The art of storytelling is integral to the African way of life. To celebrate this, here’s an excerpt from A Quotionary by Jenny Hobbs, a book published by Sunday Times Books:
African writers come from a culture renowned for its stories and storytellers.
In Nigeria there’s a tradition of people telling stories to pass the time but also to celebrate life. In very small towns like the one where I grew up, people would sit down in the evening and tell each other stories, and it didn’t matter if the story you were telling was one that everyone knew. What you have to do is improvise around it; you reinvent it.
- Biyi Bandele-Thomas
Stories are our friends, our counsellors and our teachers. They are a means of nurturing a moral culture in the hearts and minds of people. They stir the imagination, they bring together people and they break down barriers. It is a tradition we must never lose in the rush to the cities.
- Gcina Mhlophe
It is the story that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence. The story is our escort; without it, we are blind. Does the blind man own his escort? No, neither do we own the story; rather it is the story that owns us and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is the mark on the face that sets one people apart from their neighbours.
- Chinua Achebe
Things happen, people tell stories about them. Then – life passes quickly – the events and stories are faintly remembered or totally forgotten. But in the black communities of South Africa perhaps we remember our stories for a little longer than other people do. After all, for so many years now, we have owned our stories while owning so little else.
- Ellen Kuzwayo
There are so many stories to be told.
- John Kani
There is nobody who doesn’t have a story.
- Chinua Achebe
I’m such a believer in stories and how powerful stories are. Because stories are human and they draw you in; they’re not abstract arguments. In some ways it’s a safer space, so people who don’t necessarily agree with me politically can still get into that story.
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Stories should hit the core of lived experience.
- NoViolet Bulawayo
Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.
- Ben Okri
Though Okri does not always agree that the wealth of stories in Africa is a good thing:
Africa is a land bristling with too many stories and moods. This over-abundance of stories, this pollution, is a sort of chaos. A land of too many stories is a land that doesn’t necessarily learn from its stories. The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection.
- Ben Okri
Related links:
- A Quotionary: The Ultimate Collection of Quotations About Writing and Writers by Jenny Hobbs
EAN: 9781928216520
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