Essay · A way to begin
The Last Word
Taban Lo Liyong · 1969
Synopsis
Essays in which literary criticism turns to pamphlet and confidence. The author speaks in them of his father, his wife and his art, asks how to cure the East African countries of their literary sterility, laughingly compares himself to Amos Tutuola, discusses Achebe, Okot p'Bitek and negritude, and defends what he calls cultural synthetism: the right of an African writer to draw on all cultures.
Context
The book appeared in 1969 in Nairobi, from East African Publishing House, in the Modern African Library series, with the subtitle Cultural Synthesism, which sums up its thesis. In it he takes up the question that had made him famous, that of an East Africa held to be a literary desert, and attacks négritude as much as the timidity of the region's writers. Three years later, he signed with Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Henry Owuor-Anyumba the manifesto for the abolition of the English department.
Who it is for
Essays in English, not translated into French. They assume familiarity with the East African literary scene of the sixties and the négritude quarrel.
Prizes and reception
The Times Literary Supplement reproached him for relentlessly seeking to shock, without ever lowering his voice.
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