Introduction

Introduction M'baré N'gom is Professor and Chair of Modem Languages at Morgan State University -Baltimore. An expert on African Francophone and Afro-Spanish literature, he has written extensively on Equatorial Guiñean literature and culture. Among his many publications are Diálogos con Guinea (1996). Michael Ugarte is Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Missouri-Columbia . Ugarte is the author of books and articles dealing with modern Spanish literature and culture, among which is Shifting Ground: Spanish Civil War Exile. He is currently working on a book on Spain's cultural relations with Africa in the twentieth century. What is Spanish literature? In many ways this special issue of the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies begs the question. But it is not rhetorical. We do not necessarily insist that Spanish literature is much broader than supposed, or that it may include some or all of Latin American literature, or that it may encompass literature written in Catalan, Galician or Euskera along with literature written in Spanish from northern Africa (Ceuta, Melilla, the Rif) or a growing body of works written from (or in exile from) Equatorial Guinea, the only African Spanish speaking country south of the Sahara and the focus of this volume. Nor do we necessarily put forth the notion that literature includes cultural artifacts along with "great works." Indeed, the opposite of all these positions may be argued eloquently: that we muddy already murky waters when we force these categories into the realm of Spanish literature. It may be true that what we need is not more farfetched connections and comparisons, but specificity, limitations , the honesty to say, "That particular text or issue falls out of my realm of understanding." Our intention in putting together this issue is not to answer the above question, but simply to reflect on it. And this reflection will, we hope, come to the fore as our readers begin to peruse the contents of the volume and perhaps stop to read an essay, interview, or discussion. To us, more important than that nagging question—What is Spanish literature ?—is the need to disseminate information on a tiny Spanish speaking spot on the globe and in passing to expose certain realities (imagined and otherwise) that do not receive Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Volume 8, 2004 108 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies enough attention. As one of the contributors to the pedagogy piece points out, Africa is only dark because of the West's ignorance of it. Indeed, to fill the need for specificity concerning the realities of Africa and Equatorial Guinea along with their complex relations with Europe may be this volume's primary intention, a goal more difficult to realize than may be imagined. Access to and dissemination of Equatoguinean culture is not easy. The publishing outlets are not only poorly funded but the distribution of their products is severely limited. When one adds to this that the mere act of producing a creative work of dissent in Equatorial Guinea may land an author or artist in jail—the horrific jail (both real and imagined) of Playa Negra described in Donato Ndongo's Los poderes de la tempestad—to say nothing of the shortages of electricity and clean water , one begins to acquire a first-hand understanding of the materiality of cultural canons.1 As we fill in the basic "social-studies" data, we point out that Equatorial Guinea is a former Spanish colony of some 19,000 square miles with a population of less than a million. Located on the west coast of central Africa, the nation is comprised of two geographic and cultural entities. The island of Bioko (formerly Fernando Poo) in the Bight of Biafra is inhabited by die Bubi. The area called Rio Muni south of Cameroon and northwest of French speaking Gabon is inhabited by the Fang. Spanish has been the official language of Equatorial Guinea from 1778, through independence (1968), to the present, yet indigenous languages have also prevailed. The most widely spoken is Fang, the predominant ethnic group of continental Rio Muni extending into Gabon and Cameroon. The area's first European arrivals were the Portuguese whose interest...