Who Should Narrate African Audiobooks: A Case for African Narrators

African novels deserve to be narrated by African voices—not only for authenticity but also to preserve the integrity of the stories.

I woke on a particularly cold morning in Canada to a sudden nostalgic urge to read a Nigerian novel. So I opened my Libby app, found Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sister’s Street, and eagerly borrowed the audiobook to listen to.

From the very start, I was shocked by how odd and unnatural the narrator’s voice sounded and how poorly they pronounced the Nigerian Pidgin words, which featured a lot in the book.

I had the same experience with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, and it got me thinking: is it such a bad idea to have Nigerians read Nigerian novels?

The language dilemma

Purple Hibiscus is set in Lagos and Nsukka, with most of the characters hailing from eastern Nigeria. The book is rich with conversations mixed in Igbo and English. But the British narrator uses her British accent to pronounce Igbo words.

It’s expected that a British narrator would be unable to pronounce the words as well as a Nigerian would. However, the very fact that this is the norm with African-authored books is cause for worry.

With physical books, this would be no issue. However, an audiobook is different because the sounds and pronunciations are key to creating the environment that the writer sets out to build. The narrator’s voice is crucial in transporting the listener to places they may have never been.

So, if Purple Hibiscus is set in the heart of Nigeria, steeped in its cultures and traditions, it would only be right that the person narrating the book embodies those cultures, or at least a semblance of them.

More surprising was the AudioFile review lauding the audiobook version of Purple Hibiscus. For proper perspective, here is a direct quote:

“Lisette Lecat does not narrate this audiobook as much as she casts a spell. Her lilting British-accented voice evokes Nigeria’s colonialist past, and her adroitness with the Ibo-speaking characters clearly places us in another culture.”

When I read this, my first question was: Was there really a need to evoke Nigeria’s colonialist past? Was that the author’s goal? And how well can a foreign narrator accurately depict a culture that is entirely foreign to her, especially with a book that is so strongly Nigerian?

The case for authenticity

I have listened to my fair share of non-African audiobooks and haven’t encountered an African narrator.

As such, there is a strong case for more African narrators to be allowed to narrate books written by African authors. It gives the work originality and naturalness.

While having book narrators with an affinity for the cultural context in which a book is based might seem idealistic, it adds a great deal of naturalness to the narration, making it feel more real.

African novels deserve to be narrated by African voices—not only for authenticity but also to preserve the integrity of the stories.