Southern Luzon State University

College of Teacher Education

Lucban, Quezon

Afro-Asian Literature:
African Literature

Prepared By:
Abad, Jamica

Conchada, Colina Faye

Mendoza, Yensee

Talabong, Noriel

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 Africa:
The Dark Continent

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Africa
Sometimes nicknamed as The Mother Continent for being the oldest
inhabited continent on earth. Humans and Human ancestors have lived in
Africa for more than five(5) million years.
It is the second largest continent, is bounded by the Mediterranean sea, the
red sea, the Indiana ocean, and the Atlantic ocean. It is divided in half almost
equally by the equator.

8 major physical regions of Africa

Sahara
World`s largest hot dessert.
- Regs plain sand
- Hamadas elevated plateus
- Oasis hub of water in the dessert
Sahel
Narrow bund of semi-avid land. Fertile delta of the Niger (one of Africa`s
largest rivers)
Ethiopian highlands
Ethiopian Highlands began to rise 75 million years ago, as magma from
Earth`s mantle uplifted a broad dome of ancient rock. This dome was later
split as Africa`s continental crust pulled apart, creating the Great Rift Valley
system. The Ethiopian Highlands are home to 80 percent of Africa`s tallest
mountains.
Savanna
Grasslands. Home to one of the continents highest concentrations of large
mammal species, including lions, hyenas, zebras, giraffes, and elephants.
Swahili coast
These more vegetated areas are located on a narrow strip just inland from
the coastal sands. Heavy cultivation has diminished the diversity of plant
species in this interior area of the Swahili Coast. Mangrove forests are the
most common vegetation.
Rain forest

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 The African rain forests plant community is even more diverse, with an
estimated 8,000 plant species documented. Most of Africa`s native rain forest
has been destroyed by development, agriculture, and forestry.
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the epicenter of Africa`s well-known reserves, which protect
animal species such as lions, elephants, baboons, white rhinos, and Burchells
zebras. Southern Africa`s Cape Floral Region is one of the richest areas for
plants in the world.

Development of African Literature

African Literature
Includes Oral literature or Orature a term coined by a Uganda scholar Pio
Zirimu.
African writers, taking their use from oral literature, use beauty to help
communicate important truths and information to society.
Indeed an object is considered beautiful because of the truths it reveals and
the communities it helps to build.
Pio Zirimu (Ngugi wa Thiong`o)
A Ugandan linguist scholar and literary theorist. He is credited with coining the
word Orature as an alternative to the self-contradicting term oral literature which is
used to refer the non-written expressive African traditions. He is also focused on giving
African literature emphasis rather than English canon.

10 African popular languages:

Swahili
Amharic
Yoruba
Oromo
Haus a
Igbo
Zulu

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 Shona
Portuguese
French

Development of African Literature

Oral Literature
Also known as Orature may be in prose or verse.

*Prose often mythological or historical.
*Poetry often sung, narrative, occupational verse, ritual verse, praise poem
rulers and other prominent people.

Story tellers this time used the call-and-response techniques to tell their
stories.

Pre-colonial Literature
This time African writers are concerned about the fight for independence
writings that were churned out during this period addressed colonialism and
occupation and its time was vitriolic.

Colonial African literature

African exposed to Western languages began to write in those languages.
Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford (A.K.A Ekra-Agiman) published what is
probably the first African Novel written in English, ETHIOPIA UNBOUND:
STUDIES IN THE RACE EMANCIPATION.Africans emerged to write in
English. Herbert Isaac Ernest Dhlomo of south Africa published the first
English-language African play. THE GIRL WHO KILLED TO SAVE:
NONGQANUWE THE LIBERATOR.

Post-colonial African literature

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 African writers in this period wrote both in western languages (notably
English, French and Portuguese) and in traditional African languages such as
Hausa.
Ali A. Mazrwi and others mention seven conflicts as theme:
1. Clash between Africa`s past or present
2. Traditions and modernity
3. Indigenous and foreign
4. Individualism and community
5. Socialism and capitalism
6. Development and self-reliance
7. Africanity and humanity

African Writers and their literary works

Peter Henry Abrahams Deras (Mar. 3, 1919 - Jan. 18, 2017)

Commonly known as Peter Abrahams was a South-African born Jamaican
novelist, journalist and political commentator.
o Some of his works:
o 1. Dark testament (1942)
o 2. Tell of freedom (1954)
o 3. A wreath for Udomo (1956)

A Wreath for Udomo is a 1956 novel by South African novelist Peter Abrahams. The
novel follows a London-educated black African, Michael Udomo, who returns to Africa to
become a revolutionary leader in the fictional country of Panafrica and is eventually
martyred. The novel explores a revolutionary politics, exploring the diversity of actors
and political communities needed to overcome colonial oppression.
Tell of freedom is the autobiography of a South African poet, who rejected the
horrors his country offered his people- the Coloreds- this has beauty and the marked
poignance of a hopeless struggle against overwhelming odds. For at his thirty-seven
years of age Peter Abrahams looks back on a life that ran the gamut of trials-physical,
emotional and intellectual to the point that he could no longer recognize a real place for
himself in Africa, even among the whites who were trying to further the causes of
tolerance and freedom.

