For a while now I have been hoping to post a link to an blog post by Chicago-based Nnedi Okorafor, a writer of science fiction, about the reception to science fiction among Africans. Okorafor mentions some samples of African science fiction:
… Ghanaian author Kojo Laing has a collection of short stories and a novels respectively titled, Big Bishop Roko and the Alter Gangsters and Woman of the Aeroplanes. Congolese author Emmanuel Boundzeki Dongala has a short story called “Jazz and Palm Wine” (the anthology it appears in is also called Jazz and Palm Wine). In South Africa, science fiction is really percolating; The South African literary journal, Chimurenga, recently had an African science fiction themed issue. Film-wise, there is now District 9 (I’ve been excitedly anticipating this film for months). And, if you can find it, check out Les Saignantes by Cameroonian film director Jean-Pierre Bekolo. Lastly, I just have to include the trailer for this Nollywood fantasy film because it cracks me up: Across the Bridge.
Like the people she interviews for her post, Okorafor is not very optimistic about the genre’s future on the continent (The interviewees includes Nollywood director Tchidi Chikere, author Tobias Buckell, and Naunihal Singh, a political scientist and fan of speculative fiction.)
You can read the post and the comments here, but I’ll leave you with some highlights:
“Science-fiction will have to adapt itself to the local market,” Singh said. “I don’t think there’s the sensibility for it right now. I remember seeing the Matrix in a mixed crowd of Ghanaians and Americans, this was in Ghana. Even though the room was dark, and there were some 40 plus people there, I could tell who was from where by their reactions to the movie. The Ghanaians just weren’t connecting to it. Bring the Terminator to West Africa, and he’d stop running in a day. He’d sit there and glitch. It’ll be hard to make people afraid of a future where computers take over the world when they can’t manage to keep the computers on their desk running. These are very western stories. On the other hand, classic science fiction, like space exploration stories, would probably work better…assuming it was adapted for the audience. Africans would love to see stories about Africans on a space ship. The idea that Africans might be dominant in the future would resonate so well with nationalism.”
In the piece Okorafor also notes that one major reason African science fiction won’t grow has to do with what the publishing industry considers “literature.”
From what I have read here, it sounds as though there is a rather limited idea of SF here. Africans on a spaceship, terminator in West Africa etc.. I thought SF was simply that until I started to read the good stuff. There’s a lot more to it than the stereo-type understanding most of us have. I began with M John Harrison’s work, and would recommend his short stories as an excellent starter. He is famous as an SF writer, which is – say many of his fans – why he’s not won the Booker. SF being the dirty word in the literary world.
Lauren Beukes’ ‘Moxyland’ is a spirited attempt at Afrofusion cyberpunk. Unfortunately, it’s set in Cape Town, not Johannesburg, which instantly trivialises it; worse yet, the copy I saw had a puff by Andre Brink comparing it to A Clockwork Orange ‘with all the hallmarks of a cult classic’, which is embarrassing. That said, I can’t think of a more sciencefictiony South African science fiction.
(I don’t know if you’ve encountered Ivan Vladislavic — I found his latest fiction ‘The Exploded View’ to be distinctly Ballardian, an accomplished evocation of the non-places of Johannesburg. His insight into the psychology of South African Tuscan vernacular cluster housing alone justifies a read.)