Forums

I think this speaks volumes to the often one-sidedness of globalization, even in something relatively simple, and seemingly harmless, like literature. As this article and the video viewed in class suggest, African children grow up reading Western stories. This may not seem so bad, besides the fact that there are not nearly enough African stories for African children to read as well; they have very few options to choose from concerning books with characters and situations in which they can strongly relate to. Despite claims of increasing globalization and the "blurring of borders," lines between countries and cultures still exist; and they should! Individualism, even on the larger scale of nations, is important, as it gives the planet diversity. After all, as many (including my own mother) would say, "if we were all the same, life would be boring."

Of course, reading Western literature in Africa is not bad, nor wrong in itself. Literature from other cultures should be studied everywhere. Reading about different countries can give people a better understanding of what that life and culture is like around the world, showing people that their way of life is not the only one, nor the “right” one. But, reading world literature should happen equally, along with the literature created by and for the people of one's home country, so that more than "a single story" can be gathered and different, global perspectives can be gathered, analyzed, and understood.

That, however, is not presently the case. Africans read Western literature, but the West very rarely reads African literature. This includes myself; I only just read my first piece of African literature this year, with Achebe's "Thing's Fall Apart." African countries have multiple stories about the West, and yet somehow, lack in stories about their own culture, their beliefs, their neighbours, and themselves. The West, however, seems to have a problem in only reading about themselves, symbolizing our often-selfish nature. When I read "Things Fall Apart," I was blown away, because I too have only been fed a single story of Africa from humanitarian ads on TV, and I am ashamed to admit that I could not believe the complexity of the life described in it. Just as Africa needs more African literature, so does the West. We should all, as members of humanity and the world, read about, and more importantly, from, different cultures. Western literature dominates everywhere; it is time for this to change. Let us learn of other countries, by citizens of those countries; let us all learn about each other “first-hand” through literature. Give African children more African stories, but give American children more African stories too.

This article on Chimamanda Adichie, as well as her Ted Talk video that we viewed in class discuss the idea that there is not enough children's literature available for African children written by African writers. She feels that although there is value to literature written by western writers and their stories, such stories did not reflect her reality growing up, and dont reflect the reality of current African children growing up and thus they are not stories that they can relate to anyway. As she mentioned in her talk, the stories that she red as a child featured white children in landscapes much unlike her own, and thus she was never able to truly able to relate to them.
A further problem that she brings up both in the article and in the talk is the idea that African stories are not being told by African authors. This is an idea that we discusses when we read Heart of Darkness as Conrad was a white man writing about Africa, and he essentially used Africa as a backdrop for the emotional struggles of white characters without regarding any cultural aspects of the African people themselves. I think that by making this point Adichie is aligning herself with Achebe's perspective, as he was highly critical of Heart of Darkness and considered Conrad's work to be highly racist and one sided, and essentially re-wrote heart of darkness from the perspective of the African.

It is actually very interesting to bring up the point that there is not a lot... if any literature based on African culture for children of Africa. Living in the Western world, this issue may not cross many minds, including myself until I read this article. Globalization is constantly changing in numerous ways, but there still seems to be a large focus on the western world. Adichie speaks about this issue in a way that provides evidence on how globalization still has quite a way to come. African countries are not provided with books that involve their countries, culture, and ethnic but they are provided with an endless amount of novels that involve western ideas. This is a very interesting topic that often goes unnoticed, and thank you for bringing this topic up!