Colonial and Postcolonial African Literatures (ENG2603)
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[Date]
ENG2603 Assignment
3 2024 - DUE 13
September 2024
QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS
, ENG2603 Assignment 3 2024 - DUE 13 September 2024
In Welcome to Our Hilbrow, Refentše is depicted as a creative writer who notes a
problem with the suppression of writing literature in African languages. In one of
the passages in the novel Refentše is addressing Refilwe about the difficulties of
writing in a language NOT of one’s own. Refentše says: She did not know that
writing in an Afri-can language in South Africa could be such a curse. She had not
anticipated that the publishers’ reviewers would brand her novel vulgar. Calling
shit and genitalia by their cor-rect names in Sepedi was apparently regarded as
vulgar by these reviewers, who had for a long time been reviewing works of fiction
for educational publishers, and who were deter-mined to ensure that such works
did not of-fend the systems that they served. These systems were very inconsistent
in their attitudes to education. They considered it fine, for instance, to call genitalia
by their cor-rect names in English and Afrikaans biology books—even gave these
names graphic pic-tures as escorts—yet in all other languages, they criminalised
such linguistic honesty. . . . In 1995, despite the so-called new dispensa-tion,
nothing had really changed. The leg-acy of Apartheid censors still shackled those
who dreamed of writing freely in an African The leg-acy of Apartheid censors still
shackled those who dreamed of writing freely in an African language. Publishers,
scared of being found to be on the financially dangerous side of the censorship
border, still rejected manuscripts that too realistically called things by their proper
names—names that people of Tirag-along and Hillbrow and everywhere in the
world used every day. (Welcome to Our Hillbrow, 56, 57) Assignment Task Read
the above passage and consider its significance in the African writers’ debates on
which languages to use when writing African literature. Carefully consult and read
Obiajunwa Wali’s essay, The Dead end of African Literature? (2007) Ngugi wa
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