African literature, literary works of the
African continent. African literature consists of a body of work in
different languages and various genres, ranging from oral literature to
literature written in colonial languages (French, Portuguese, and
English).
See also African languages; South African literature.
Oral
literature, including stories, dramas, riddles, histories, myths,
songs, proverbs, and other expressions, is frequently employed to
educate and entertain children. Oral histories, myths, and proverbs
additionally serve to remind whole communities of their ancestors'
heroic deeds, their past, and the precedents for their customs and
traditions. Essential to oral literature is a concern for presentation
and oratory. Folktale tellers use call-response techniques. A griot
(praise singer) will accompany a narrative with music.
Some of the first African writings to gain attention in the West were the poignant slave narratives, such as The Interesting Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African
(1789), which described vividly the horrors of slavery and the slave
trade. As Africans became literate in their own languages, they often
reacted against colonial repression in their writings. Others looked to
their own past for subjects. Thomas Mofolo, for example, wrote Chaka (tr. 1931), about the famous Zulu military leader, in Susuto.
Since
the early 19th cent. writers from western Africa have used newspapers
to air their views. Several founded newspapers that served as vehicles
for expressing nascent nationalist feelings. French-speaking Africans in
France, led by Léopold Senghor, were active in the négritude movement from the 1930s, along with Léon Damas and Aimé Césaire,
French speakers from French Guiana and Martinique. Their poetry not
only denounced colonialism, it proudly asserted the validity of the
cultures that the colonials had tried to crush.
After World War
II, as Africans began demanding their independence, more African writers
were published. Such writers as, in western Africa, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Ousmane Sembene, Kofi Awooner, Agostinho Neto, Tchicaya u tam'si, Camera Laye, Mongo Beti, Ben Okri, and Ferdinand Oyono and, in eastern Africa, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Okot p'Bitek,
and Jacques Rabémananjara produced poetry, short stories, novels,
essays, and plays. All were writing in European languages, and often
they shared the same themes: the clash between indigenous and colonial
cultures, condemnation of European subjugation, pride in the African
past, and hope for the continent's independent future.
In South Africa, the horrors of apartheid have, until the present, dominated the literature. Es'kia Mphahlele, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Dennis Brutus, J. M. Coetzee, and Miriam Tlali all reflect in varying degrees in their writings the experience of living in a racially segregated society.
Much of contemporary African literature reveals disillusionment and dissent with current events. For example, V. Y. Mudimbe in Before the Birth of the Moon
(1989) explores a doomed love affair played out within a society
riddled by deceit and corruption. In Kenya Ngugi wa Thiong'o was jailed
shortly after he produced a play, in Kikuyu, which was perceived as
highly critical of the country's government. Apparently, what seemed
most offensive about the drama was the use of songs to emphasize its
messages.
The weaving of music into the Kenyan's play points out
another characteristic of African literature. Many writers incorporate
other arts into their work and often weave oral conventions into their
writing. p'Bitek structured Song of Iowino (1966) as an Acholi poem; Achebe's characters pepper their speech with proverbs in Things Fall Apart
(1958). Others, such as Senegalese novelist Ousmane Sembene, have
moved into films to take their message to people who cannot read.
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