What makes a 'real African'?
At a recent conference on African literature in Frankfurt, I sat on a panel with two other female writers. A question was asked almost immediately: do you consider yourself an African writer? We each needed to pause before answering; we had to wait for translators to repeat the inquiry in our respective languages.
None of us spoke the same language, and none of the languages being translated from German were indigenous to the countries where we were born. Yet the question didn't take that into consideration. It was so broad as to be disconcertingly limiting, yet it wasn't the first time I'd heard it and it wouldn't be the last.… Seguir leyendo »