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 Dark Testament [gave] pictures of South African life in a manner caught in part at
least from the sketches of William Saroyan. [This] was a new departure in writing
about South Africa.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Sept.15, 1977 present)

A Nigerian novelist, non-fiction writer and short story writer. A MacArthur
Genions Grant recipient.
o Some of her works:
o 1. Checking out (2013)
o 2. Purple hibiscus (2003)
o 3. We should all be feminist (2014)

Purple Hibiscus is set in postcolonial Nigeria, a country beset by political instability

and economic difficulties. The central character is Kambili Achike, aged fifteen for much
of the period covered by the book, a member of a wealthy family dominated by her
devoutly Catholic father, Eugene. Eugene is both a religious zealot and a violent figure
in the Achike household, subjecting his wife Beatrice, Kambili herself, and her brother
Jaja to beatings and psychological cruelty.[2] The story is told through Kambilis eyes
and is essentially about the disintegration of her family unit and her struggle to grow to
maturity. A key period is the time Kambili and her brother spend at the house of her
fathers sister, Ifeoma, and her three children. This household offers a marked contrast
to what Kambili and Jaja are used to. Though Catholic, it practices a completely
different form of Catholicism, making for a happy, liberal place that encourages its
members to speak their minds. In this nurturing environment both Kambili and Jaja
become more open, more able to voice their own opinions. Importantly, also, while at
Aunty Ifeomas, Kambili falls in love with a young priest, Father Amadi, which awakens
her sense of her own sexuality. Ultimately, a critical mass is reached in terms of the lives
of Kambili, Jaja and the existence of their family as it once was. Unable to cope with
Eugenes continual violence, Beatrice poisons him. Jaja takes the blame for the crime
and ends up in prison. In the meantime, Aunty Ifeoma and her family go to America to
live after she is unfairly dismissed from her job as lecturer at the University of Nigeria.
The novel ends almost three years after these events, on a cautiously optimistic note.
Kambili has become a young woman of eighteen, more confident than before, while her
brother Jaja is about to be released from prison, hardened but not broken by his
experience there. Their mother, Beatrice has deteriorated psychologically to a great
degree.
We Should All Be Feminists is a book-length essay by the Nigerian author
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. First published in 2014 by Fourth Estate, it aims to give a

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definition of feminism for the 21st century.The book is critical of the way masculinity is
constructed. However, "it does not seek to berate men or set one sex against the other.
She recognises that society as a whole must change if equality is to be achieved."
EXCERPT:We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller
We say to girls: "You can have ambition, but not too much
You should aim to be successful, but not too successful
Otherwise, you will threaten the man"
Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage
I am expected to make my life choices
Always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important
Now, marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support
But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage
And we don't teach boys the same?
We raise girls to see each other as competitors
Not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing
But for the attention of men
We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are
Feminist: a person who believes in the social
Political, and economic equality of the sexes

Checking out - the basic premise is this: Obinze has left his native Nigeria and has
been living in England for two years, most of that time undocumented, suffering from the
draconian demands of those who, under the guise of being helpful, take advantage of
his precarious situation.
Hes already learned that these people have absolute power over him. Not long after he
arrived it was agreed he could use the documents of a man named Vincent to secure
work. He just had to pay Vincent forty percent of anything he got. When Vincent called
to increase his share to forty-five percent, Obinze thought he could simply ignore the
request. Why, after all, would Vincent give up his weekly payments by reporting Obinze.
Because Vincent has the power and only keeps the power if he uses it. Of course,
theres also a sick pleasure in exercising such power to punish.
When the story begins, things might be looking up for Obinze. Hes met with some
people who are arranging a sham marriage for him. Its expensive, yes. And, again,

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they, and the woman who agrees to marry him, have absolute power over him. At any
time they can demand more money by threatening to walk away or turn him in. This
woman wont, though. Obinze knows that. Cleotilde seems genuinely attracted to
Obinze, and Obinze certainly is attracted to her. Though a sham to secure his legal
status, he is hopeful their marriage will have other benefits.

