How Does African Literature Interact With the Diaspora? (And Vice Versa)

In contrast, diaspora writers are those born outside their countries of heritage or who spent their formative years in those countries where they were born. While some of their works are set in Africa, they usually center the diaspora experience, with a protagonist who’s just returned from overseas. This feeds into that innocent, almost naive, perspective that readers (or non-readers) of such fiction find exaggerated and a bit offensive.

A ground base to establish is the role of genres in prose style. Writers of literary fiction would differ in style from speculative writers, just how a writer’s perceived audience will also influence their writing. For writers such as Nnedi Okorafor and Helen Oyeyemi, they represent the middle ground between naivety and narrative brilliance, utilizing tools from Western fantasy even while centering African characters in their stories. Okorafor’s Akata Witchhas a protagonist who was born in the United States but lives in Nigeria. As the story progresses, the protagonist is eventually pulled into spiritual conflicts that espouse mysterious parts of the Nigerian horror tradition.

When people criticize diaspora writers, it seems that the aforementioned writers are not their target. Rather, it’s the works from diaspora writers of the aforementioned second type, whose depictions of African countries are considered to lack originality and authenticity. An often repeated line of criticism is the inclusion of jollof rice as the ultimate fictional meal, a recurring feature of such stories. In an August-shared post on X, a critic faulted the “overly displaying nuance notes of culture,” a comment which got popular as the majority defended the author of the highlighted book — Damilare Kuku — saying she was actually based in Lagos. To be frank, her books Nearly All The Men in Lagos Are Mad and Only Big Bumbum Matters Tomorrow reveal a rich understanding of the Nigerian social landscape, and if authenticity is the consideration, Kuku surely passes it.

After years of exploring such conversations, what is apparent is that not many people have given in-depth consideration to the often-criticized books. Both the detractors and defenders — few have explored a holistic analysis of the underlying implications of the diasporan “writing style.” One of the forebears of this conversation is Ikhide Ikheloa, a book critic who, during his active years in the 2010s, was one of the most influential in the literary scene.

In his review of the Helon Habila-edited Granta Book of the African Short Story, he describes the collection as “an important [one] that documents the heavy, perhaps undue influence African writers in the diaspora wield in shaping the face of the African story. This influence has been amplified by globalization, the digital age, and the near collapse of traditional publishing in Africa.” He paints a bleak picture: “If this trend is not arrested, we will be living witnesses to the distortion of the history and face of African literature by Western patrons with the unwitting cooperation of influential star writers like Habila.”

Ikhide’s concern is far-reaching — so far-reaching, it’s almost beyond the influence of writers. As he infers, it is the magnet of globalization that pulls writers away from the continent, with struggling economies and impending poverty underlining how hard it is to make a literary career. From publishing houses to agents, book readings, equipped libraries and prizes, the literary ecosystem is overwhelmingly tilted toward the West. In the face of these, it’s inevitable that most writers would keep an eye (or two) on the West to access better opportunities. There’s also the japa (a Yoruba word meaning “to run, flee or escape” used as a colloquialism for emigration) trend, no doubt an important influence.

If you ask the critics, African literature is in a dire place due to a combination of these factors. When writers in the diaspora are criticized for bland language, the unsaid part of the critique is that writers on the continent—who have closer access to fresh and contemporary stories—don’t have the institutional backing of their foreign-based counterparts.

“It’s a multifaceted problem,” says Chiedoziem, who wrote a popular essay last year about the influence of American magazines on Nigerian poetry. The initial manifestation, he says, is when writers — especially poets — write the kind of stuff that has gotten others the sort of foreign validation that they seek — a means of getting into the MFAs and school programs, lecturing and what-not.

The second manifestation, he says, happens because “there’s a lack of education among [contemporary] writers in the sense of writers not truly knowing what matters… not being so abreast of the consciousness of what it means to be an artist. Such that, whichever wind comes, easily blows the writers away. It’s very possible for Nigerian writers to be so solid that the consciousness of the world bends towards them.”

On his part, Ikenna Okeh thinks that “living in the diaspora doesn’t necessarily affect a writer’s style”. The Nigerian author has written novels that center the immigrant experience, and his international debut Deportee was about a character named Anayo who returns to the country after a hard time in Cyprus. He considers the writing of African characters by writers in the diaspora — he’s currently based in Turkey — as a “matter of skill and craftsmanship.”

Even at that, he does recognize the implicit forces at play in this constant tug-of-war between genuine representation and an adequate reward system. “African writers in the diaspora [mostly] write for audiences that aren’t African and who are very much foreign to the African experience,” Okeh says. “Exaggeration is permissible in entertainment, and because most of the time, diaspora writers write to entertain their Western audiences rather than educate them, they tend to focus [their] perspective on those unsettling aspects of African traditional and contemporary societies.”

Some of the diasporan-authored books he’s read tended to be “pretentious,” blame he hinges largely on the writers and “another part on their editors.” He continues, “Not every editor is culturally equipped to handle every work of literature.” Speaking about his own technique in Whatever Happens In Antalya, a roving, sensual novel about a Nigerian character in the titular Turkish city, Okeh says he wanted the narrative centered around Michael, its main character. “I desired to keep [him] naive, being that for the first time he’s encountering a culture outside Nigeria,” he explains. “I refrained from employing any form of omniscience in my narrative style, restricting everything to the perspective of my main character.”

Given the depth and nuances to the conversation, it’s likely one we will be having for a while. The politics of language is no small consideration, and when it comes to African literature, it’s obviously one of the central artistic and ideological preoccupations. When Ngugi wa Thiong’o published the seminal Decolonising The Mind in 1986, its acclaim emerged from its intergenerational analysis of the written text and how it influences the African continent. “Language as culture is the collective memory bank of a people’s experience in history,” he writes.

For better or worse, the language of the diaspora tells about our peculiar experience in history — that’s the very function of its existence.