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Characteristics of african literature report

1. 1. Prepared by: Racquel P. Lactaotao Characteristics of African Literature


2. 2. African literature preserves the rich culture and traditions of the African nations. The myths
and trickster tales, which typically explain the creation of the universe, the activities of the
gods at the beginning of creation, and the essence of existence.
3. 3. When the European colonial powers conquered Africa. • English • Portuguese • French
4. 4. Most of the literary pieces of Africa shed light on controversial issues such as racial
discrimination, political conflicts, civil war, gender sensitivity, and human rights issues

1. 1. African Literature Exploring Life Through


2. 2. Literary Background of the African Literature The most notable literary selections are
those that capture the life and struggle of the African people. There have been significant
struggles that could have been left untouched, but writers choose to face courageous task of
answering the call of pen, and begin the process of social healing through literature.
Perhaps, it is this brilliant characteristic of African literature that enables it to shine and fulfill
one universal function of literature.
3. 3. Literary Background of the African Literature The literary tradition of Africa became richer
than ever as it gained artistic and sophisticated expression in different languages. Traditional
languages became vehicles of cultural thoughts. Poetry, drama, novel, and short story
flourished as the literary genres. The people’s struggle to cope with – or oppose – the
changing atmosphere of their homelands was dramatically recorder in what is known as
African literature.
4. 4. Literary Background of the African Literature Literature represents the breadth and depth
of universal experiences of man. The texts for the study of African literature shed light on
controversial issues such as racial discrimination, apartheid, political conflicts, civil wars,
feminism and gender sensitivity, and human rights issues. These have given the selections
the flavor of relevance and universality, which are outstanding themes of a meaningful
literary study.
5. 5. NEGRITUDE  “A sudden grasp of racial identity and of cultural values and an awareness
of the wide discrepancies which existed between the promise of the French system of
assimilation and the reality.”
6. 6. NEGRITUDE Although Africans had been writing in Portuguese as early as 1850 and a
few volumes of African writing in English and French had been published, an explosion of
African writing in European languages occurred in the mid-twentieth century. In the 1930s,
black intellectuals from French colonies living in Paris initiated a literary movement called
Negritude. Negritude emerged out of "a sudden grasp of racial identity and of cultural values
and an awareness "of the wide discrepancies which existed between the promise of the
French system of assimilation and the reality."
7. 7. NEGRITUDE The movement's founders looked to Africa to rediscover and rehabilitate
the African values that had been erased by French cultural superiority. Negritude writers
wrote poetry in French in which they presented African traditions and cultures as antithetical,
but equal, to European culture. Out of this philosophical/literary movement came the creation
of Presence Africaine by Alioune Diop in 1947. The journal, according to its founder, was an
endeavor "to help define African originality and to hasten its introduction into the modern
world.” Other Negritude authors include Leopold Senghor, Aime Cesaire, and Leon Damas.
8. 8. :Literary Forms
9. 9. ORAL LITERATURE  Oral literature, also called as “orature,” have flourished in Africa for
many centuries and take a variety of forms including folk tales, myths, epics, funeral dirges,
praise poems, and proverbs.
10. 10. 1. MYTHS  Myths usually explain the interrelationships of all things that exist, and
provide for the group and its members a necessary sense of their place in relation to their
environment and the forces that order events on earth.
11. 11. 2. EPICS  Epics are elaborate literary forms, usually performed only by experts on
special occasions. They often recount the heroic exploits of ancestors.
12. 12. 3. FUNERAL DIRGES  Dirges, chanted during funeral ceremonies, lament the
departed, praise his/her memory, and ask for his/her protection.
13. 13. 4. PRAISE POEMS  Praise poems are epithets called out in reference to an object (a
person, a town, an animal, a disease, and so on) in celebration of its outstanding qualities
and achievements.
