Washington, DC — After days of debate at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Accra, Ghana, a 17-person jury has selected the best 100 books from Africa written in the 20th century. They considered more than 500 nominations from an original list of 1,521 nominations. "It was a slow, considered and demanding process," said the Chairman of the Jury, Professor Njabulo Ndebele in a statement.
The effort, was sponsored by the Zimbabwe International Book Fair in response to a proposal made by author and professor Ali Mazrui at the group's 1998 fair. "We want to try to bring to the attention of the world, but particularily to Africans themselves, that Africa is making a significant contribution to the intellectual history of the world, particularily in writing," said one of the jurors, Kassahun Checole, director of the African World Press/Red Sea Press.
The list of 100 includes well-known authors like Chinua Achebe and Ayi Kwei Armah from Nigeria and Ghana and specialists like children's book author Veronique Tadjoe of Côte d'Ivoire. "A serious effort was made to try and balance books coming from all languages and regions but was not the sole determining factor," said Checole.
Most of the books are written in English or French, but some are written in African languages. "African languages need to stand equal with other languages as literary languages," says Checole.
The "rigorous criteria" involved in selection, says Professor Ndebele, included "assessment of quality, ability of a book to provide new information or new insight, continuing contribution to debate, extent to which a book breaks boundaries, and impact through such matters a popularity, sales and public influence."
The jury also selected what it calls the twelve best books out of the 100. The list includes modern classic novels like Achebe's Things fall Apart and Ngugi Wa Thiongo's A Grain of Wheat, as well as nonfiction like Cheik Anta Diop's The Africa origin of Civilization. Thoma Mofolo's Chaka, published in 1931, is on this list. It was the first western-style novel publsed in the southern Sotho language. We believe this list will provoke debate and lead to republication, translations and curriculum inclusion," said Professor Ndebele.
