2. #2 Language & Historical Influences
TOPIC OUTLINE
Today's Discussion
#1 Characteristics of African Literature
#3 Types of African literature
#4 African Writers and Poets
#4 African Stories and Poems
3. CHARACTERISTICS OF
AFRICAN LITERATURE
African literature is as diverse as the continent itself, but several characteristics and
themes prevail throughout much of the written works emerging from Africa.
African literature is meant in large part to be educational as well as entertaining.
African literature isn't just the voices of African people during colonialism and the
slave trade. It is much more than that. It covers the stories of African people before
colonialism, during colonialism, and after colonialism (this is known as post-colonial
literature).
African literature reflects the stories of people from hundreds of years ago and the
people who live now.
5. LANGUAGE
African literature not only comes in the written form but also
as oral literature.
Before colonialism, Africans would tell their stories orally and through
performance, sometimes using music as well.
After colonialism, the African writers started to write in European
languages such as English, Portuguese, and French.
African authors who wrote in European languages were many times
accused of trying to cater for a western audience but the true reason
behind their intentions was to portray their experience in a language
that the oppressors could understand.
7. HISTORICAL
INFLUENCES
African writers’ focus on themes of freedom and
independence, questions of identity and liberation
In the period between 1881 and 1914, known as the ‘Scramble for
Africa’, numerous European powers took control of most of Africa.
Only three countries untouched by the Europeans were the Dervish
State, Liberia, and Ethiopia.
The slave trade that lasted approximately four hundred years is also
another key historical influence on African literature.
The Atlantic slave trade involved the movement of more than twelve
million African people to America to work as slaves. Some of these
slaves eventually gained their freedom and those who were literate
started writing stories to fight against slavery by recounting their
horrifying experiences as slaves.
The first generation of these narrators was Ottobah Cugoano, Olaudah
Equiano, and Ignatius Sancho.
9. TYPES OF AFRICAN
LITERATURE
The types of African literature can be divided into four
groups
Oral African literature
Pre-colonial African literature
Colonial African literature
Post-colonial literature
These can further be divided into three periods of African literature: during
African liberation, colonialism of Africa, and Africa after colonialism.
10. ORAL AFRICAN
LITERATURE
African oral literature was performative.
Themes were usually mythological and historical.
Performance, tone, riddles, and proverbs were key components of oral
African literature.
The performer also often had visual aids during their performance. They
were able to perform in specific ways by using mimicry, gestures, and
expressions to produce an impact on their audience.
Oral African literature was versatile and communal.
11. PRE-COLONIAL AFRICAN
LITERATURE
Pre-colonial African literature is the literature
written between the fifteenth and nineteenth
centuries and includes the Atlantic slave trade.
Stories were based on the folklore of different regions in
African countries.
It is important to understand that before colonial rule, African
literature existed. Africans wrote in Africa as well as in the
west and they also wrote in their native languages.
12. COLONIAL AFRICAN
LITERATURE
Colonial African Literature was produced between
the end of World War I and African independence
(the date of which depends on the different
countries, such as Ghana's 1957 independence from
British control and Algeria's independence in 1962
from France).
It contained themes of independence, liberation and
négritude. Traditionally, Africans combine teaching in their art
forms. For example, rather than writing or singing about
beauty, African people use elements of beauty to portray
crucial facts and information about African society.
13. POST COLONIAL AFRICAN
LITERATURE
African postcolonial literature refers to writings
produced after the political independence of various
African states which were formerly subject to
European colonial rule.
Literature written by African authors in their home countries or
in diaspora deals with issues of colonial experience or
decolonization.
The articles, collections of essays and monographs listed in the
bibliography only provide glimpses at the extensive and
elaborate discourses on African postcolonial writings.
15. CHINUA ACHEBE
One of the world’s most widely recognized and praised
writers, Chinua Achebe wrote some of the most
extraordinary works of the 20th century.
Most famous novel: Things Fall Apart (1958), is a devastating
depiction of the clash between traditional tribal values and the
effects of colonial rule, as well as the tension between
masculinity and femininity in highly patriarchal societies.
Achebe is also a noted literary critic, particularly known for his
passionate critique of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
(1899), in which he accuses the popular novel of rampant racism
through its othering of the African continent and its people
16. CHIMAMANDA NGOZI
ADICHIE
Adichie’s works are primarily character-driven, interweaving
the background of her native Nigeria and social and political
events into the narrative.
