When "African Literature" means "Don't Bother"

So, yes, Wasted has at long last reached the shops. 
    It’s not a very long book, or very thick, but I’d like to think that intensity trumps size every time. Besides, it took me a whole long time to write, even longer for my publisher to read, and months to edit, proofread and print. Make it about two years for this process.
    The first time I held the finished article in my hands was half an hour before the launch event. This skinny, ink-smelling, papery thing made me come over all mushy, and I had to find a quick glass of wine to quell the emotions before I could sensibly discuss it with John Maytham.
    The following weekend, I did what I suspect many authors do.
    I turned into a stalker. A voyeur. A benign Peeping Tom. Creeping in happy anonymity around bookstores to see whether they’d ordered my book, and more importantly, to see how they were “merchandising” it, as we advertising people call it.
    And just like last time, I found it in the “African Literature” section, where it had cleverly been denied any chance of visibility by being placed under “W”, which is approximately where my right shin would have found it, if my right shin had eyes.
    I went to the front of the store to inspect the “New Arrivals” shelves. Among the dozens of “international” authors, Suzanne Collins had a double-billing, there was something soggy by E.L. James, and I spotted a new fantasy thing by someone called Sarah J. Maas.
    No Wasted. 
    Or any other work by a South African author.
    I went back to the “African Literature” stand and put on spectacles that were a little less self-centred.
    Under “B” was Lauren Beukes. Okay, so she hasn’t yet won the Booker or a Nobel prize. But she’s won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction. She’s had Stephen King sing her praises. I believe she’s had a book optioned by some Hollywood bigshot, and that she has a worldwide TV series on the cards. 

It was cute to see J.M. Coetzee’s works lined up next to Ms Beukes’. A Nobel winner, a double Booker winner, he’s been, if I remember correctly.
    And there my book was, rubbing shoulders on the bottom shelf with Ivan Vladislavić, who has just been awarded the 2015 Windham Campbell Prize by Yale University.
    It’s great company if you can get it. Yet, not one of these enormously commended authors had a single work on the actual “Fiction” shelves. And nor did any of my other compatriots, stuffed together as we were, spine out, on our own little lopsided island in the corner.

I asked a passing employee where I might find the Scandinavian and Australian Literature sections. She looked at me as if I might bite her on the ankle, so I explained that I was looking for a), a twee story about an old man who jumped out of a window and b), a maundering lecture on Australian politics masquerading as fiction. She gave me a nervous grin and scampered off to help build a gigantic paper idol to Jeffrey Archer or David Baldacci or someone in the front window.

    Because that’s the point, isn’t it?
    How logical is it to categorize books by the nationality of the people who wrote them?
    It’s like holding an athletics event only for athletes with red hair, establishing a soccer club purely for players who like liquorice, or broadcasting a talent show solely for people who are allergic to bees.
    I draw these parallels because writing, too, is a competition. Even the most minor of South African writers (ahem) competes with the biggest international authors for what advertising people call “share of mind”. And as the old cliché goes, “Out of sight....”

I don’t really buy the commercial argument either – that popular authors sell better, and therefore will make more money for the retailer if they’re displayed front and centre. I’m sure a customer would ask after the latest Dan Brown if she can’t find it on the shelf – but she’s hardly going to ask for the latest Mark Winkler. She’d have to know about Winkler’s book to ask, wouldn’t she? And how could she, if it’s been banished to the African Literature stand – a stand that may as well be covered in biohazard symbols, festooned with quarantine flags, or on fire.
    I don’t see an “African Literature” section doing very much to promote African (or South African) authors.
    It’s only announcing, loud and clear, that African literature is somehow second rate, a curiosity to turn to on the rarest of occasions (like pig’s trotters or escargot), and that African writers simply aren’t good enough to rub shoulders with the rest.
    Sarah J. Maas se…