Mariama Ba (Apr.17, 1929 Aug.17, 1981)

A Senegalese author and feminist who wrote in French. She advocates
women empowerment.
o Some of her works:
o 1. Scarlet song
o 2. Ramatoulaye
o 3. La Fonction politique des littratures africaines crites
Ramatoulaye - The protagonist, Ramatoulaye, is inspired by her friendship with
Aissatou and by her resolute behaviour in the face of adversity. At the beginning of the
story, Ramatoulaye was stressed. She writes to her friend to relieve this stress. As a
Muslim, she refers to God when her husband Modou Fall died. She also refers to him
and to Sharia law concerning polygamy, when her husband, after twenty-five years of
marriage, marries her daughter's friend Binetou. Even though Modou abandoned her
and spends their money on Binetou, Ramatoulaye decided to stay with him because of
her faith. Having any choice, because life goes on, Ramatoulaye has done everything
which is needed in the house. Taking care of her family and paying duties and bills and
finding food, Ramatoulaye was lonely and she misses her "warm" husband. To
overcome these shyness or shame, she used to go to the cinema to change her mind,
but alone. She finds peace and warmth in religion, friends, books, writings and cinema.
Ramatoulaye allows trousers and occidental clothes to her daughter.In talking to
Aissatou about the hardships in her life, Ramatoulaye is actually reflecting on her own
experiences. Because the two have reacted to their husbands' polygamous states
differently, Ramatoulaye wants to know if it was worth it staying in this marriage.
Aissatou's decision in the end is far more radical than that made by Ramatoulaye; she is
a clear representation of a woman aching to free herself from the bondages of tradition.
Whether the decisions each woman made for herself were correct may be left up to the
reader, but the book nonetheless as a whole serves to communicate common
experiences women around the world see firsthand on a daily basis.
Scarlet song - Mireille, whose father is a French diplomat gets married to Ousmane,
son of a poor Senegalese Muslim family. Moving back from Paris to Senegal, Ousmane
once again adopts his traditions and customs. But, as an occidental, Mireille cannot
handle this kind of life, especially when Ousmane takes a second wife. However, Africa
is a polygamous society and in their religion it is acceptable but Mireille did not accept it.
She suffers the marriage. Most notably, the book criticizes the tyranny of tradition and
expounds upon the despair of cross-cultural marriages. The tyranny of tradition is
clearly brought out by a romanticized portrayal whereby YayeKhady enters into

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Ousmane's bedroom whilst he was still asleep with his wife Mireille. Djibril Gueye failed
to play his role as a father thus he was supposed to act on his son's marriage instead
he was absorbed by religion and he took religion as a source of escapism. Therefore,
Djibril was custrated by colonialism and he was now voiceless thus failing to play his
role as a father.by taffy mushipe from St Pauls
La Fonction politique des littratures africaines crites (1981). Mariama B states
that every African woman should be proud of her strength and accomplishments. She
believes that each woman contributes to Africa's development and participates in
Africa's growth.

Dambudzo Marechera (June 4, 1952 Aug. 18, 1987)

A Zimbabwean novelist, short story writer, playwright and poet.
His short career produced a book of stories, two novels, a book of plays,
prose, and poetry, and a collection of poetry.
o Some of his works:
o 1. The house of hunger (1978)
o 2. Black sunlight (1980)
o 3. The black insider (1990)
The House of Hunger- Commenting on the semi-autobiographical nature of the book,
April McCallum has said: "Marecheras debut The House of Hunger is as much a
product of being down and out in Oxford, sleeping rough, being beaten up by thugs and
policeman alike and struggling with alcoholism, as it is of the Rhodesia it describes....
The 'hunger' of the books title does not refer only to the literal starvation which was
ravaging post-independent Zimbabwe at the time. Rather it implies a more far reaching
and metaphorical hunger of the soul the vacuous yearning and emptiness within the
national consciousness, aspiring for more but held back by poverty and corruption."

Black insider - this cult novel traces the fortunes of a group of anarchists in revolt
against a military-fascist-capitalist opposition. The protagonist is photojournalist Chris,
whose camera lens becomes the device through which the plot is cleverly unraveled. In
Dambudzo Marecheras second experimental novel, he parodies African nationalist and
racial identifications as part of an argument that notions of an essential African identity
were often invoked to authorize a number of totalitarian regimes across Africa. Such
irreverent, avant-garde literature was criticized upon publication in Zimbabwe in 1980,
and Black Sunlight was banned on charges of Euromodernism and as a challenge to
the concept of nation-building in the newly independent country.

