By Edward Nawotka
Is it an African or European novel?
In today’s lead story, Nigerian-born author Chika Unigwe, who now lives in Belgium, states:
“I’m African, and I never question my African identity. What I question sometimes are the expectations that come with being labeled an ‘African writer.’ What you are supposed to write, how you are supposed to write and so on. But then that is the problem with labeling; it comes with a whole box of expectations, usually people’s projections of what the label ought to cover. It’s not always right or accurate.”
What are the expectations to which she is referring? Are they the expectations, primarily of writers and publishers in the West, that Africans will only write of poverty, chaos, corruption, disease or war—of, essentially, many of the same subjects covered most often by the nightly news—rather than typical middle-class life? (It’s a topic Tolu Ogunlesi discussed in his editorial “In Search of ‘Authentic’ Africa” earlier this year on Publishing Perspectives). Is that it, or is it something deeper and perhaps more insidious? And does emigration free the writer from these constraints? Or, because of their background, do the expectations of publishers tie them even more tightly to the subject matter of their home?
And, ultimately, is labeling any writer by race, ethnicity, or even nationality or country of birth, fair? Surely it is somewhat useful, perhaps for marketing purposes, but is it ultimately reductive?
Let us know what you think in the comments below of via Twitter using hashtag #ppbonus.
By Chip Rossetti In the fall of 2004, I was an editor at a New York publishing house, [...]
• Cognito Comics is launching an immersive digital graphic novel called Operation Ajax, [...]
Chika Unigwe on the Streets of Antwerp
7 months ago
[...] DISCUSS: Is labeling a writer by race or ethnicity reductive? [...]
sid
7 months ago
Yes it’s putting someone inside a box.
Nancy Y Wade
7 months ago
Of course it is reductive. As an American, I am labeled African-American and when my novels were published they were at first put in the regional section of the Barnes & Nobles and eventually stacked in the African-American section between all of the half naked bodies of the ‘romance’ books, or whatever they are called on the street. Not my style. They are not even romance books. They dealt with life on welfare and the childcare system. I believe whoever stacked the shelves just believed that is what ‘we’ write.
The truth of the matter is your race and ethnicity determines what people think you can/should write and it’s hard to get around it. I have had this discussion with other writers. I hated the fact my books were only in the African-American section because it seems like another form of segregation. You don’t see a lot of non-Blacks searching those shelves for books. Yep, your sells are reduced by societies labels.
Erik Johnson
7 months ago
Publishers are increasingly dealing with the crowded media landscape by putting people in boxes—you are a science fiction writer, or the literary novelist who writes about comic books, or a business writer, an adventure writer, et cetera… I don’t think it’s an issue just about race, it’s also that publishers don’t have very sophisticated tools to market books in a general, across-the-board way any more.