African literature definition of African literature in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

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 African languages, geographic rather than linguistic classification of languages spoken on the African continent. Historically the term refers to the languages of sub-Saharan Africa, which do not belong to a single family, but are divided among several distinct
..... Click the link for more information. ; South African literature South African literature, literary works written in South Africa or written by South Africans living in other countries. Populated by diverse ethnic and language groups, South Africa has a distinctive literature in many African languages as well as Afrikaans (a
..... Click the link for more information. .

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 Senghor, Léopold Sédar , 1906–2001, African statesman and poet; president (1960–80) of the Republic of Senegal, b. Joal. The son of a prosperous landowner, Senghor was extraordinarily gifted in literature and won a scholarship to study at
..... Click the link for more information. , were active in the négritude négritude , a literary movement on the part of French-speaking African and Caribbean writers who lived in Paris during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Adherents of négritude
..... Click the link for more information. movement from the 1930s, along with Léon Damas Damas, Léon (Léon-Gentran Damas), 1912–78, French poet, b. French Guiana. With Léopold Senghor and Aimé Césaire he was one of the first adherents of négritude, a cultural movement emphasizing black consciousness.
..... Click the link for more information. and Aimé Césaire Césaire, Aimé , 1913–, West Indian poet and essayist who writes in French. After studying in Paris he became concerned with the plight of blacks in what he considers a decadent Western society.
..... Click the link for more information. , 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 Soyinka, Wole , 1934–, Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, essayist, and political activist, born Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka. Educated at the universities of Ibadan and Leeds, England, and at London's Royal Court Theatre, he writes in English, fusing Western
..... Click the link for more information. , Chinua Achebe Achebe, Chinua , 1930–, Nigerian writer, b. Albert Chinualumogu Achebe. A graduate of University College at Ibadan (1953), Achebe, an Igbo who writes in English, is one of Africa's most acclaimed authors and considered by some to be the father of modern African
..... Click the link for more information. , Ousmane Sembene Sembene, Ousmane , 1923–, Senegalese writer and film director writing in French and Wolof, often regarded as the father of sub-Saharan African cinema. He left school at 15 and after being drafted into the French Army in 1939, joined the Free French forces in
..... Click the link for more information. , Kofi Awooner, Agostinho Neto Neto, Agostinho , 1927–79, first president of independent Angola. A Portuguese-educated physician and poet, he founded the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) in 1956, directing the war of liberation against Portugal from exile with
..... Click the link for more information. , Tchicaya u tam'si, Camera Laye, Mongo Beti, Ben Okri, and Ferdinand Oyono Oyono, Ferdinand Léopold , 1929–, Cameroonian statesman and novelist writing in French. After studying in Africa and in Paris at the Law School and the National School of Administration, he joined the Cameroonian diplomatic corps, served in various
..... Click the link for more information. and, in eastern Africa, Ngugi wa Thiong'o Ngugi wa Thiong'o or James Ngugi, 1938–, Kenyan writer, acclaimed as East Africa's foremost novelist. He studied at universities in Uganda and England.
..... Click the link for more information. , Okot p'Bitek p'Bitek, Okot, 1931–82, Ugandan writer and anthropologist. Educated at the Univ. of Bristol, University College of Wales, and Oxford, p'Bitek is best known for three verse novels, Song of Lawino (1966), Song of Ocol (1970), and Two Songs
..... Click the link for more information. , 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 Mphahlele, Es'kia (Ezekiel Es'kia Mphahlele) , 1919–, South African writer. He began his career as a writer for Drum magazine after World War II and published his first stories, Man Must Live, in 1947.
..... Click the link for more information. , Nadine Gordimer Gordimer, Nadine , 1923–, South African writer, b. Springs. She published her first short story at age 15 and later many of her stories appeared in The New Yorker magazine.
..... Click the link for more information. , Bessie Head Head, Bessie, 1937–86, South African writer. Born in South Africa to a white mother and black father, she was placed in foster homes and orphanages as a child. After 1964, she lived in exile in Botswana.
..... Click the link for more information. , Dennis Brutus Brutus, Dennis Vincent, 1924–, South African poet, b. Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe). Brutus grew up in South Africa and received (1947) his B.A. from its Univ. of Fort Hare at Alice.
..... Click the link for more information. , J. M. Coetzee, and Miriam Tlali Tlali, Miriam , 1933–, South African novelist, b. Johannesburg. One of the first to write about Soweto, Tlali is known for her semiautobiographical novel Muriel at Metropolitan (1975; later published under its original title, Between Two Worlds
..... Click the link for more information. 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.

Bibliography

See R. Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa (1970); R. Smith, ed., Exile and Tradition: Studies in African and Caribbean Literature (1976); W. Soyinka, Myth, Literature and the African World (1976); A. Irele, The African Experience in Literature and Ideology (1981); B. W. Andrzejewski et al., Literature in African Languages (1985); S. Gikandi, Reading the African Novel (1987).

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No references found			The topics include new locations and changing paradigms in contemporary African literature, new women's accents in anglophone African fiction, Andre Brink's prose oeuvre published after 2000, discourses of alterity in Nadine Gordimer's The House Gun, and the Centre for African Literary Studies at South Africa's University of KwaZulu-Natal. The changing face of African literature/ Les nouveaux visages de la ... by Reference & Research Book News However, there are a number of critics of African literature who attack Armah on various issues. The Writer and His Critics: A Critical Review of Studies on Ayi Kwei ... by Bodunde, Charles Agboola / Kola Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiang'o, along with Nigerian Ben Okri and Angolan writer Ondjaki won an inaugural African literature prize here on Friday. Kenyan, Nigerian and Angolan win African literature prize by Daily News Egypt (Egypt)			afreet Africa Africa Industrialization Day Africa Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Union of Soviet Africa Malaria Day Africa, Roman African African American Day Parade African American Women in Cinema International Film Festival African art African arts African buffalo African Burial Ground National Monument African cherry African Crowned Crane African Democratic Assembly African Development Bank African ebony African Gray African greenheart African Horse Sickness African languages African Liberation Day African lily African lion hound African literature African mahogany African Methodist Episcopal Church African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church African Methodist Quarterly Meeting Day African music African National Congress African Oil Palm African Party of Independence for Guinea and the Cape Verde Islands African Platform African religions African rosewood African sleeping sickness African Studies African superplume African Swine Fever African Trade Union Confederation African trypanosomiasis African Union African violet African World Festival African/Caribbean International Festival of Life Africanus, Sextus Julius Afridis Afrifa, Akwazi Amankwa Afrigid Culture			African Journal on Conflict Resolution African Journals Online African Judicial Network African Judo Union African Jungleball African Jungleball African Juniper African Laboratory for Natural Products African Labour Research Network African Language Teachers Association African Languages African Languages African Large Predator Research Unit African Laser Centre African Leadership and Progress Network African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries African Liberation Day African lily African lily African Linkage Project African Lion African Lion African Lion African Lion Dog African Lion Dog African Lion Dog African Lion Hound African Lion Hound African Lion Hound African Lion Working Group African literature African Love Bird Society African love grass African Lowland Rice Evaluation and Screening Set African Lungfish African Lungfish African lymphoma African lymphoma African lymphoma African lynx African lynx African lynx African lynxes African lynxes African lynxes African mahogany African mahogany African Malaria Vaccine Testing Network African Management Development Institutes Network African Management Services Company African Management Services Company African mango African marigold African marigold African marigold African marigold African Mathematical Union Commission on Mathematics Education African Mathematics Millennium Science Initiative African Media Barometer African Media Development Initiative African Medical & Research Foundation, Inc.