Her novel Purple Hibiscus (2003) is a bildungsroman, depicting the life
experience of Kambili and her family during a military coup, while her
latest work Americanah (2013) is an insightful portrayal of Nigerian
immigrant life and race relations in America and the western world.
Adichie’s works have been met with overwhelming praise and have
been nominated for and won numerous awards, including the Orange
Prize and Booker Prize.
17. Ayi Kwei Armah’s novels are known for their intense,
powerful depictions of political devastation and social
frustration in Armah’s native Ghana.
His works were greatly influenced by French existential philosophers,
such as Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, and as such hold themes
of despair, disillusionment and irrationality.
His most famous work, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968)
centers around an unnamed protagonist who attempts to understand
his self and his country in the wake of post-independence.
AYI KWEI ARMAH
18. One of Africa’s most influential women authors, Mariama Bâ is
known for her powerful feminist texts, which address the
issues of gender inequality in her native Senegal and wider
Africa.
Her anger and frustration at the patriarchal structures which defined her
life spill over into her literature: her novel So Long A Letter (1981)
depicts, simultaneously, its protagonist’s strength and powerlessness
within marriage and wider society.
MARIAMA BÂ
19. Nuruddin Farah has written numerous plays, novels and short
stories, all of which revolve around his experiences of his
native country.
The title of his first novel From a Crooked Rib (1970) stems from a
Somalian proverb “God created woman from a crooked rib, and anyone
who trieth to straighten it, breaketh it”, and is a commentary on the
sufferings of women in Somalian society through the narrative of a young
woman trapped in an unhappy marriage.
His subsequent works feature similar social criticism, dealing with themes
of war and post-colonial identity.
NURUDDIN FARAH
20. Aminatta Forna first drew attention for her memoir.
Her memoir entitled The Devil That Danced on Water (2003), an
extraordinarily brave account of her family’s experiences living in war-torn
Sierra Leone, and in particular her father’s tragic fate as a political
dissident.
Forna has gone on to write several novels, each of them critically
acclaimed: her work The Memory of Love (2010) juxtaposes personal
stories of love and loss within the wider context of the devastation of the
Sierre Leone civil war, and was nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction.
AMINATTA FORNA
21. NADINE GORDIMER
One of the apartheid era’s most prolific writers.
Nadine Gordimer’s works powerfully explore social, moral, and racial
issues in a South Africa under apartheid rule.
Despite winning a Nobel Prize in Literature for her prodigious skills in
portraying a society interwoven with racial tensions, Gordimer’s most
famous and controversial works were banned from South Africa for
daring to speak out against the oppressive governmental structures of the
time.
Her novel Burger’s Daughter follows the struggles of a group of anti-
apartheid activists, and was read in secret by Nelson Mandela during his
time on Robben Island.
22. ALAIN MABANCKOU
His novels are strikingly character-focused, often featuring
ensemble casts of figures.
Originating from the Republic of Congo, Alain Mabanckou’s works are
written primarily in French, and are well known for their biting wit, sharp
satire and insightful social commentary into both Africa and African
immigrants in France.
His book Broken Glass, which focuses on a former Congolese teacher and
his interactions with the locals in the bar he frequents, or his novel Black
Bazar, which details the experiences of various African immigrants in an
Afro-Cuban bar in Paris.
23. His young experience greatly informed his future writing.
Ben Okri’s childhood was divided between England and time in his native
Nigeria.
His first highly acclaimed novels Flowers and Shadows (1980) and The
Landscapes Within (1981) were reflections on the devastation of the
Nigerian civil war which Okri himself observed firsthand.
His later novels met with equal praise: The Famished Road (1991),
which tells the story of Azaro, a spirit child, is a fascinating blend of
realism and depictions of the spirit world, and won the Booker Prize.
BEN OKRI
24. Ngugi wa Thiong’o is one of Africa’s most important and
influential postcolonial writers.
He began his writing career with novels written in English, which
nevertheless revolved around postcolonial themes of the individual and the
community in Africa versus colonial powers and cultures.
Wa Thiong’o was imprisoned without trial for over a year by the government
for the staging of a politically controversial play; after his release, he
committed to writing works only in his native Gikuyi and Swahili, citing
language as a key tool for decolonizing the mindset and culture of African
readers and writer.
NGUGI WA THIONG’O
