Memoirs from Africa / Swarthmore

George Orwell once remarked that "any life viewed from the inside is just a series of defeats." For anyone with an interest in the lives of people living on the continent of Africa, the opposite can sometimes seem true. Viewed from the outside, African societies seem defined by defeat.

In my teaching and writing about Africa, I often look for ways to get beyond depressing reports and grim histories without ignoring their undeniable truth. Even in the worst circumstances, business and work goes on, families and friendships continue, culture still happens. Even the best journalists or travel writers often overlook the richness of ordinary life even in the middle of catastrophe. Reporters are just passing through: only someone who is actually rooted in place sees life more fully.

For this year’s book club, I’ve chosen to showcase a range of memoirs written by authors who’ve spent long periods of their life in Africa. I’ve tried to balance men and women, people born on the continent with long-residing visitors, people writing as outsiders looking and people writing as insiders looking out. We’ll be reading about different regions of the continent and different perspectives on the same region. Some of the memoirs we’re reading provide a more intimate perspective on well-known events, while others explore life far away from the headlines.

I’ve chosen to emphasize more recent memoirs over historical ones primarily for convenience and affordability, but also because recent autobiographical writing about and by Africans has expanded in range and scope. The further back in time we go, the more that memoir writing about Africa is compressed into a narrower range of accounts and types of authors, and our conversations would become equally narrow and more scholarly in their character. In recent writing, there’s a more eclectic range of styles, aspirations and subjects that (I hope) will engender a lively range of conversations within the book club.

Mark Twain’s long-withheld and recently published autobiography, a surprising bestseller, may have reminded many readers of just how stylistically and aesthetically diverse memoirs can be. Twain writes about his life in fragments and anecdotes that jump around chronologically rather than as a linear narrative. The books we’re reading demonstrate some of the same stylistic range. Some set out to obscure the line between memory and fiction, while others aim to deliver clear, impartial accounts of the past as it was. Some hopscotch from one moment to the next, others go from the beginning to the end of one time in the author’s life. Some raise questions about whose voice we’re really hearing, or unsettle audiences with the fear that they’re being manipulated through the presumed authenticity of autobiography.

Paring this list down to these books has been difficult. There’s at least another ten works that I love which I think bring still other issues and styles to the table. Some were too expensive or difficult to obtain. During the year, I’ll be providing supplementary information about each of these books via a website, and I’ll try to include recommendations for further reading that points the way to that wider list, including to works of African fiction with heavily autobiographical elements.

I’m looking forward to meeting the club members during the year and doing what I can to facilitate and enrich your discussions throughout the year. All of the books on this year’s list are the kind of books that I can’t wait to include on my syllabi at Swarthmore. I hope you’ll find these as compelling as I do.
Tim Burke