14. 14. PRAISE POEMS Praise poems have a variety of applications and functions.
Professional groups often create poems exclusive to them. Prominent chiefs might appoint a
professional performer to compile their praise poems and perform them on special
occasions. Professional performers of praise poems might also travel from place to place
and perform for families or individuals for alms or a small fee.
15. 15. 5. PROVERBS  Proverbs are short, witty or ironic statements, metaphorical in its
formulation which aim to communicate a response to a particular situation, to offer advice, or
to be persuasive.
16. 16. PROVERBS The proverb is often employed as a rhetorical device, presenting its
speaker as the holder of cultural knowledge or authority. Yet, as much as the proverb looks
back to an African culture as its origin and source of authority, it creates that African culture
each time it is spoken and used to make sense of immediate problems and occasions.
17. 17. WRITTEN LITERATURE  Written literature includes novels, plays, poems, hymns, and
tales.
18. 18. WRITTEN LITERATURE A discussion of written African literatures raises a number of
complicated and complex problems and questions that only can be briefly sketched out here.
The first problem concerns the small readership for African literatures in Africa. Over 50% of
Africa's population is illiterate, and hence many Africans cannot access written literatures.
The scarcity of books available, the cost of those books, and the scarcity of publishing
houses in Africa exacerbate this already critical situation. Despite this, publishing houses do
exist in Africa, and in countries such as Ghana and Zimbabwe, African publishers have
produced and sold many impressive works by African authors, many of which are written in
African languages.
19. 19. WRITTEN LITERATURE Scholars have identified three waves of literacy in Africa. The
first occurred in 1.Ethiopia where written works have been discovered that appeared before
the earliest literatures in the Celtic and Germanic languages of Western Europe. The second
wave of literacy moved across 2.Africa with the spread of Islam. Soon after the emergence of
Islam in the seventh century, its believers established themselves in North Africa through a
series of jihads, or holy wars. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Islam was carried into the
kingdom of Ghana. The religion continued to move eastward through the nineteenth century.
20. 20. WRITTEN LITERATURE The encounter with 3.Europe through trade relationships,
missionary activities, and colonialism propelled the third wave of literacy in Africa. In the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, literary activity in the British colonies was conducted
almost entirely in vernacular languages. Missionaries found it more useful to translate the
Bible into local languages than to teach English to large numbers of Africans. This resulted in
the production of hymns, morality tales, and other literatures in African languages concerned
with propagating Christian values and morals. The first of these "Christian-inspired African
writings" emerged in South Africa
21. 21. WRITTEN LITERATURE The written literatures, novels, plays, and poems in the 1950s
and 60s have been described as literatures of testimony. The African authors who
produced literatures in European languages have been described as literatures of revolt.
These texts move away from the project of recuperating and reconstructing an African past
and focus on responding to, and revolting against, colonialism and corruption. These
literatures are more concerned with the present realities of African life, and often represent
the past negatively.
22. 22. FAMOUS LITERARY WORKS
23. 23. POETRY  Paris in the Snow swings between assimilation of French, European culture
or negritude; intensified by the poet’s catholic piety.  Totem by Leopold Senghor shows the
eternal linkage of the living with the dead.  Letters to Martha by Dennis Brutus is the poet’s
most famous collection that speaks of the humiliation, the despondency, the indignity of
prison life.  Train Journey by Dennis Brutus reflects the poet’s social commitment as he
reacts to poverty around him amidst material progress especially and acutely felt by the
innocent victims, the children.
24. 24. POETRY  Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka is the poet’s most anthologized
poem that reflects Negritude. The poetic dialogue reveals the landlady’s deep-rooted
prejudice the colored people as the caller plays up on it.  Africa by David Diop is a poem
that achieves its impact by a series of climactic sentences and rhetorical questions.  Song
