral
tradition would have to be placed first, Fagunwa second, and Bunyan third. But Fagunwa's influence was crucial, since
some of the raw material Tutuola borrowed from both oral tradition and Bunyan appears to have come to him filtered
through Fagunwa" (9). Why in the first place would anyone want to establish "a hierarchy of influences" when there is
very little textual evidence to support it? It is not clear why Lindfors reaches many of his other conclusions. Where, for
example, did he get the idea that Yoruba oral tradition must have come to Tutuola "filtered through Fagunwa"? Is he
saying that Tutuola did not hear Yoruba folktales told firsthand when he was growing up? In other words, had Yoruba
oral tradition become extinct by the time Tutuola began his writing career? Does he also mean to suggest that Fagunwa
gave Tutuola his first copy of Bunyan's book? This essay contains a number of other non sequiturs and commonplace
observations, as when detailing Fagunwa's supposedly widespread impact at this time, Lindfors writes that
Tutuola, who admits having read Fagunwa's first narrative at school . . .
must have been aware of this extraordinary outburst of literary activity
[Fagunwa's having published nine books]. Indeed, it is conceivable that
Tutuola got both the idea of writing stories and the idea of submitting
them for publication from seeing Fagunwa's works in print. (4)
While Lindfors is correct in observing that more research needs to be done on what he terms "Tutuola's natural assets
and outstanding debts as a writer" in order for critics to accurately map "the oral and written narratives that were
available to him" (9), for such research to yield results of enduring quality, the researchers will have to approach the
issue of debt and influences with fewer presumptions than have been displayed by Lindfors.
In "Tutuola's Latest Stories," the second essay in the section, not even the use of such descriptive epithets as "an
ancestral figure," "textbook caper," "perfect Caliban to the monogliot critic," and "one who has achieved international
academic immortality" (9) in reference to Tutuola can compensate for the absence of detailed analysis of his work. The
claim that Tutuola is such a writer who "provides a rich data bank that literary theorists can plunder at will, mining
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conspicuous nuggets or veins that may be better concealed in more sophisticated modes of storytelling" (11) amounts
to no more than an overstatement because Lindfors fails to demonstrate any of those qualities in his commentary on
Tutuola's work. If it is true, as he claims in this essay, that there ever was a time when Tutuola was "one of the halfdozen
mostwrittenabout authors in all of anglophone Africa" (11), this is surely no longer true todaya fact that again
raises the question of why Lindfors made no effort to update some of the views he espouses in Comparative Approaches
to African Literatures.
The danger of these dated views is not only that they misinform about the contemporary literary temper in Nigeria, but
that they are a denial of the achievement that has been recorded by indigenous talent. The years have seen tremendous
efforts at indigenization, but in another essay, "Shakespeare and Nigerian Drama" (which focuses on the influences of
Shakespeare on Soyinka and Clark), Lindfors gives the impression that Shakespeare still holds the position of
dominance he once held on the dramatic scene of Nigeria. This position is untenable not only because it is a
misrepresentation of the reality, but because it significantly diminishes the current position of Ola Rotimi, Femi
Osofisan, Zulu Sofola, Wale Ogunyemi, Bade Sowande, Tess Onwueme, and other younger Nigerian playwrights. The
claim that "Shakespeare is a status symbol of the Westernized African elite" (19) and that "one of the lingering
consequences of Europe's `civilizing mission' has been that in all nations formerly ruled by England, Shakespeare
remains the leading playwright. His plays are read, studied, and performed more often than plays by any other dramatist
ancient or modern, African or nonAfrican" (20) is one that needs serious qualification within the context of the
contemporary situation in Nigeria. Also, in light of the extensive body of information that has been made available on
contemporary dramatic practices in Nigeria, notably by Chris Dunton in his recent study Make Man Talk True: Nigerian
Drama in English Since 1970, there is absolutely no longer any excuse for the antiquated views to which Comparative
Approaches to African Literatures clings.
Because some of the essays of Comparative Approaches contain valuable information that could be used for the writing
of a theoretically nuanced and uptodate book on comparative African literature, their rushed publication is
unfortunate. While happily there is the rigor of "Begging Questions in Soyinka's Opera Wonyosi," perhaps the book's
finest essay, which can serve as a useful reminder of the very best that Lindfors is capable of accomplishing, if the
publication of Comparative Approaches to African Literatures is a signal that Lindfors is determined to gather together
every bit and piece he has ever written without taking care to scrutinize, revise, and update them properly, he would be
wise to resist such a temptation that can only harm his overall reputation. A sensitive outline of the uses made by
Soyinka of influences of Brecht and John Gray, though, "Begging Questions" is an essay that should be read along with
other classics of its kind like Catherine Acholonu's "A Touch of the Absurd: Soyinka and Beckett."
WORKS CITED
Acholonu, Catherine. "A Touch of the Absurd: Soyinka and Beckett." African Literature Today 14 (1984): 1218.
Cosentino, Donald J. "An Experiment in Inducing the Novel among the Hausa." Research in African Literatures 9.1
(1978): 1930.
