African Literature

• Africa


  • 2nd largest continent
  • Covers more than one-fifth of the earth's surface
• Islam


  Dominant religion of northern Africa
• Literacy rates for men are higher than women in Africa
• Urban education is higher than rural education in Africa
• Before colonialism, Africans would tell their stories orally and through performance
• After colonialism, the African writers started to write in European languages such as English, Portuguese, and French
• The 'Scramble for Africa' period when numerous European powers took control of most of Africa


  1881-1914
• Literary genres that flourished

  • Poetry
  • Drama
  • Novel
  • Short stories
• Negritude


  Coined by Aime Cesaire from the pejorative French word "negre"
• 3 Fathers of Negritude

  • Aime Cesaire - Poet, playwright, & politician from Martinique
  • Leon Gontran Damas - French Guyanese poet & National Assembly member
  • Leopold Sedar Senghor - First president of independent Senegal
• Written African literature in the 1950's and 1960's has been described as "Literature of Testimony"
• African authors who produced literature in the European languages have been described as "Literatures of Revolt"
• African oral literature


  • Performative
  • Themes were usually mythological and historical
  • Performed using mimicry, gestures, and expressions
  • Versatile and communal
• The first 'slave narratives' of the 18th and 19th centuries included The interesting life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)
• Frederick Douglass's autobiography: Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass (1845) was an important text in the American abolitionist movement
• Intersectionality emphasizes the interconnectedness of social categories such as race, gender, and class
• Periods of African literature

  • Pre Colonial
  • Civil War
  • Colonial
  • Post Colonial
• The Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation, prompting works like Booker T. Washington's "Up from Slavery" (1901) and W.E.B. Du Bois's "Souls of Black Folk" (1903)
• By 1910 and 1920, Black writers were being more and more recognised in fiction and poetry
• Themes in post-colonial African literature

  • Relationship between modernity and tradition
  • Past and present
  • Individuality and collectivism
• Major African writers

  • Leopold Sedar Senghor
  • Okot P' Bitek
  • Wole Soyinka
  • Chinua Achebe
  • Barbara Kimenye
  • Bessie Head
  • Ousmane Sembene
  • Nadine Gordimer
• Leopold Sedar Senghor


  Poet and statesman, co-founder of the Negritude movement in African Art and Literature, first president of Senegal (1960)
• Okot P' Bitek


  Born in Uganda during British domination, wrote Song of Lawino, Song of Ocol, African Religions and Western Scholarship, Horn of My Love
• Wole Soyinka


  Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, and critic, wrote of modern West Africa in a satirical style, wrote A Dance of the Forests, The Lion and the Jewel, The Trials of Brother Jero, and the novel The Interpreters
• Chinua Achebe


  Prominent Igbo novelist acclaimed for his unsentimental depictions, wrote Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, No Longer at Ease, A man of the People, Anthills of Savannah
• Barbara Kimenye


  Wrote 12 books on children's stories known as the Moses Series, including Kalasanda Revisited, The Smugglers, and The Money Game
• Bessie Head


  Described society in morally didactic novels and stories, suffered rejection and alienation from an early age, wrote When Rain Clouds Gather, A Question of Power, The Collector of Treasures
• Ousmane Sembene


  Writer and filmmaker from Senegal, wrote O My Country, My People, God's Bits of Wood
• Nadine Gordimer


  South African novelist, themes of exile and alienation, wrote The Soft Voice of the Serpent, Burger's July's People