This book is a timely addition to debates and explorations on the
epistemological relevance of African proverbs, especially with growing
calls for the decolonisation of African curricula. The editors and
contributors have chosen to reflect on the diverse ways of being and
becoming African as a permanent work in progress by drawing inspiration
from Chinua Achebe's harnessing of the effectualness of oratory,
especially his use of proverbs in his works. The book recognises and
celebrates the fact that Achebe's proverbial Igbo imaginations of being
and becoming African are compelling because they are instructive about
the lives, stories, struggles and aspirations of the rainbow of people
that make up Africa as a veritable global arena of productive
circulations, entanglements and compositeness of being. The
contributions foray into how claims to and practices of being and
becoming African are steeped in histories of mobilities and a myriad of
encounters shaped by and inspiring of the competing and complementary
logics of personhood and power that Africans have sought and seek to
capture in their repertoires of proverbs. The task of documenting
African proverbs and rendering them accessible in the form of a common
hard currency with fascinating epistemological possibilities remains a
challenge yearning for financial, scholarly, social and political
attention. The book is an important contribution to John Mbiti's clarion
call for an active and sustained interest in African proverbs.
