Conferences on aspects of African literature are no longer the rarity that they were ten years ago. They are fairly frequently held under the auspices of such bodies as the African Literature Association of America or in African universities. Nevertheless, there had been for some years a felt need — expressed at these annual gatherings among other places — for the kind of assessment conference that would possibly re-direct criticism and discussion of African writing in the next few years. If such a conference was to take place then it would need to get away from the issues which had become commonplace at ordinary gatherings of Africanists: ‘what is African literature’, ‘are European critical standards the appropriate ones for evaluating it’ and ‘should the African writer be concerned with the past or the present’, for example.