Novel · A way to begin
The African
William Conton · 1960
Synopsis
Kisimi Kamara leaves his village of Songhai, an imaginary country of West Africa, for the mission school and then the college at Sagresa, the capital, and obtains permission to continue his studies in England, where his friend Samuel goes with him and from where his community expects him to return to serve it. At university, he discovers the prejudices of the English and falls in love with Greta, a young white South African, in a country where the gaze of others weighs on their budding friendship.
Context
The novel appeared in London from Heinemann and in Boston from Little, Brown in 1960, the year of independence for many African countries, a year before that of Sierra Leone; Heinemann reissued it in 1964 as the twelfth title of its African Writers series. Partly autobiographical, it follows a student whose experience of England leads him to political struggle and who calls on Africa to move beyond apartheid. In 1987 the author gave it a distant sequel, set in the same imaginary country.
Who it is for
In English, a little over two hundred pages; a novel of apprenticeship, whose sentimental side struck some critics as unconvincing.
Prizes and reception
Welcomed on publication as a promising first novel, it was mocked by Wole Soyinka, who judged its hero implausibly virtuous.
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