African Writers and Social Transformation

The title of this talk is 'African Writers and Social Transformation', and I should begin by saying that it was only when I sat down to gather my thoughts that I realised the enormity of the undertaking, and wondered whether I shouldn't have chosen something more innocuous. Such a title requires a book, not a lecture, so that what follows is hardly a sustained argument, merely a few thoughts with which I'm becoming increasingly obsessed as I survey the chaos that is contemporary Africa. With that proviso in mind, here goes: