1 1 Yambo Ouologuem in an interview in Cultural Events in Africa,No. LXI (1969). See also Jeffrey Meyers, Fiction and the Colonial Experience(Ipswich: Boydell Press, 1972).

2 One other argument against using language as the criterion for defining national literatures in Africa lies in the fact that only few Africans in any of the modern African states can read and write in the arbitrarily imposed “national languages.” The bulk of the literature written in these languages is unavailable to the masses whose literature it is supposed to be.

3 Janheinz Jahn, Neo-African Literature(New York: Grove Press, 1968), p. 2 1 .

4 Jacques Maquet has defined “Africanite” as “the unique cultural face that Africa offers to the world.” He distinguishes it from Negritude which he says stresses the affirmation of a cultural personality from which the African was once alienated. Africanite'emphasizes the concept of cultural personality but locates its source in common experiences. It is a conceptual tool which helps to assess that which is common to various African societies. Maquet is not convincing, however, when he attempts to prove Africa's cultural unity. Cf. Jacques Maquet, Africanite’ traditionnelle et moderne(Paris: Presence Africaine, 1967); translated by Joan Rayfield, Africanity: The Cultural Unity of Black Africa(London: Oxford University Press, 1972). In his seminal work on African vernacular literatures, Albert Gerard [Four African Literatures(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971)] made this important observation about modern African states: Most African states are multinational entities, grouping into purely political and administrative units a number of societies that a needlessly derogatory tradition calls tribes…. In many cases, therefore, an African state has several national literatures in various vernacular languages, and although they may exhibit common features, each of them has its own definable identity based on casual factors, (p. 16)

5 I believe that pluralist societies can survive given the time and the will to do so, and that their survival can be a blessing to the growth of literature. I do not necessarily favor literary balkanization in Africa. I do not even agree that the existence of heterogeneous groups in Africa is inimical to the growth of a national literature. The existence of a variety of cultural values within a single African state does not mean that these values cannot be assimilated by various groups. But even where certain values conflict with others, experience has shown that the conflict can, eventually, become an integrating factor in the building of a nation. Given the conditions under which the present African states were born, what is needed is time. Ethnic consciousness is the necessary prelude to national consciousness. The different ethnic groups must develop effective awareness and comprehension of each other and their problems, and it is part of the function of literature to develop this awareness.

6 I am also encouraged by the latest novel of Sembene Ousmane Xala.The exploitation of the Senegalese masses by the newly affluent “petite bourgeoisie aux dents longues” is the subject of the novel, but the author uses Wolof and Lebou traditional images and mythologies (the title of the novel is significant in this respect) to convey the main idea—namely, that the moral sickness which affects the present Senegalese generation results from its estrangement from the moral canons of the past. Cf. Sembene Ousmane, Xala(Paris: Presence Africaine, 1973).