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African literature

World Encyclopedia | Date: 2005

African literature Oral and written literatures of the continent of Africa. Oral literature in Africa is immensely rich and diverse. A central feature of the continent's oral traditions is the close link with the rhythms and texture of music. Audience participation is encouraged through the technique of call and response. Narration is regarded both as performance art and as vital transmission of historical information. Folktales, myths, legends and proverbs provide a community with a continuous link with their ancestral heritage. A major theme of much of Africa's written literatures is the conflict between traditional cultures and modernization. In Africa, literature written in indigenous languages antedates that in European languages, but the latter is more widespread. The earliest known indigenous works are religious texts, informed by Christian and Islamic literature. In North Africa a tradition of Latin writing dates back to the 5th-century Christian theologian Saint Augustine. In the 14th century the Islamic historian Ibn Khaldun wrote his magisterial Introduction to History. The tradition of North African writing in Arabic has continued into the 20th-century, chiefly through the work of Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz - the first Arabic writer to receive the Nobel Prize for literature (1988). In East Africa the earliest extant Swahili text dates from 1652. The oldest surving Swahili epic verse is the Hamziya (1749) by Sayyid Aidarusi. Early Swahili poetry was heavily influenced by Islamic verse and was written in Arabic. In the mid-19th century Latin script became more common. The greatest figure of 20th-century Swahili poetry was Shaaban Robert. In West Africa the beginnings of Hausa literature are traced back to the campaigns (1804–08) of the Fulani reformer Shaykh Usman dan Fodio. While the Yoruba of Nigeria and Benin have a fertile oral tradition, the first Yoruba novel, The Forest of a Thousand Demons by Daniel Olorunfemi Fagunwa, was not published until 1938. Hubert Ogunde's play Strike and Hunger (1945) was a landmark in the development of Yoruban theatre. African literatures in European languages were mainly born out of colonialism. In the 20th century the major African writers in Portuguese were the Angolan poets and political activists, Agostinho Neto and Mário de Andrade. The first contemporary African literature in French also took the form of political protest against colonial rule. Its leading figure was the Senegalese poet and statesman Leópold Senghor. Senghor developed the notion of négritude, which asserted the values of traditional African culture. Major African novels in French include The Poor Christ of Bomba (1956) by Mongo Beti and The Radiance of the King (1954) by Camara Laye. Arguably the richest European language in African literatures is English. The Interesting Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789) by Olaudah Equiano, a former slave's account of the horrors of the slave trade, is the first-known work of English literature by an African. Nigeria has perhaps the strongest body of African literature in English. The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) by Amos Tutuola was the first Nigerian novel to receive international acclaim. Wole Soyinka, like Tutuola, drew on Yoruba myths to create plays such as A Dance of the Forests (1963). In 1986 Soyinka became the first African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. In the novel Things Fall Apart (1958), Chinua Achebe depicted the effects of British colonialism on Igbo village life. Gabriel Okara also explored the conflict between African traditions and Western materialism in his novel The Voice (1964). The Nigerian novelist Ben Okri won Britain's Booker Prize for his novel The Famished Road (1991). A vibrant literature in English also emerged in Ghana. Major works include the novel The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968) by Ayi Kwei Armah and the play The Dilemma of a Ghost (1968) by Ama Ata Aidoo. One of the best-known works of African literature in English is the epic poem Song of Lawino (1966) by Ugandan writer Okot p'Bitek. In A Grain of Wheat (1967) the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thing'o explored the struggle for independence from Britain. In the late 1970s Ngugi abandoned the language of the colonizer to write in his native tongue, Gikuyu. Ngugi's decision is part of a growing modern trend to encourage more literary production in indigenous African languages.


© World Encyclopedia 2005, originally published by Oxford University Press 2005.