Drame, Kandioura. The Novel as Transformation Myth: A Study of the Novels of Mongo Beti and Ngugi wa Thiong'o.
Syracuse, NY: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, 1990.
Dunton, Chris. Make Man Talk True: Nigerian Drama in English since 1970. London: Hans Zell, 1992.
Mzamane, Mbulelo Vizikhungo. "Cultivating a People's Voice in the Criticism of South African Literature." Research in
African Literatures 22.4 (1991): 11733.
Omotoso, Kole. Achebe or Soyinka: A Study in Contrasts. London: Hans Zell, 1996.
Peters, Jonathan. A Dance of Masks: Senghor, Achebe, Soyinka. Washington, DC: Three Continents, 1978.
Roscoe, Adrian. Uhuru's Fire: African Literature, East to South. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1977.
Sole, Kelwyn. "The Days of Power: Depictions of Politics and Community in Four Recent South African Novels."
Research in African Literatures 19.1 (1988): 6588.
White, Landeg, and Tim Couzens, eds. Literature and Society in South Africa. London: Longman, 1985.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
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Ogede, Ode S. "Comparative Approaches to African Literatures." Research in African Literatures, vol. 27, no. 4, 1996,
p. 198+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA19013666&it=r&asid=d7c087f0307359d07ffad5815ab117e0.
Accessed 6 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A19013666
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Comparative Approaches to African Literatures
John Joseph
World Literature Today.
69.4 (Autumn 1995): p849.
COPYRIGHT 1995 University of Oklahoma
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.com
Full Text:
Comparative Approaches to African Literatures by Bernth Lindfors is a valuable addition to the growing body of
critical writings on postcolonial African literatures. The focus is mainly on anglophone writings, with occasional forays
into fiction written in Yoruba in Nigeria and in Afrikaans in South Africa. Not all the studies in the volume conform to
the conventional or purist concept of comparative literature; many of them involve what the author calls closer
comparisons, of, for instance, authors belonging to the same linguistic milieu or the past and present output of a single
author."
The most valuable parts of the book are the sections dealing with Nigerian and South African writers. The former
contains four essays dealing mainly with D. O. Fagunwa, Amos Tutuola, and Wole Soyinka. In the essay "Amos
Tutuola and D. O. Fagunwa" Lindfors, seeking to assess Tutuola's debt to Fagunwa within the context of the charge of
plagiarism leveled against Tutuola, comes to the conclusion that Tutuola, "instead of actually plagiarizing ... vividly
recreates what he best remembers from Fagunwa's books." Both Fagunwa and Tutuola are shown as being indebted to
John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, with this difference: that while Fagunwa's narratives, like Bunyan's novel, are
religious allegories, Tutuola's are not. In "Tutuola's Latest Stories" attention is paid to Tutuola's Yoruba Folktales. These
tales, whether they be redactions of Tutuola's own stories published previously or new formulations of popular Yoruba
tales, are seen as being particularly significant insofar as they represent his "first attempt at pure narrative preservation,"
in contrast to his other works, which are seen as "exercises in impure narrative perversion."
A more useful study than this "close comparison" of Tutuola's earlier and later works is "Shakespeare and Nigerian
Drama." Here Lindfors concerns himself mainly with Shakespeare's influence on Wole Soyinka and John Pepper Clark,
both of whom are seen as being "thoroughly African, despite their heavy reliance on Shakespeare. Soyinka's versatility,
which renders him equally at home in tragedy and comedy, as well as the universality of his thematic concerns makes
him "Africa's Shakespeare." Clark, much narrower in range, has nevertheless achieved "the kind of intellectual blood
transfusion" that vitalizes anglophone writing in Nigeria. The conclusion arrived at in this interesting essay is that, great
as has been the influence of Shakespeare on Nigeria's playwrights, he "cannot be considered the fountainhead of
Nigerian drama."
Perhaps the most rewarding essay in this section is "Begging Questions in Soyinka's Opera Wonyosi," a comparative
study which unravels the ways in which Soyinka adapted materials drawn from John Gay's Beggar's Opera and Bertolt
Brecht's Threepenny Opera to the Nigerian situation in his attempt to contribute to the reform of contemporary Nigeria
through song, drama, and satirical laughter."
The four essays in the section on South African writing offer some stimulating discussions. The first is an analysis of
Thomas Mofolo's Chaka, showing how in this novel the ostensible Christian theme of sin and punishment (and free
will) is interfaced with authentic depictions of African witchcraft and fatalism so that the novel hovers uncertainly
between a "pagan" interpretation and a Christian one. In the next essay Alex La Guma's Walk in the Night is presented
as a scathing expose of the evils of apartheid, of which whites as well as blacks are victims. Technically, however, the
novel's merit is seen as consisting in a lively dialectic maintained between its naturalistic and symbolistic structures.
