Kazuo Ishiguro Is A Testimony To The Future Of British Literature Being In The Hands Of The Migrants

I salute and congratulate Kazuo Ishiguro for winning the literature Nobel Prize 2017.Kudos, and may God give you long life to enjoy frutis of your literary sweat and as well to keep on serving humanity through reading and writting-literature.It is clear that attraticing the attention of the Swedish Academy through literary ventures is not a child's play, especially when one is writting in langauge that is not his or her native tongue.This is a hurdle that Kazuo has overcome. But, out of no other virtue other than passion for whatever you are doing, self-discipline and focus. A lesson for the youths of today.

I equally salute, many others that won the 2017 Nobel Prizes in other fields like economics,medicine, physics and enviroment(peace).Though , I have a reservation that the swedish Academy was not very fair in this year to have no black African individual or organization featuring anywhere, even though black africans are the second largest population on earth after the Chinese. Even though Black Africans are the most involved and affected human beings in all categories of the world affairs. If the Swedish Academy was soathing the wounds in the collective memory of the Japanese Nation about the atrocities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the the africans were egually affected.The number of neglected balck africans that died in the battle field during the second world war is higher than the number of the Japanese and the Jewish nationals that died in this war, but yet no Western Institution has ever recognized a black man for the participation in the war on Hitler, not even a decent burial for those black men and women that died in the battle fields as far as Burma nor even a compensation for the war-wounds to those that survived the two great wars.Connecting this deliberate exclusion of Africans by the Europe and other Western powers to the current reality of why the Nobel Prizes have not been a walk-in-the park for Black Africans is a story of global politics not, but not neccessarily discipilinary competence and excellence. But anyway this will be a story of another day.

Kazuo's winning of the Nobel prize is a story of many lessons, is a story of a writer with least audience and minuscule readership, who has never been studied in most of the Universities and high schools, It is a stroy of a writer without intellectual identity-he is not known for sceince fiction,eco-literature , magical realism, nor literary post-modernist theories like gender and queer theory.His is a story of a writer that is a former victim of European imerialism that finally culminated into the atrocities on human beings at Nagasaki and Hiroshima.But, above all else it is a story of silencing Britain and Aisa in relation to the usual up-surge of world politics often breaking out every time Nobel Prizes are announced.Kazuo is a British writer of Japanese or Asian descend, but I dont know why the Western press did not consider Kazuo an anglo-japanese writer, a japanese immigrant writer or just a japanese writer living in Britain.This is a guestion the Guardian of London, and the Newyorker has to answer. However, most specatacular is Kazuo's humility in education at all levels, attending East Anglia for his university education, this is an intellectual history that is so humble enough not to premonite any future greatness, this is a lesson for African writers; you dont need to be a graduate from a univesity that enjoys a world class station to acheive excellence in literature, any university can do and even the universities in Africa are capable to produce gurus of literature and art, and oracy, and so forth, fit enough for recognition by prestigious prize institutions like the Swedish Academy.

Globalectics is a word neologized by Ngugi wa Thiongi'o to mean global relations in culutre , politics, economics and technology,my personal politic( not politics) about the implied globalectics in relation to Kazuo is that he is a Japanese immigrant to Europe, having multiple conscience of an Asian who dwells in Europe, he has won the prize when Counttries of Europe are fiercely protesting entry of asian,arabic and African illegal migrants to Europe and America .The appaling surprise is that those racial cahuvinists of Europe violently protesting any assistance to refugees and migrants are the ones heavily enjoying economic propserity that is eked on history of black slavery and exploitation of colonies like the British Colony of India. Those proteasting globalectis of of global diversity that is reaching europe through refugees and immigrants are the unblotched leacy of an economic history which derives much from diversity than racial homogeneity.

Eventuality of Kazuo winning the Nobel Prize is a testimony to the premise that there is no fallacy in arguement that future history of Europe will derive its strength from Africa and Asia. Just the same way the past history of European literature derived its jostle from an African, to be exact the Ethiopian blood of Alexander Pushkin, and so forth. It is a fact that Britain of today cannot not produce a Prize-worth native English writer equal in measure and intellectual or artistic stature to the migrant writers like Ben Okri, Laila Lalami, Everisto Bernadine,Kazuo Ishiguro, V S Naipaul, Salman Rushdie,Taiye Selasie,Teju Cole and many others.It is out of such like observations that we are hence bound to be beuatifully taken back - my dear reader, to the title of this article that the future of British literature is in the hands of the immigrants.

by-Alexander Opicho ( from Lodwar, Kenya)

[email protected]

Disclaimer: "The views expressed on this site are those of the contributors or columnists, and do not necessarily reflect TheNigerianVoice’s position. TheNigerianVoice will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements in the contributions or columns here."

Articles by Alexander Opicho