Eco-Critical Literature: Regreening African Landscapes

4. Isidore Okpewho’s Tides and Ken Saro-Wiwa’s A Month and a Day: A Kinesis of Eco-activism from Theory to Praxis

47 4 Isidore Okpewho’s Tides and Ken Saro-Wiwa’s A Month and a Day: A Kinesis of Eco-activism from Theory to Praxis i} >LœÊ >ÀiÃÊ ˆvv]Ê ˆ}iÀÊ iÌ>Ê1˜ˆÛiÀÈÌÞ]Ê7ˆLiÀvœÀViÊÏ>˜` Introduction Literary scholars interested in issues bordering on how to redeem the vanishing greenness of the earth continue to admonish humanity to cultivate eco-commitment to the preservationist cause. For such eco-critics, the writer should employ his/her imaginative prowess to salvage the environment from destruction by man and corporate bodies. For African literature, Niyi Osundare, with his / iÊ ÞiÊ œvÊ Ì iÊ >ÀÌ , appears to have inaugurated an eco-lit dimension in African letters. However, Tanure Ojaide appears to be the most consistent in the deployment of literature for ecological preservation. Other writers like Isidore Okpewho and Ken Saro-Wiwa have equally demonstrated this commitment in their imaginative composition. While Okpewho’s novel fictionalizes the ecological challenges faced by the people of the Niger Delta, thereby espousing the politics of eco-activism in the region, Saro-Wiwa’s autobiographical text actualizes Okpewho’s prophecy. Thus, the two texts demonstrate a progression from fictionalization to actualization in eco-literature. Literary scholars are hard put to delineating the borders between fiction and history, and fiction and facts. History and fiction, in spite of their superficial dissimilarities, have society as a common bond: society provides the threads with which factual or fictional stories are spun. Consequently, it inextricably strings the fringes of history or fact and fiction together. This inseparable interlacing makes some scholars describe them as strange bedfellows who cannot cohabit and cannot be divorced from each other. Even with the historian’s attempt at disengaging his writing from fiction 48 ECO-CRITICAL LITERATURE to ensure fidelity to truth, his writing however remains tainted by some doses of fiction. This results from his personal interpretations of seemingly or overtly silent areas about events. While for the creative writer, history about the different epochs of human socioeconomic and political evolution provides the raw material for his imaginative weaves, the historian deals specifically with exactitude of history. Interestingly therefore, the creative writer downplays the historicity, exalting instead his artistic finesse through the dislocation and reconstruction of history. Thus, he distinguishes his work from historical or sociological documents, and gives it the stamp of fictionality. Autobiography, under which the literary genre called prison diaries or prison notes are subsumed, even as it is historical in nature is also considered a part of fiction. Its major qualification as a subgenre of prose, among other qualities, is its stain of unavoidable falsehood. Bernard Shaw’s statement about autobiography validates its fictiveness when he avers that: [a]ll autobiographies are lies. I do not mean unconscious, unintentional lies: mean deliberate lies. No man is bad enough to tell the truth about himself during his lifetime, involving as it must, the truth about family and his friends and colleagues. No man is good enough to tell the truth to posterity in a document he suppresses until there is nobody left to contradict him. (qtd. in Oriaku 7) The deliberate lies discernable in autobiographies legitimize the seal of fiction on autobiographies even as its historicity retains its unquestionable nature. Given the peculiar sociopolitical experiences of Africans and African nations—experiences such as slave trade and colonialism that midwived the birth of African American and African literature—the written literature from inception consequently has been a blend of history and fiction that is sometimes autobiographical with fictional blemishes. The autobiographical tradition has enjoyed the deployment of some African writers from the early nationalist writers like Kenneth Kaunda in “Lˆ>Ê- >ÊLiÊ Àii, to later writers such as Camara Laye in / iÊ
vÀˆV>˜Ê ˆ`] Wole Soyinka in / iÊ>˜Ê ˆi`, Ngugi wa Thiong’o in iÌ>ˆ˜i`° Even the works that can be arguably referred to as fiction draw profusely from the historical experiences of Africa at various epochs. Examples of such writing include Achebe’s / ˆ˜}ÃÊ>Ê
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ÀÀœÜʜvÊœ`,Ê>˜ÊœvÊ/ iÊ*iœ«i, andÊ
˜Ì ˆÃʜvÊÌ iÊ->Û>˜˜> ; Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s / iÊ,ˆÛiÀÊ iÌÜii˜,Ê7ii«Ê˜œÌÊ ˆ`,
Ê "}>}>Ê"ŽÕÞ>`i 49 À>ˆ˜ÊœvÊ7 i>Ì,Ê*iÌ>ÃʜvÊ œœ`, andÊ iۈÊœ˜ÊÌ iÊ ÀœÃÃ; Ayi Kwei Armah’s / iÊ i>ÕÌÞvՏÊ"˜iÃÊ
ÀiÊ œÌÊ9iÌÊ œÀ˜,ÊÀ>}“i˜ÌÃ, andÊ/ܜÊ/ œÕÃ>˜`Ê-i>ܘÃ; and Wole Soyinka’s / iÊ ˜ÌiÀ«ÀiÌiÀÃ. While this list of works consists of early African writings, the most recent works by a much younger generation of writers are not divorced from the tradition...