Looking for novels, memoirs, or autobiographies regarding colonial education

Kelly Duke Bryant Discussion


Dear colleagues,

I am working on a book chapter on the history of colonial education in Africa.  I know the secondary literature quite well, since my recent book deals with colonial schooling in Senegal.  But in order to broaden the scope to address all of sub-Saharan Africa in this chapter, and to incorporate a wider range of experiences with colonial schools, I would like to draw on African autobiography, memoir, and literature.  I have compiled a preliminary list of such sources (see below), but I would greatly appreciate your suggestions of texts I may have overlooked.  Thanks so much!

Kelly Duke Bryant

Rowan University

Personal narrative, memoir, autobiography, other primary sources:  Fox, East African Childhoods; Soyinka, Ake; Achebe, Education of a British-Protected Child; Diallo, From Tilène to Plateau:  A Dakar Childhood; Romero, Life Histories of African Women; Marks, Not Either an Experimental Doll; Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Dreams in a Time of War; Kyei, Our Days Dwindle

Novels:  Kane, Ambiguous Adventure; Camara Laye, L’Enfant Noir; Oyono, Houseboy; Ngugi wa Thiong’o, The River Between; Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Weep Not, Child; Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions; Salih, Season of Migration to the North; Achebe, No Longer At Ease. 

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A few more autobiographies by women that include reflections on their colonial-era education:
Likimani, Muthoni. Fighting Without Ceasing. Nairobi: Noni's Publicity, 2005.
Magona, Sindiwe. Forced to Grow. New York: Interlink, 1998.
Waciuma, Charity. Daughter of Mumbi. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1969.
Amathila, Libertina I. Making a Difference. Windhoek: University of Namibia Press, 2012.
Maathai, Wangari. Unbowed: A Memoir. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
 

I am pleased to suggest an article I wrote in 2014 focused on biographies of female teachers who worked in Italian schools abroad (in the Mediterranean area) and in Libya. Unfortunately the article is in Italian.
Civilizzare le civilizzatrici. Insegnanti italiane nello spazio mediterraneo fra Ottocento e Novecento, in V. Deplano, A. Pes (2014), “Quel che resta dell’impero. La cultura coloniale degli italiani”, Milan, pp. 169-189.

I also recommend the superb novel by Ken Bugul, The Abandoned Baobab: The Autobiography of a Senegalese Woman (CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature translated from the French, 1991)

Other possibilities:
Bernard Dadie, Climbie.
Olympe Bhely-Quenum, Enfant d'Afrique.
Jean D. Dodo, Wazzi, la mousso du forestier.

On Sudan, a really enjoyable reading, very famous in Sudanese history

Bedri, Y. (Translator) & G. Scott. (1969). The Memoirs of Babikr Bedri. Vol. 1 & 2. London: Oxford University Press.

Mariama Bâ's So Long a Letter is a wonderful novel narrated by a Senegalese woman university professor that looks back over her life.

If you are interested in any comparative perspectives, Mouloud Feraoun's The Poor Man's Son is an autobiographical novel about the education of a young Algerian boy in Kabylie.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o 2nd memoir is out now, following the one already mentioned with one on his high school years, In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir. NY: Pantheon Books, 2012.

During the Belgian Congo years, the best way to get a higher education was to choose to be a priest, and some chose that route in sincerity, like V.Y. Mudimbe, whose memoirs are written in Les corps glorieux des mots et des êtres: Esquisse d'un jardin africain à la bénédictine. Montreal: Humanitas, 1994 and Paris: Présence Africaine, 1994.
Robert E. Smith