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Black sunlight - Outcasts inside a ruined and deserted faculty building tell of their
experiences in the post-colonial disaster zone. The story reflects the writer's experience
of migrancy, and his refusal of the security of belonging - either to an African identity or
to the international literary elite.

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 AFRICAN
LITERATURE

David Mandessi Diop (July 9, 1927-August 29,1960)

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 Was born in Bordeaux, France, of a Senegalese father and a Cameroonian
mother. Had his primary education in SenegalAs a child, he often travelled between
Europe and Africa, which is how his interest in the continent and its people began.He
started writing poems while he was still in school, and his poems started appearing in
Presence Africaine since he was just 15.

-several of his poems were published in Leopald Senghors famous

anthology, which became a landmark of modern black writing in French. The poem
Africa was published in his first book of poems, Coups de Pillon, in 1956, and
translates to Hammer Blows and Pounding in English. He died in the crash of Air
France Flight 343 in the Atlantic Ocean off Dakar, Senegal, at the age of 33.

Africa
by: David Diop

I
Africa my Africa
Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs
Africa of whom my grandmother sings
On the banks of distant river
II
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
III
Africa, tell me Africa
Is this your back that is unbent
This back that never breaks under the weight of humiliation
This back trembling with red scars
And saying yes to the whip under the midday sun

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 IV
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.

Mabel Ellen Dove (1905-1904)

Mabel Ellen Dove was born in Accra to Eva Buckman a businesswoman of
Osu, and Francis Dove, a lawyer from Sierra Leone. With her sisters, Mabel
at the age of 6, was taken to school at Freetown, Sierra Leone, and received
further education in England, where she took a secretarial course, against the
wishes of her father.
She was sent back to Freetown, and while there she helped set up a
womens cricket club, participated in the local dramatics society and read
extensively, before returning to the age of 21 to the gold coast.She found
employment as a short-hand typist with Elder Dempster for 8 years, then
transferred to G.B. Olivant, before going to work as a manager with the
trading company of A.G Leventis.She also became a writer in Ghanas first
daily newspaper The Times of West Africa, which was founded by Dr. J.B.
Danquah.
In September 1933 she married the political statesman and historian J.B.
Danquah and they had a son Vladimir. However, the marriage did not survive
Danquahs prolonged absence during the period 1934-36 when he was in
England as secretary of the Gold Coast delegation and the couple divorced
in the mid-1940s. She was a prolific author over four decades- her published
collection of short stories include Anticipation (1947)- until her literary career
was curtailed by her blindness in 1972.

Anticipation
THE ELEMENTS
CHARACTERS

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 Nana Adaku II- the Omanhene of Akwasin, and was celebrating the 20th
anniversary of accession to the stool of Akwasin, the man who has 40 wives.
Effua- one of the 40 wives of Omanhene
Linguist- the trusted person of the Omanhene
SETTINGS
-Nkwabi, the Capital of Akwasin.
Conflict
Man vs. Society- the character in this story became the victim of its own
society, of its own tradition.
POINT OF VIEW
Third Person Point of View- it is being told or narrated by a person who
doesnt have an actual participation in the story.

THE PLOT DEVELOPMENT

Exposition
The Omanhene was celebrating the 20th anniversary of his
accession to stool of Akwasin. He then arrived in a Palaquin in the state
park wher the Odwina was to be staged. As the drum beats on the women
performed the Adowa dance. One dancer capture his attention because of its
beauty, he then threw a handful of cash into the crowd of dancers. The
particular dancer made no sign but instead keeps on dancing.
Rising Action
Realizing that he was neglected by the dancer, he then turned to
his trusted linguist. He told him to get fifty pounds from the cashier and gave it
to the dancers relatives. The linguist then starts his investigation about
the woman.

Climax
Nana went back to his place. He then fell asleep after he had taken
a bath. When he woke up the young women was kneeling by his feet.
There he gave the remaining 50 gold sovereigns to Effua to complete the
offer of 100. After receiving the amount the woman gave it to her parents
and went back to the Omanhene.
Falling Action
There they talk casually inside the Omanhenes room. Omanhene
appreciated the beauty and charm of Effua while he was playing the ivory
beads lying so snugly on her bosom.
Denouement

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 Effua stands and look in the mirror. As she came back and sit,
she then revealed that they were already married two years ago, that he
also paid her 50 pounds before.
THE THEME
Sometimes the things that we anticipate are already there. Its just that we
fail to appreciate them and only see them when we dont have any options or
when we simply got bored.

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