The African “Literary Boom” and Beckett’s Letters

I've got to agree with Michael Orthofer's take on James Gibbons's piece in the new Bookforum, Clout of Africa. Michael writes:

James Gibbons does review a couple of African fiction titles in Clout of Africa, a not uninteresting piece undermined by the bizarre selection of books meant to suggest "that Africa may be in the midst of its own literary boom".

The books covered in the review/essay are Gods and Soldiers (an anthology of African literature), That Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Secret Son by Laila Lalami, and Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih.

These don't exactly augur an African boom, given that the anthology comprises several decades of fiction and Season of Migration was published 40 years ago. Of course, that's not to say that there isn't a lot going on in African lit. right now or that you couldn't find evidence of a boom; rather, it's just to say that Gibbons might have looked a little deeper than the four biggest Africa-related books to appear over the past two months.

As Michael says, the piece is fine for what it is, but when we've been getting roughly one essayish piece on literary fiction each issue of Bookforum, I think we should be getting a little more. It's really more a roundup of 4 reviews run together than an actual essay, although the criticism therein is generally sound.

I do disagree with Michael when he writes in the same post that

I don't doubt Beckett's letters are wonderful, and I've been tempted to get a copy for myself, too, but what concerns me is this eager embrace of the personal, as yet again author trumps work and we revel in what's personally "revealing" rather than focusing on the creative work — the fiction and plays.

In general, yes, but in the case of Beckett, no. The general thrust of the writing on Beckett's letters thus far has been overwhelmingly that this is the rare case where the letters themselves are literature, and I think Marjorie Perloff nails it in Bookforum's review. That is, you can read and enjoy them simply as writing, without having to find recourse to the gossipy elements that often draw readers to a writer's personal jottings.

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