of Lawino by Okot P’Bitek is a sequence of poem about the clash between African and
Western values and is regarded as the first important poem in “English to emerge from
Eastern Africa.” Lawino’s song is a pleas for the Ugandans to look back to traditional village
life and African values.
25. 25. NOVELS The Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono points out the dillusionmentt of Toundi, a
boy who leaves his parents maltreatment to enlist his services as an acolyte to a missionary.
After the priest’s death, he becomes a helper a white plantation owner, discovers the liaison
of his master’s wife, and gets murdered later in the woods as catch up with him. Toundi
symbolizes the and the coming of age, and utters despondency of the Camerooninans over
the corruption and immortality of whites. The novel is developed in the form of a recit, the
French style of a diary-like confessional work.
26. 26. NOVELS  Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe depicts a vivid picture of Africa before
the colonization by the British people. The novel laments over the disintegration of Nigerian
society, represented in the story by Ok-wonko, once a respected chieftain who loses his
leadership and falls from grace after the coming of the whites. Cultural values are woven
around the plot to mark its authenticity: polygamy since the is Muslim; tribal law is held
supreme by the gwugwu, respected elders in the community; a man’s social status is
determined by the people’s esteem and by possession of fields of yams and physical
prowess; community life is in drinking sprees, funeral wakes, and sports festivals.
27. 27. NOVELS No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe is a sequel to Things Fall Apart. A
returning hero fails to cope with disgrace and social pressure. Okwonko’s son has to up to
the expectations of the Umuofians, after a scholarship in London, where he reads literature,
law as expected of him, he has to dress up, he must have a car, he has to maintain his social
standing, he should not marry an Ozu, an outcast. In the end, tragic hero succumbs to
temptation, he, too receives bribes, and therefore is “no longer at ease.’
28. 28. NOVELS  The Poor Christ of Bombay by Mongot Beti begins en medias res and
exposes the inhumanity of colonialism. The novel tells Fr. Drumont’s disillusionment after the
discovery the degradation of the native women, bethrothed, but to work like slaves in the
sixa. The government steps into picture as syphilis spreads out in the priest’s compound. It
turns out that the native whose weakness are wine, and song has been made overseer of
the sixa when the Belgian priest goes out to attend to his other mission work. Developed
through recite or diary entries, the novel is a on the failure of religion to integrate to national
without first understanding the native’s culture.
29. 29. NOVELS  The River Between by James Ngugi shows the clash of traditional values and
contemporary ethics and mores. The Honia River is symbolically taken as metaphor of tribal
and Christian unity – the Makuyu tribe conducts Christian rites while the Kamenos hold
circumcision rituals. Muthoni, the heroine, although a new-born Christian, desires the pagan
ritual. She dies in the end but Waiyaki, the teacher, does teach vengeance against Joshua,
the leader of the but unity with them. Ngugi poses co-existence of religion people’s lifestyle
at the same time stressing the influence of education to enlighten people about their socio-
political responsibilities.
30. 30. NOVELS  Heirs to the Past by Driss Chraili is an allegorical, parable- like novel. After 16
years of absence, the anti-hero Driss returnd to Morocco for his father’s funeral. The Signeur
his legacy via a tape recorder in which he tells the family members his last will and
testament. Each chapter in the reveals his relationship with them, and at the same time bare
the psychology of these people. His older brother, was ‘born once and had died several
times’ because of his childishness and irresponsibility. His idiotic brother, Nagib, become a
total burden to the family. His mother as she for her freedom. Driss flies back to Europe
completely alienated from his people, religion, and civilization.
31. 31. NOVELS A Few Days and Few Nights by Mbella Sonne Dipoko deals with racial
prejudice. In the novel originally written French, a Cameroonian scholar studying in France is
torn between the love of Swedish girl and a Parisian whose father owns a business
establishment in Africa. The father rules out the possibility of marriage. Therese, their
commits suicide and Doumbe, the Cammerronian, thinks only of the future of the Bibi, the
