African Literature PDF

African Literature By Dr. Banan AlJahdali  African literature consists of a body of work in different languages and various genres. African literature exists in two forms: a written form and an oral form. Oral literature, including stories, dramas, riddles, histories, myths, songs, prove...

African Literature By Dr. Banan AlJahdali  African literature consists of a body of work in different languages and various genres. African literature exists in two forms: a written form and an oral form. 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 African written literature can be divided into three stages: Pre-colonial African literature Colonial African literature Post-colonial African literature  Pre-colonial African Literature Sub-Saharan Africa developed a written literature during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This development came as a result of missionaries coming to the area. The missionaries came to Africa to build churches and language schools in order to translate religious texts. This led to Africans writing in both European and indigenous languages.  Colonial African Literature: Colonization led to slavery. Millions of African people were enslaved and brought to Western countries around the world from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. This spreading of African people in the west, largely against their [the west] will, is called the African Diaspora. The African works best known in the West from the periods of colonization and the slave trade are primarily slave narratives. Colonial African Literature: 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. Colonial African Literature: Since the early 19th century writers from western Africa have used newspapers to air their views. Several founded newspapers served as vehicles for expressing nationalist feelings. For example, African 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, and in eastern Africa, Ngugi wa Thiong’o.  Post-colonial African Literature: Rewriting and restructuring the history and culture of colonized peoples is significant to postcolonial writers not only as a form of resistance, but also as a chance to establish a national literature With liberation and increased literacy since most African nations gained their independence in the 1950s and 1960s, African literature has grown dramatically in quantity and in recognition, with numerous African works appearing in Western academic curricula and on "best of" lists compiled since the end of the 20th century. For instance, Wole Soyinka, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, is known for his drama, poetry, and prose. Postcolonial African Literature: African writers in this period wrote both in Western languages (notably English, French, and Portuguese) and in traditional African languages such as Hausa. African Writers often 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. For example, Ngugi wa Thiong’o in his books, such as A Grain of Wheat, has written so much about colonialism, leadership and suffering of the Kenyan people. Postcolonial African Literature: -Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) is perhaps the best-known African novel of the 20th century. Things Fall Apart rewrites African history and culture to preserve African heritage, in response to imperial constructs of the land and peoples. -Things Fall Apart gave expression to Achebe’s first stirrings of anti-colonialism and a desire to use literature as a weapon against Western biases -When Things Fall Apart was first published, Achebe announced that one of his purposes was to present a complex, dynamic society to a Western audience who perceived African society as primitive, simple, and backward. Postcolonial African Literature: -Many European writers have presented the continent as a dark place inhabited by people with primitive minds; Achebe considers this reductionist portrayal of Africa. -Although Africans were present in European literature, they were silenced, which for Achebe was a presence that was equal to absence. Therefore, Achebe’s goals as a writer were to represent the self instead of being represented and to eliminate the absence of the African voice. Postcolonial African Literature: Achebe’s writings represent African history and culture from the colonized perspective, in order to institute a national cultural heritage of Africa. He used the language of the colonizer because he believed “that the English language will be able to carry the weight of [the] African experience” Achebe brings to life an African culture with a religion, a government, a system of money, and an artistic tradition, as well as a judicial system. However, Achebe added some terms and proverbs from his language to demonstrate the existence of genuine African languages and cultures and chose to use Chinua, rather than Albert, as his first name as a marker of his African cultural identity.