Em louvor aos escritores

Farai Sevenzo, realizador e jornalista zimbabweano, questiona: "Deveríamos ter mais escritores que políticos?"

More than half a century ago a young Lessing was telling us:

"Africa belongs to the Africans; the sooner they take it back the better.

"But - a country also belongs to those who feel at home in it.

"Perhaps it may be that the love of the country will be strong enough to link people who hate each other now. Perhaps."

And with such clear observations, the author was kicked out of colonial Zimbabwe, or Southern Rhodesia as it was then called, for her "subversive" views and wrote about Lomagundi and the country she lived in and the simmering encounters between white and black from exile and new citizenship.

More writers than politicians?

In the year we also lost Chinua Achebe - on whom commentators stubbornly stapled the ridiculous label of "father of African literature" - we should be heartened to know that should we get tired of the scriptures, Africa's past and present is being well handled by authors from Algeria to Zimbabwe following in the footsteps of the Lessings and Achebes.

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