Nonpareil literary repository

'Letter from South Africa" is Omoseye Bolaji's regular weekly column published in the Nigerian newspaper, True National News. The column comes out every Monday. True National News is circulated all over Nigeria on a weekly basis.


January 4 2010 edition

Letter from SA (Column)

With Omoseye Bolaji

Nonpareil literary repository


The National English Literary Museum (NELM) in South Africa is rightly regarded as the best literary library of its type in the whole of Africa. Put simply, the museum has in its cavernous folds incredible stored material on writers in South Africa and the whole of Southern Africa in general.

Hence it is no surprise that a medley of important scholars, researchers and writers lucky enough to visit the museum (based in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape of South Africa) sing the praises of the museum to high heavens. Writers black and white, male or female are staggered to see the meticulous details of their work in this unique museum.

For example the NELM stores not only books and "literary critical" material but also things like original manuscripts, juvenalia, and extensive press cuttings. The library does all it can to have COMPREHENSIVE records of every writer, including articles, studies, interviews.

So long as you are a writer who has contributed somewhat to literature, the NELM has information on you, including the early (South Africa) writers like Olive Schrivener or Sol Plaatje - the first black South African to write and publish a novel. The NELM is very much interested in material that can generally be considered "criticism" and staffers go out of their way to procure this.

Researchers, scholars. writers etc from all over the world regularly travel to the NELM to marvel at what it has to offer. The NELM makes research so easy, yet so comprehensive; literally at the press of a button. All one has to do is just know the name of the pertinent author and in seconds the information comes tumbling out...books published, studies (including books and articles) on the author, supplementary information, press cuttings etc

Just taking one example, say one is interested in Es'kia Mphahlele, the great South African black writer and academic. At the NELM all the books he has published are available and all the books written about his works too; then there are sundry articles published by Es'kia, and also articles published on his works too. Everything is there.

Oh, as if all this was not enough, it must be stated that the staff of NELM are absolutely fantastic, courteous people who go out of their way to garner information and cater for all vistors interested in writing. Their love for the world of writing is so palpable.

Internationmal scholars and researchers who have recently visited the NELM include Randolph Vigne, Ann Laughton, Jackie Shipster, Patrick Flanery, Miriam Nicholson, Marcia Blumberg, Torsten Sannar, Mathew Furlong, Robert Frasier (who published an excellent critique - book - of Ayi Kwei Armah) among many others.

On a personal note, for me, it was a thrill visiting the NELM having contributed to South African English literature. Like other writers I used to dream of visiting that NELM one day and the first time I was there I could not believe how efficient and all-encompassing that museum is. The punctilio and excellence here is out of this world.

But still one has to wonder, wish and pray that Nigeria could have such a "literary museum" that would shake the world like the NELM. With so many world class Nigerian authors, it behoves them to come together and prevail on the powers that be to establish a literary museum like this. Imagine visitors from all over the world descending on such a place; maybe the query is on Chinua Achebe. Then the computer (data base) locates ALL his books, filed away in his own special section. Then there comes (also electronically) all the books, articles and press clippings written on his literary work over the decades...

It was a coterie of renowned white writers in South Africa who had a dream of creating the NELM ...and the dream has come true now. How nice it would be for Nigerian icons like Achebe, Soyinka, J P Clark, etc to come together and create a literary repository like this in Nigeria too!