'Exiled' literary works back in SA
6 September 2004
The Pietermaritzburg campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal has acquired the single largest library of African literature on the continent from the United States which, until 2003, was housed at the Lone Star state of Texas in the US.
Made up of more than 14 000 books, journals, documents and manuscripts by African writers, the collection forms the nucleus of the merged university's new Centre for African Literary Studies.
The collection includes rare first editions signed by such giants of African literature as Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and South Africa's Nadine Gordimer, Es'kia Mphahlele, and Lewis Nkosi. There are also journals from throughout Africa, and full runs of Black Orpheus among the books, journals, and rare tape and video material.
Bibliographer Hans Zell, who was asked value the set by the university, called it "a rare and quite unique collection, unparalleled in the world".
The university bought the material
for about R3-million from Swedish-born American academic Bernth Lindfors, who had built up the library over four decades.
The centre aims to provide a world resource for the study of African literatures; a key regional and national research centre; a springboard for new African literary scholarship; and a dynamic centre for colloquia and conferences.
It will also add significantly to the research potential for the Humanities and, in particular, African literature at the University itself.
The funding to acquire the collection and to start the centre came from global grantmaker Atlantic Philanthropies, as well as contributions from the Department of Arts and Culture, the Anglo American Chairman's Fund and the University of Natal Research Fund.
Lindfors, considered a prolific and highly respected scholar, is considered the most resourceful bibliographer of African literature in the world. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from the University of
Natal in 2002.
Every four years since 1979 Lindfors has edited the bibliography, 'Black African Literature in English', which has been described by academics as being so comprehensive a volume … "that anyone wanting to do any work of any substance on contemporary Black African Literature in English will simply have to get access to it".
While teaching in Kenya in the 1960s, Lindfors witnessed the emergence of the new national literatures of independent Africa, in the publication of poetry, drama and fiction, in writers' conferences, and in a lively press. This liveliness and productivity were decisive in shaping his subsequent career in which he dedicated himself to fighting for the status and respectability of African literature in the North American academe.
And he was determined that his collection should be based in Africa once it left him, as he did not want this rich patrimony of Africa's intellectual capital to be largely unavailable to African
scholars.
Working closely with his former student, David Attwell - until recently Professor and Director of English Studies at the University of Natal - Lindfors offered the collection first to the University.
Source: Centre for African Literary Studies website
| 
