SOURCE: A review of The African Image, in Ariel, Vol. VI, No. 1, January, 1975, pp. 98-9.

In the following review, Ramraj lauds Mphahlele's study of the African image in politics, culture, and literature in The African Image.

[The African Image] is both a socio-political and literary exploration of the African image. In adopting this dual approach, Ezekiel Mphahlele (himself a novelist and professor of English) is evidently affirming what he describes as the “urgent dual responsibility” of the African creative writer, who, caught up in his continent's inescapable racial, political and cultural conflicts, must both interpret his world imaginatively and “act as a political man.” The study is divided into two parts: the first explores the African image in terms of politics and the politics of culture; the second, in terms of the literature by both blacks and whites. There is no deliberate attempt to synthesize or assess comparatively...