Swedish who is his child. Doumbe’s remark that the African is like a which carries it home
wherever it goes implies the racial pride and love for the native grounds.
32. 32. NOVELS The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka is about a group of young intellectuals who
function as asrtists in their with one another as they try to place themselves in context of the
world about them.
33. 33. MAJOR WRITERS
34. 34. Leopold Sedar Senghor  He is a poet and statesman who was a co-founder of the
Negritude movement in African Art and Literature. He went to Paris on a scholarship and
later taught in the French school system. During these years, Senghor discovered the
unmistakable imprint of African art on modern painting sculpture, and music, which
confirmed his belief in Africa’s contribution to modern culture. Drafted during World War II, he
was captured and spent two years in Nazi concentration camp where he wrote some of his
finest poems. He became president of Senegal in 1960. His works include: Songs of
Shadows, Black Offerings, Major Elegies, and Poetical Work. He became Negritude’s
foremost spokesman and edited an anthology of French language by black African that
became a seminal text of the Negritude movement. (1906)
35. 35. Okot P’Bitek He was born in Ugand during the British domination and was embodied in
contrast of cultues. He attended English-speaking school, but never lost touch with traditional
African values and used his wide array of talents to pursue his interests in both African and
Western cultures. Among his works are: Song of Lawino, Song of Ocol, African Religions
and Western Scholarship, Religion of the Central Luo, Horn of My Love. (1930 – 1982)
36. 36. Wole Soyinka He is a Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, and critic who was the first
black African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. He wrote of modern West
Africa in a satirical style and with tragic sense of the obstacles to human progress. He taught
literature and drama and headed theater groups at various Nigerian universities. Among his
works are: plays – A Dance of the Forests, The Lion and the Jewel, The Trials of Brother
Jero; novels – The Interpreters, Season of Anomy; poems – Idanre and Other Poems,
Poems from Prison, A Shuttle in the Crypt, Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems. (1934)
37. 37. Chinua Achebe He is a prominent Igbo novelist acclaimed for his unsentimental
depictions of the social and psychological disorientation accompanying the imposition of
Western customs and values upon traditional African society. His particular concern was with
the emergent Africa at its movement of crisis. His works include: Things Fall Apart, Arrow of
God, No Longer at Ease, A Man of the People, Anthills of Savanah. (1930)
38. 38. Barbara Kimenye She wrote twelve books on children’s stories known as the Moses
Series, which are now a standard reading fare for African school children. She also worked
for many years for His Highness the Kabaka of Uganda, in the Ministry of Education and
later served as Kabaka’s librarian. She was a journalist of the Uganda Nation and later a
columnist for A Nairobi newspaper. Among her works are: Kalasanda Revisited, The
Smugglers, The Money Game. (1940)
39. 39. Bessie Head She described the contradictions and shortcomings of pre- and post-
colonial African society in morally didactic novels and stories. She suffered rejection and
alienation from an early age being born of an illegal union between her white mother and
black father. Among her works are: When Rain Clouds Gather, A Question of Power, The
Collector of Treasures, Serowe. (1937 – 1986)
40. 40. Ousmane Sembene He is a writer and filmmaker from Senegal. His works reveal an
intense commitment to political and social change. Sembene tells his stories from out of
Africa’s past and relates their relevance and meaning for contemporary society. His works
include: O My Country, My Beautiful People, God’s Bits of Wood, The Storm. (1923)
41. 41. Nadine Gordimer She is a South African novelist and short story writer whose major
themes was exile and alienation. She received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991.
Gordimer was writing by age 9 and published her first story in magazine at 15. Her works
exhibit a clear, controlled, and unsentimental technique that became her hallmark. She
examines how public events affect individual lives, how the dreams of one’s youth are
corrupted, and how innocence is lost. Amore her works are: The Soft Voice of the Serpent,
Burger’s Daughter, July’s People, A Sport of Nature, My Son’s Story, The Ultimate Safari.
(1923)

