Should literature be political?

‘Should literature be political?’ Njabulo S Ndebele asked Open Book Cape Town the other day. Ndebele, a renowned academic in South Africa, has written a précis of his speech for the Guardian. He draws a distinction between political novels, which dramatise activism, and other forms of literature that ‘politicise’ by deepening awareness. His point is often sunk by his own loquacity (‘These two books [The African Child and God’s Bits of Wood] reveal the continuations between political literature and literary politics. Both achieve transcendence through art that politicises and depoliticises all at once.’); but, that aside, he makes some very compelling proposals about the role that literature can play in Africa’s renewal, a ‘continent increasingly impatient and desperate for renewal’. With the Marikana mine dispute fresh in the memory, he says that ‘we need writing that explodes willed invisibility’, which he defines as ‘the hidden acts’ of business, politicians and stakeholders that threaten the environment and public morals.