The third essay in this section deals with postSoweto novels by three white South African novelists: Karel Schoeman's
Promised Land, Nadine Gordimer's July's People, and J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians. What is of particular
interest here is the contrastive study of Promised Land and July's People in terms of their "futuristic" vision of a
postapartheid South Africa where roles are reversed in the interracial confrontation. Schoeman, as Lindfors puts it,
"very deftly places the jackboot on the other foot and records the consequences." The novel is seen as "a critique of
Afrikaner nationalism" and as a plea for Afrikaners to adjust themselves to living in a future South Africa they would
not be able to control. July's People offers a rather different interpretation of what the future holds for whites in South
Africa." Here too we have a reversal of roles, a white family finding themselves in a situation where their houseboy
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becomes their master "capable of deciding their fate." Gordimer's message is not as clear as Schoeman's, and it is hard
to tell where her sympathies lie; as Lindfors puts it, "Her eyes may be in the right place, but her heart is not."
The essays in the last two sections (titled "Image Studies" and "Reputation Studies") offer very little by way of
"comparison." As pointed out earlier, the most valuable essays are those dealing with Nigerian and South African
writers. The exclusion of authors from Central Africa Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Zambia detracts from the panAfrican
coverage to which the book's title seems to lay claim. In addition, East Africa receives short shrift, a whole
range of significant writers from this region such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Okot p'Bitek, Taban lo Liyong, and others
being lumped together in a single essay titled "A Basic Anatomy of East African Literature in English."
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Joseph, John. "Comparative Approaches to African Literatures." World Literature Today, vol. 69, no. 4, 1995, p. 849+.
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Accessed 6 May 2017.
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Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show Business Paperback – April 22, 2000
Indiana University Press - 320 pages
Introduction
Zoe Strother, Display of the Body Hottentot
Bernth Lindfors, Charles Dickens and the Zulus
Shane Peacock, Africa Meets the Great Farini
Veit Erlmann, ‘Spectatorial Lust’: The African Choir in England, 1891-1893
Robert W. Rydell, ‘Darkest Africa’: African Shows at America’s World’s Fairs, 1893-1940
Jeffrey Green, A Strange Revelation in Humankind: Six Congo Pygmies in Britain, 1905-1907
Harvey Blume, Ota Benga and the Barnum Perplex
Neil Parsons, ‘Clicko,’ Franz Taaibosch, South African Bushman Entertainer in England, France, Cuba, and the United States, 1908-1940
"...engaging, richly illustrated, and well-reserached.... Part anthology, cultural studies, history, journalism and political science, it... manages to consistently engage the reader..." - African Studies Review
"Lindfors's book shows how the 'edutainment' of the 19th century perpetuated an ignorance of Africa that makes it easy for whites to stay racist and difficult for blacks to gain an accurate and dignified understanding of their heritage.... an unusually strong, readable collection." ―Boston Book Review
Ethnological show business―that is, the displaying of foreign peoples for commercial and/or educational purposes―has a very long history. In the 19th and 20th centuries some of the most interesting individuals and groups exhibited in Europe and America came from Africa, or were said to come from Africa. African showpeople (real as well as counterfeit), managers and impresarios, and the audiences who came to gape are the featured attractions here―how they individually and in concert helped to shape Western perceptions of Africans.
=====
Early African Entertainments Abroad: From the Hottentot Venus to Africa's First Olympians (Africa and the Diaspora: History, Politics, Culture)
U. Wisconsin Press 2014 262 pages
Introduction
Courting the Hottentot Venus
The Bottom Line: African Caricature in Georgian England
Ira Aldridge at Covent Garden
Clicks and Clucks: Victorian Reactions to San Speech
Charles Dickens and the ZUlus
A Zulu View of Victorian London
Dr. Kahn and the Niam-Niams
The United African Twins on Tour: A Captivity Narratice
Circus Africans
Africa's First Olympians
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries African and pseudo-African performers were displayed as curiosities throughout Europe and America. Appearing in circuses, ethnographic exhibitions, and traveling shows, these individuals and troupes drew large crowds. As Bernth Lindfors shows, the showmen, impresarios, and even scientists who brought supposedly representative inhabitants of the "Dark Continent" to a gaping public often selected the performers for their sensational impact. Spotlighting and exaggerating physical, mental, or cultural differences, the resulting displays reinforced pernicious racial stereotypes and left a disturbing legacy.
Using period illustrations and texts, Early African Entertainments Abroad illuminates the mindset of the era's largely white audiences as they viewed wax models of Africans with tails and watched athletic competitions showcasing hungry cannibals. White spectators were thus assured of their racial superiority. And blacks were made to appear less than fully human precisely at the time when abolitionists were fighting to end slavery and establish equality.
Review in Early African Entertainments Abroad: From the Hottentot Venus to ...
Project Muse, https://muse.jhu.edu Volume 48, Number 4, Winter 2015
Lindfors, professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin, is a scholar of African literature and folklore and the leading authority on early African spectacles in Europe and the United States. He first published the essays in Early African [End Page 481] Entertainments Abroad as articles in difficult-to-locate scholarly journals between 1979 and 2007. These essays are still fresh and engaging and complement the themes and examples provided by Lindfors’s Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show Business (Indiana UP, 2000).
Curtis Keim
Moravian College