History and Literature of Africa

1. 1.  A -  F -  R -  I -  C -  A -
2. 2.  The second largest continent after Asia. It separated from Asia by the Suez Canal, the
Gulf of Suez, and the Red Sea. A F R I C A
3. 3. Indian Ocean  Madagascar  Mauritius,  Reunion,  Zanzibar,  Pemba  Seychelles, 
Comoros A F R I C A OFFSHORE ISLAND
4. 4.  Complex mosaic of people, languages and culture.  Few are ethnical homogeneous. 
Few developed a strong sense of national unity.  Identified by their own tribe. A F R I C A N
5. 5.  Language Spoken estimated at between 800 and 1,700. L A N G U A G E S
6. 6. Afro-asiatic Language  Berber  Kushitic  Semitic  Chad  Coptic L A N G U A G E S 5
MAJOR LANGUAGE SPOKEN
7. 7. Click Languages  Khoisan – Khoilkoi of Southern African. L A N G U A G E S
8. 8. Niger Congo Languages  Hausa,  Peul,  Wolof L A N G U A G E S
9. 9. Sudanic Languages  Kanuri  Songhia,  Turkana,  Masai L A N G U A G E S
10. 10. Austronesian Languages  Introduced in Madagascar, 2000 years ago. L A N G U A G E
S
11. 11.  Standards, facilities and programs vary considerably and reflect differences in class,
ethnicity, sex and location. E D U C A T I O N
12. 12.  Despite the ignorance of most so called "literati" to the domain of African literature,
African literature in fact is one of the main currents of world literature, stretching continuously
and directly back to ancient history. L I T E R A T U R E
13. 13.  Oral literature or orature may be in prose or verse. Storytellers in Africa sometimes use
call- and-response techniques to tell their stories.  Poetry, often sung, includes: narrative
epic, occupational verse, ritual verse, praise poems to rulers and other prominent people. 
Praise singers, bards sometimes known as "griots", tell their stories with music. L I T E R A T
URE
14. 14. Chinua Achebe  He was born on November 15,1930 in Nigeria. He died on March 12,
2013. He was a novelist, a poet, a critic, and a professor. He was best known for his first
novel which is called Things Fall Apart. It was written in 1958 L I T E R A T U R E
15. 15. Ngugi wa Thiong'o  Kenyan writer who was born on January 5, 1938. His works include
plays, novels, short stories, and essays. He has written everything from children's literature
to social criticism. Most of his work is in English, but some of it is in Gikuyu L I T E R A T U R
E
16. 16. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  was born on September 15, 1977 in Nigeria. She writes
poems, short stories, and novels. One of her stories, called That Harmattan Morning, was
chosen as joint winner of the BCC Short Story Awards. She also won the O. Henry prize for
a story called The American Embassy. L I T E R A T U R E
17. 17. Ayi Kwei Armah  is a notable Ghanaian writer who was born in 1939. He mainly writes
novels. He has written six novels, all of which have been fairly well received. His most well
known work is called "Fragments." L I T E R A T U R E
18. 18. Buchi Emecheta  is a Nigerian novelist who was born on July 21, 1944. She has
published over 20 books. Her most well-known novels are: "Second-Class Citizen," "The
Bride Price," "The Slave Girl," and "The Joys of Motherhood." L I T E R A T U R E
19. 19.  Make a Detailed Lesson Plan in Literature. TOPIC: “An African Child” Or “Africa! My
Africa!” FOR YOUR ACTIVITY! 

Africa

Africa my Africa
Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs
Africa of whom my grandmother sings
On the banks of the distant river

I have never known you


But your blood flows in my veins
Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields
The blood of your sweat
The sweat of your work
The work of your slavery

Africa, tell me Africa


Is this your back that is unbent
This back that never breaks under the weight of humilation
This back trembling with red scars
And saying no to the whip under the midday sun

But a grave voice answers me


Impetuous child that tree, young and strong
That tree over there
Splendidly alone amidst white and faded flowers
That is your Africa springing up anew
springing up patiently, obstinately
Whose fruit bit by bit acquires
The bitter taste of liberty.
Original language version:

Afrique mon Afrique


Afrique des fiers guerriers dans les savanes ancestrales
Afrique que me chantait ma grand-mère
Au bord de son fleuve lointain
Je ne t’ai jamais connue
Mais mon regard est plein de ton sang
Ton beau sang noir à travers les champs répandu
Le sang de ta sueur
La sueur de ton travail
Le travail de l’esclavage
L’esclavage de tes enfants
Afrique dis-moi Afrique
Est-ce donc toi ce dos qui se courbe
Et se couche sous le poids de l’humilité
Ce dos tremblant à zébrures rouges
Qui dit oui au fouet sur les routes de midi
Alors gravement une voix me répondit
Fils impétueux cet arbre robuste et jeune
Cet arbre là -bas
Splendidement seul au milieu de fleurs blanches et fanées
C’est l’Afrique ton Afrique qui repousse
Qui repousse patiemment obstinément
Et dont les fruits ont peu à peu
L’amère saveur de la liberté.

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