AFRICAN PECULIARITIES: Why Africans are ‘not’ Good Readers

Photo credit: Janko Ferlic- Unspash

Times have changed. I might not have the true statistics but I believe over sixty percent of the youth today cannot construct a full sentence in their mother tongue. The very same thing can be said about Swahili, with English being the most common language spoken today. While many people are taking their time to paint this as a crisis, they do not pause to see that they are flogging a dead horse. Time is too far removed, and we are moving from a Luo and a Maasai man to more of a Kenyan, an African, and an International citizen. Even amongst those who speak their mother tongue, how many adhere a hundred percent to their society’s cultural norms? How many of them can call themselves a pure Luhya or a pure Kikuyu? Boys are turning into men in hospitals, the pain of manhood being blurred by injections, and they are fed with bland and tasteless knowledge that has no practical or moral grounds in our current society. Men and women are intermarrying, not only within but also outside the country. A few years ago, this was unfathomable. Now, to Literature.

Revered names in Kenyan Literature include; Grace Ogot, Meja Mwangi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Stanely Gazemba and many more. When we analyze their works, we realize that they are mostly fore-grounded in culture, tradition, colonialism and its effects, and a host of other topics deeply shrouded in the seventies. We forget that the current tribe in the country is made up of Englishmen and Frenchmen with Black Skin and in French and English colonies of Africa. It is not that my countrymen do not read. They voraciously consume books written by American and British authors because these books are fluid and relatable. They are not too far removed from the earth we are living in right now. While some of the authors in the country are still trapped in the days of the struggle for liberation, the current readership have had enough of the nostalgia and want to focus on things they can relate with.

Literature is not dogma written in stone. It should be like water, taking whatever shape the bottle comes with. It will not be watering down literature to portray what is happening in the current world, but many of the so-called traditional authors are stuck with ancestral writing ideas and themes, which they try to shove down the reader’s throats. These might be working in the halls of knowledge that they lock themselves to, but if you want a book to be read, then use Literature as a mirror of the society, not as some sort of parlance limited to esoteric bald heads. Talk about issues that people can relate with today if you want them to read you. Talk about Contemporary Christianity, Unemployment, Abortion, LGBTQ rights, the Middle Class and many more. Do not lock yourself to the middle ages and still go about complaining that Africans do not read. Stop being rigid. Do your homework and write for your audience, and then see if they will not read. You are the one with the gift, but if you choose to bury yourself in the cocoons of tradition and the dictates set by men and women who wrote for arcane purposes and for crowds of literary hoarders and paupers, then be ready to read your book with your wife and children. The world has changed. Find it in your heart to take a step ahead too. Gone are the days of the many authors who once ruled these streets. The world is opening up to new authors with new ideas, and Africa is hungrily waiting for them.

J.P. Simiyu©