“I want to start by expressing my shame and shock at the ways in which knowledge is being used to support what is happening in Palestine. Never before has there been so much consent to violence. And there has been little response from the academic world. There is deep manipulation of language further embedding prejudice and misreading,” said Bhakti Shringarpure, scholar of literary and cultural studies from the University of Connecticut.
Relating this to the subject of her work – Sudanese writer Leila Aboulela – she noted that “Palestine could be taking the focus away from the war in Sudan but it’s actually being brought closer – it’s all linked to colonial history. Sudan doesn’t make the headlines but now it is possible due to the mirroring of debates and words. Palestine is bringing us there in some ways.”
Turning to the focus of her work, Shringarpure pointed out that although literary production by writers from the African continent has increased exponentially over the past two decades with a rise in digital platforms, awards, anthologies and lucrative publishing deals, African literature is still not in the mainstream when it comes to literary studies and syllabus choices. A survey conducted by her and Dr Lily Saint in 2020 on teaching in African literature highlighted the predominance of novels, male authors, English (at 68%) and French, and books mainly from South Africa and Nigeria in academic selection.
“The place for African literature in the global space remains fraught,” she said. “African literary study is still very marginalised with Global North institutions still tending to focus only on established canonical writers and diasporic literature.”
“Many solutions are required to transform publishing and academic selection,” she added. “But significant transformation will take time.”
She also emphasised that a missing component in the literary, academic and publishing circuits is a focus on African writers’ lives. “Biography can facilitate interconnections between writers and their worlds, and privilege intersections between historical and social context, and the emergence and consolidation of literary lives. Biographies can complicate, enrich and expand the field of African studies.”
Shringarpure is therefore currently co-editing a series on African Writers’ Lives and is specifically responsible for the biography of Aboulela. “The series unites different styles, topics, regions and genres. It will include both well- and lesser-known writers. Biography is a vibrant, booming field, however, the tradition of biography or autobiography is a colonial idea. The focus on individuals tends to be missing in indigenous story telling. We want to find a place in this marketplace which currently only includes biographies of political leaders and some canonical writers, and doesn’t include many female African writers.”
“We believe biographies can help to articulate, assert and deepen the history of African literature,” she added.
Crossing literary universes
Shringarpure explained that Leila Aboulela was born in 1964 in Khartoum, Sudan to an Egyptian mother and Sudanese father, but has spent most of her adult life in Aberdeen, Scotland. She comes from an educated, business family, was educated in English and studied statistics and economics at the University of Khartoum and later at the London School of Economics. Married at 21 and following her husband’s work opportunities, she moved to the UK eventually settling in Scotland. After completing distance-learning courses in creative writing, she graduated to writing short stories and novels. Her ascent into the literary world has been steady with six novels, two story collections, and several radio plays. She is also the winner of numerous awards including being the first winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing.
Her books have been translated into 15 languages including Arabic and she is particularly popular among English-language readers in the Middle East and United Arab Emirates. “Her books do well in the UK but not in the US,” added Shringarpure.
“Aboulela is claimed by many literary universes from Sudanese and Scottish literature to Muslim women’s literature, as well as the growing body of Black British writing,” explained Shringarpure. “Her books do the work of bridging the often strained cultural, linguistic and geopolitical relations between a predominantly Muslim and ethnically and linguistically Arab region of the Middle East and North Africa and the vast, predominantly Black region of sub-Saharan Africa consisting of 46 countries. Furthermore, Aboulela’s writing about and from Scotland, where she has been based for the past two decades, adds yet another dimension to her preoccupation with places on the margins of empire.”
“Aboulela writes about migrant Muslim gendered inferiority. She undertakes sensitive explorations of young women, presenting beautifully drawn portraits of female protagonists often with inferiority complexes in which their triumph is predicated upon a kind of self-reconciliation and an acceptance of circumstances played out in a minor key of the novel’s universe.”
“She also portrays the daily complexities of female Muslim life,” continued Shringarpure. “It’s not necessarily religious writing but there is a Muslim bias. This sometimes makes their reception fraught. However, Christian works are seen as normal in African literature although not necessarily characterised as Christian writing. If literature can accommodate Christianity then it can accommodate Islam, Aboulela has said.”
“Her books are also notable for their depiction of disability – both physical debility and mental health. She often also plays with the notion of a misfit Muslim woman walking somewhat uncomfortably in Scottish streets.”
“She writes about marginality in a way that emancipates,” she added. “Not objectifying but enveloping in ordinary life and not so much about the tragedy as the practical issues.”
Shringarpure also highlighted Aboulela’s three historical novels written with the idea of doing history from below and from the perspective of women.
“She never claims feminism,” continued Shringarpure. “Which maybe makes her a strange choice for me, but it links to my work on decolonising feminism. She may never fit my more radical political and feminist principles. And she is perhaps not a heroic figure but I’m enjoying thinking through the softness and ordinariness of the women of her books, and want to understand that quieter rebellion a bit better.”
“I’m not sure what will emerge. It’s a struggle between literary criticism and biographic telling. Striking a balance between analysing her work, making the literary arguments and linking everything to her life.”
Michelle Galloway: Part-time media officer at STIAS
Photograph: Ignus Dreyer