Colonial
Voices focuses on
Anglo-African writers of the nineteenth- and early
twentieth-centuries. There is a serious dearth of work on such
late-imperial writers of popular romances and this study
examines the history, cultural rituals, and beliefs that
native-born and settler writers present in their novels and
stories of Africa. It also brings an important and neglected
figure back into the canon–Bertram Miford (1855-1914). Such
English fiction writers as Mitford, H. Rider Haggard, Olive
Schreiner, W. C. Scully, John Buchan, Sol Plaatje, and others
hold a unique position in English literature, inasmuch as their
work engages with the conflicts between the indigenous and
colonizing populations during the last great period of discovery
and exploration. While sensitive to the controversies that arise
when English writers utilize indigenous subject matter, this
study makes a case for considering the perspectives of these
colonial writers to be as valid, even if different from, the
oral narratives of their indigenous counterparts. This look at
the literary legacies of the departed British empire defines in
a fresh way the social tensions of the imperial rise and
decline.
The role of
the Anglo-African Writers' Club as an ideological center of
journalistic opinions and literary narration is highlighted
here. Gathering at monthly dinners in the Grand Hotel, London,
these writers adopted the twin ideals of dispelling British
ignorance about colonial life while stimulating literary
activity in the colonies. Significantly, these goals express
needs and themes that ominously presage the troubling issues of
politics, love, and vocation that come to the fore in South
African fiction of the later twentieth century. A growing
interest in Africa over the last decade means that even the
Anglo-imperialist speaking of and for indigenous Africans is no
longer an unimportant voice from an insignificant corner of the
globe. The aim here is to “mainstream” these writers so that in
future they will be read alongside other
Victorian/Edwardian novelists, not merely considered
special-topic local colorists.
