I agree with Afua Hirsch that we should educate ourselves about African art (If Britain looked anew, it could learn so much about the arts from Africa, 13 August). When I taught in Botswana I was moved by the richness of the music and dance of southern Africa. And the longlisting for the 2019 Booker prize of the writers Chigozie Obioma and Oyinkan Braithwaite suggests a hunger for African art in Britain. As does the success of Africa Utopia at the Southbank, where I saw the sensational Senegalese singer and guitarist Baaba Maal play in 2012.
Stan Labovitch
Windsor
• I applaud Afua Hirsch’s questioning of the government’s level of support and investment in the arts and its artists compared with other countries, notwithstanding the recent but rather late injection of £1.57bn. The arts’ contribution to the economy is recognised, but whether the government fully appreciates their immeasurable value in enriching our lives is another matter. It has long been too easy to take the arts for granted and their survival has moved from a matter of national pride to individual enterprise, ingenuity and private sponsorship. Alongside Hirsch’s assessment of the state of the arts, I equally applaud her insightful comment that Britain has a “world-leading” perception of itself that is “part of a wider deluded colonial narrative”. How true this is.
John Casken
Wooler, Northumberland
