21st Literature

• Types of African Literature


  • Pre-Colonial African Literature
  • Colonial African Literature
  • Post-Colonial African Literature
• Pre-Colonial African Literature


  • Primarily existed in oral forms, passed down through generations via storytelling, songs, poetry, proverbs, myths, legends, and epics
• Colonial African Literature


  • European powers imposed their political, economic, and cultural dominance over African societies, leading to significant social upheaval and cultural transformation
• Post-Colonial African Literature


  • Emerged in the aftermath of African independence movements, as newly independent nations grappled with the legacies of colonialism and the challenges of nation-building
• Major Characteristics of African Literature


  • Slave narratives
  • Protests against colonization
  • Calls for independence
  • African pride
  • Hope for the future
  • Dissent
• Chinua Achebe


  Nigerian novelist, poet, critic, and professor, honored as Grand Prix de la Memoir of the 2019 edition of the Grand Prix of Literary Associations, wrote "Things Fall Apart"
• Wole Soyinka


  First black African to be awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote "A Dance of the Forests"
• Kofi Awoonor


  Ghanaian novelist and poet who wrote "This Earth, My Brother", a cross between a novel and a poem
• Ngugi wa Thiong'o


  Kenyan writer who wrote the famous novel "Weep Not, Child", the first major novel in English by an East African
• Okot p'Bitek


  Ugandan poet, novelist, and social anthropologist who wrote the three verse collections Song of Lawino (1066), Song of Ocol (1970), and Two Songs (1971), achieved international recognition for Song of Lawino
• Nadine Gordimer


  South African writer and the recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote the joint winner of the Booker - McConnell Prize novel "The Conservationist"
• Jacques Rabemananjara


  Malagasy playwright and poet, one of Madagascar's most prominent writers, wrote and published his play "Les dieux malgaches", the first modern Malagasy play in French
• Es'kia Mphahlele


  Wrote the South African classic autobiography "Down Second Avenue"
• Thomas Mofolo


  Greatest writer from the Sotho people in Africa, created the first Western-style novels in the Basotho language, his novel "Chaka" became a classic
• George Moses Horton (1798 1884)


  African American poet who wrote sentimental love poems and antislavery protests, one of the first professional black writers in America