3-2-1 Response: Writing Africa Panel

I had the pleasure of going to the Writing Africa Panel last week for Fall for the Book. The panel featured Helon Habila, Susi Wyss, and E.C. Osundu. During the panel there was a reading by each author followed by questions from the audience.

Three: From this book reading, I found out that Helon is actually a professor at George Mason. He teaches creative writing for the master’s program. I learned that he and Osundu fall into the post-nationalist contemporary African writers. Habila actually said this himself which makes sense because they are native Africans and their writings are comparably different from African writers like Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart). I went to see Chinua Achebe in 2008 for a book reading at George Mason. His books are more folkloric and have a lesson and contemporary writers like Wyss, Habila, and Osundu have taken a different direction than the latter.  I’m not sure where Susi Wyss would fall into, perhaps post- nationalist mindset also. What I also found interesting was the subject of presenting dialogue in English when the characters are not actually speaking in English. We, as the readers, probably do not realize that they are speaking in a different language. However some authors can choose to interchange by dropping in a few French words or native language in English phonetics. Another interesting point was the discussion of how stories come about. I personally asked the question “Where did you come with the plot?” For some writers there is an elaborate process involved but for the writers it appears that the stories just come to them. There is so much to see; just by looking outside the window, one can find a story. This reminds of Lamott when she said that writing will take you to places you only dreamed of. J

 Two: I really wish the panel was longer because they could have talked about so much more stuff. I would like them to speak more of their personal connections to Africa. For Susi Wyss, she actually grew up there but for Habila and Osundu they are ethnically Africans. I would what it means to them to be African and a writer. They could possible discuss more about the challenges as well as the differences (if known) between themselves and other minority writers. Another thing I would like clarified would be the writing process. They stated that stories just come to them but what happens after that? Do they call their publisher or start writing?

One: What do you know about Africa? I ask this question because I believe that the Western world (and perhaps the world in general) has a very limited view of Africa from the media. It is so important to have writers like Wyss, Habila, and Osundu come to universities to speak about their books to give a different perspective.